Initial Access in 5G mm-Wave Cellular Networks

The massive amounts of bandwidth available at millimeter-wave frequencies (roughly above 10 GHz) have the potential to greatly increase the capacity of fifth generation cellular wireless systems. However, to overcome the high isotropic pathloss experienced at these frequencies, high directionality will be required at both the base station and the mobile user equipment to establish sufficient link budget in wide area networks. This reliance on directionality has important implications for control layer procedures. Initial access in particular can be significantly delayed due to the need for the base station and the user to find the proper alignment for directional transmission and reception. This paper provides a survey of several recently proposed techniques for this purpose. A coverage and delay analysis is performed to compare various techniques including exhaustive and iterative search, and Context Information based algorithms. We show that the best strategy depends on the target SNR regime, and provide guidelines to characterize the optimal choice as a function of the system parameters.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, 15 references, submitted to IEEE COMMAG 201

On Capacity and Delay of Multi-channel Wireless Networks with Infrastructure Support

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-channel network with infrastructure support, called an MC-IS network, which has not been studied in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study such an MC-IS network. Our proposed MC-IS network has a number of advantages over three existing conventional networks, namely a single-channel wireless ad hoc network (called an SC-AH network), a multi-channel wireless ad hoc network (called an MC-AH network) and a single-channel network with infrastructure support (called an SC-IS network). In particular, the network capacity of our proposed MC-IS network is $\sqrt{n \log n}$ times higher than that of an SC-AH network and an MC-AH network and the same as that of an SC-IS network, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the network. The average delay of our MC-IS network is $\sqrt{\log n/n}$ times lower than that of an SC-AH network and an MC-AH network, and $\min\{C_I,m\}$ times lower than the average delay of an SC-IS network, where $C_I$ and $m$ denote the number of channels dedicated for infrastructure communications and the number of interfaces mounted at each infrastructure node, respectively. Our analysis on an MC-IS network equipped with omni-directional antennas only has been extended to an MC-IS network equipped with directional antennas only, which are named as an MC-IS-DA network. We show that an MC-IS-DA network has an even lower delay of $\frac{c}{\lfloor \frac{2\pi}{\theta}\rfloor \cdot C_I}$ compared with an SC-IS network and our MC-IS network. For example, when $C_I=12$ and $\theta=\frac{\pi}{12}$, an MC-IS-DA network can further reduce the delay by 24 times lower that of an MC-IS network and reduce the delay by 288 times lower than that of an SC-IS network.Comment: accepted, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 201

MAC Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks with Multi-beam Antennas: A Survey

Multi-beam antenna technologies have provided lots of promising solutions to many current challenges faced in wireless mesh networks. The antenna can establish several beamformings simultaneously and initiate concurrent transmissions or receptions using multiple beams, thereby increasing the overall throughput of the network transmission. Multi-beam antenna has the ability to increase the spatial reuse, extend the transmission range, improve the transmission reliability, as well as save the power consumption. Traditional Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for wireless network largely relied on the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function(DCF) mechanism, however, IEEE 802.11 DCF cannot take the advantages of these unique capabilities provided by multi-beam antennas. This paper surveys the MAC protocols for wireless mesh networks with multi-beam antennas. The paper first discusses some basic information in designing multi-beam antenna system and MAC protocols, and then presents the main challenges for the MAC protocols in wireless mesh networks compared with the traditional MAC protocols. A qualitative comparison of the existing MAC protocols is provided to highlight their novel features, which provides a reference for designing the new MAC protocols. To provide some insights on future research, several open issues of MAC protocols are discussed for wireless mesh networks using multi-beam antennas.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC) 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12388-8_

