5 research outputs found
Millimeter-wave backhaul for 5G networks: challenges and solutions
The trend for dense deployment in future 5G mobile communication networks makes current wired backhaul infeasible owing to the high cost. Millimetre-wave (mm-wave) communication, a promising technique with the capability of providing a multi-gigabit transmission rate, offers a flexible and cost-effective candidate for 5G backhauling. By exploiting highly directional antennas, it becomes practical to cope with explosive traffic demands and to deal with interference problems. Several advancements in physical layer technology, such as hybrid beamforming and full duplexing, bring new challenges and opportunities for mm-wave backhaul. This article introduces a design framework for 5G mm-wave backhaul, including routing, spatial reuse scheduling and physical layer techniques. The associated optimization model, open problems and potential solutions are discussed to fully exploit the throughput gain of the backhaul network. Extensive simulations are conducted to verify the potential benefits of the proposed method for the 5G mm-wave backhaul design
Real-World Evaluation of Full-Duplex Millimeter Wave Communication Systems
Noteworthy strides continue to be made in the development of full-duplex
millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems, but most of this progress has
been built on theoretical models and validated through simulation. In this
work, we conduct a long overdue real-world evaluation of full-duplex mmWave
systems using off-the-shelf 60 GHz phased arrays. Using an experimental
full-duplex base station, we collect over 200,000 measurements of
self-interference by electronically sweeping its transmit and receive beams
across a dense spatial profile, shedding light on the effects of the
environment, array positioning, and beam steering direction. We then call
attention to five key challenges faced by practical full-duplex mmWave systems
and, with these in mind, propose a general framework for beamforming-based
full-duplex solutions. Guided by this framework, we introduce a novel solution
called STEER+, a more robust version of recent work called STEER, and
experimentally evaluate both in a real-world setting with actual downlink and
uplink users. Rather than purely minimize self-interference as with STEER,
STEER+ makes use of additional measurements to maximize spectral efficiency,
which proves to make it much less sensitive to one's choice of design
parameters. We experimentally show that STEER+ can reliably reduce
self-interference to near or below the noise floor while maintaining high SNR
on the downlink and uplink, thus enabling full-duplex operation purely via
beamforming.Comment: This paper has been submitted to the IEEE for review and possible
publication; copyright may change without notic