High-Performance Broadcast and Multicast Protocols for Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio multi-channel (MRMC) WMNs. MRMC increases the capacity of the network from different aspects. Multi-radio allows mesh nodes to simultaneously send and receive through different radios to its neighbors. Multi-channel allows channels to be reused across the network, which expands the available spectrum and reduces the interference. Unlike MANETs, WMNs are assumed to be static or with minimal mobility. Therefore, the main design goal in WMNs is to achieve high throughput rather than to maintain connectivity. The capacity of WMNs is constrained by the interference caused by the neighbor nodes. One direct design objective is to minimize or reduce the interference in broadcast and multicast. This dissertation presents a set of broadcast and multicast protocols and mathematical formulations to achieve the design goal in MRMC WMNs. First, the broadcast problem is addressed with full consideration of both inter-node and intra-node interference to achieve efficient broadcast. The interference-aware broadcast protocol simultaneously achieves full reliability, minimum broadcast or multicast latency, minimum redundant transmissions, and high throughput. With an MRMC WMN model, new link and channel quality metrics are defined and are suitable for the design of broadcast and multicast protocols. Second, the minimum cost broadcast problem (MCBP), or minimum number of transmissions problem, is studied for MRMC WMNs. Minimum cost broadcast potentially allows more effective and efficient schedule algorithms to be designed. The proposed protocol with joint consideration of channel assignment reduces the interference to improve the throughput in the MCBP. Minimum cost broadcast in MRMC WMNs is very different from that in the single radio single channel scenario. The channel assignment in MRMC WMNs is used to assign multiple radios of every node to different channels. It determines the actual network connectivity since adjacent nodes have to be assigned to a common channel. Transmission on different channels makes different groups of neighboring nodes, and leads to different interference. Moreover, the selection of channels by the forward nodes impacts on the number of radios needed for broadcasting. Finally, the interference optimization multicast problem in WMNs with directional antennas is discussed. Directional transmissions can greatly reduce radio interference and increase spatial reuse. The interference with directional transmissions is defined for multicast algorithm design. Multicast routing found by the interference-aware algorithm tends to have fewer channel collisions. The research work presented in this dissertation concludes that (1) new and practical link and channel metrics are required for designing broadcast and multicast in MRMC WMNs; (2) a small number of radios is sufficient to significantly improve throughput of broadcast and multicast in WMNs; (3) the number of channels has more impact on almost all performance metrics, such as the throughput, the number of transmission, and interference, in WMNs

Performance improvement of ad hoc networks using directional antennas and power control

Au cours de la dernière décennie, un intérêt remarquable a été éprouvé en matière des réseaux ad hoc sans fil capables de s'organiser sans soutien des infrastructures. L'utilisation potentielle d'un tel réseau existe dans de nombreux scénarios, qui vont du génie civil et secours en cas de catastrophes aux réseaux de capteurs et applications militaires. La Fonction de coordination distribuée (DCF) du standard IEEE 802.11 est le protocole dominant des réseaux ad hoc sans fil. Cependant, la méthode DCF n'aide pas à profiter efficacement du canal partagé et éprouve de divers problèmes tels que le problème de terminal exposé et de terminal caché. Par conséquent, au cours des dernières années, de différentes méthodes ont été développées en vue de régler ces problèmes, ce qui a entraîné la croissance de débits d'ensemble des réseaux. Ces méthodes englobent essentiellement la mise au point de seuil de détecteur de porteuse, le remplacement des antennes omnidirectionnelles par des antennes directionnelles et le contrôle de puissance pour émettre des paquets adéquatement. Comparées avec les antennes omnidirectionnelles, les antennes directionnelles ont de nombreux avantages et peuvent améliorer la performance des réseaux ad hoc. Ces antennes ne fixent leurs énergies qu'envers la direction cible et ont une portée d'émission et de réception plus large avec la même somme de puissance. Cette particularité peut être exploitée pour ajuster la puissance d'un transmetteur en cas d'utilisation d'une antenne directionnelle. Certains protocoles de contrôle de puissance directionnel MAC ont été proposés dans les documentations. La majorité de ces suggestions prennent seulement la transmission directionnelle en considération et, dans leurs résultats de simulation, ces études ont l'habitude de supposer que la portée de transmission des antennes omnidirectionnelles et directionnelles est la même. Apparemment, cette supposition n'est pas toujours vraie dans les situations réelles. De surcroît, les recherches prenant l'hétérogénéité en compte dans les réseaux ad hoc ne sont pas suffisantes. Le présent mémoire est dédié à proposer un protocole de contrôle de puissance MAC pour les réseaux ad hoc avec des antennes directionnelles en prenant tous ces problèmes en considération. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Réseaux ad hoc, Antennes directives, Contrôle de puissance

Improving the Performance of Medium Access Control Protocols for Mobile Adhoc Network with Smart Antennas

Requirements for high quality links and great demand for high throughput in Wireless LAN especially Mobile Ad-hoc Network has motivated new enhancements and work in Wireless communications such as Smart Antenna Systems. Smart (adaptive) Antennas enable spatial reuse, increase throughput and they increase the communication range because of the increase directivity of the antenna array. These enhancements quantified for the physical layer may not be efficiently utilized, unless the Media Access Control (MAC) layer is designed accordingly. This thesis implements the behaviours of two MAC protocols, ANMAC and MMAC protocols in OPNET simulator. This method is known as the Physical-MAC layer simulation model. The entire physical layer is written in MATLAB, and MATLAB is integrated into OPNET to perform the necessary stochastic physical layer simulations. The aim is to investigate the performance improvement in throughput and delay of the selected MAC Protocols when using Smart Antennas in a mobile environment. Analytical methods were used to analyze the average throughput and delay performance of the selected MAC Protocols with Adaptive Antenna Arrays in MANET when using spatial diversity. Comparison study has been done between the MAC protocols when using Switched beam antenna and when using the proposed scheme. It has been concluded that the throughput and delay performance of the selected protocols have been improved by the use of Adaptive Antenna Arrays. The throughput and delay performance of ANMAC-SW and ANMAC-AA protocols was evaluated in details against regular Omni 802.11 stations. Our results promise significantly enhancement over Omni 802.11, with a throughput of 25% for ANMAC-SW and 90% for ANMC-AA. ANMAC-AA outperforms ANMAC-SW protocol by 60%. Simulation experiments indicate that by using the proposed scheme with 4 Adaptive Antenna Array per a node, the average throughput in the network can be improved up to 2 to 2.5 times over that obtained by using Switched beam Antennas. The proposed scheme improves the performances of both ANMAC and MMAC protocols but ANMAC outperforms MMAC by 30%

Throughput optimization in MPR-capable multi-hop wireless networks

Recent advances in the physical layer have enabled the simultaneous reception of multiple packets by a node in wireless networks. This capability has the potential of improving the performance of multi-hop wireless networks by a logarithmic factor with respect to current technologies. However, to fully exploit multiple packet reception (MPR) capability, new routing and scheduling schemes must be designed. These schemes need to reformulate a historically underlying assumption in wireless networks which states that any concurrent transmission of two or more packets results in a collision and failure of all packet receptions. In this work, we present a generalized model for the throughput optimization problem in MPR-capable multi-hop wireless networks. The formulation incorporates not only the MPR protocol model to quantify interference, but also the multi-access channel. The former is related with the MAC and routing layers, and considers a packet as the unit of transmission. The latter accounts for the achievable capacity of links used by simultaneous packet transmissions. The problem is modeled as a joint routing and scheduling problem. The scheduling subproblem deals with finding the optimal schedulable sets, which are defined as subsets of links that can be scheduled or activated simultaneously. Among other results, we demonstrate that any solution of the scheduling subproblem can be built with |E| + 1 or fewer schedulable sets, where |E| is the number of links of the network. This result contrasts with a conjecture that states that a solution of the scheduling subproblem, in general, is composed of an exponential number of schedulable sets. The model can be applied to a wide range of networks, such as half and full duplex systems, networks with directional and omni-directional antennas with one or multiple transmit antennas per node. Due to the hardness of the problem, we propose several polynomial time schemes based on a combination of linear programming, approximation algorithm and greedy paradigms. We illustrate the use of the proposed schemes to study the impact of several design parameters such as decoding capability and number of transmit antennas on the performance of MPR-capable networks

Beam-searching and Transmission Scheduling in Millimeter Wave Communications

Millimeter wave (mmW) wireless networks are capable to support multi-gigabit data rates, by using directional communications with narrow beams. However, existing mmW communications standards are hindered by two problems: deafness and single link scheduling. The deafness problem, that is, a misalignment between transmitter and receiver beams, demands a time consuming beam-searching operation, which leads to an alignment-throughput tradeoff. Moreover, the existing mmW standards schedule a single link in each time slot and hence do not fully exploit the potential of mmW communications, where directional communications allow multiple concurrent transmissions. These two problems are addressed in this paper, where a joint beamwidth selection and power allocation problem is formulated by an optimization problem for short range mmW networks with the objective of maximizing effective network throughput. This optimization problem allows establishing the fundamental alignment-throughput tradeoff, however it is computationally complex and requires exact knowledge of network topology, which may not be available in practice. Therefore, two standard-compliant approximation solution algorithms are developed, which rely on underestimation and overestimation of interference. The first one exploits directionality to maximize the reuse of available spectrum and thereby increases the network throughput, while imposing almost no computational complexity. The second one is a more conservative approach that protects all active links from harmful interference, yet enhances the network throughput by 100% compared to the existing standards. Extensive performance analysis provides useful insights on the directionality level and the number of concurrent transmissions that should be pursued. Interestingly, extremely narrow beams are in general not optimal.Comment: 5 figures, 7 pages, accepted in ICC 201