NR V2X Communications at Millimeter Waves: An End-to-End Performance Evaluation

3GPP NR V2X represents the new 3GPP standard for next-generation vehicular systems which, among other innovations, supports vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) operations in the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum to address the communication requirements of future intelligent automotive networks. While mmWaves will enable massive data rates and low latency, the propagation characteristics at very high frequencies become very challenging, thereby calling for accurate performance evaluations as a means to properly assess the performance of such systems. Along these lines, in this paper MilliCar, the new ns-3 module based on the latest NR V2X specifications, is used to provide an end-to-end performance evaluation of mmWave V2V networks. We investigate the impact of different propagation scenarios and system parameters, including the inter-vehicle distance, the adopted frame numerology, and the modulation and coding scheme, and provide guidelines towards the most promising V2V deployment configurations.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to IEEE Globecom 202

Beam management for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications in millimeter wave 5G

Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) is expected to leverage the full potential of wireless communications. With the growing adoption of 5G and its support for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications, beamformed vehicular communications at millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands are expected to enable the most demanding connected driving applications. Beamformed V2X links present the challenge of beam management in such a fast-changing scenario. This paper goes through the practical limitations of the 5G V2X stack to support successful beamforming procedures. Two beam management strategies are proposed. Both strategies are evaluated in terms of power performance, beam recovery time and channel usage. The results suggest that significant differences apply when the beam is more frequently updated, whereas little improvement is seen by increasing the size of the beamset. Also, the selection of a proper strategy is shown to be important to alleviate the channel from overheads, and substantial differences in required signaling can be seen depending on the beam-tracking approach.This work was partly funded by the Spanish Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología under projects TEC2013-47360- C3-1-P, TEC2016-78028-C3-1-P and MDM2016-0600, and Catalan Research Group 2017 SGR 219. The Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU17/05561) and Generalitat de Catalunya DI programme (2018- DI-084) also contribute with predoctoral grants for the authors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The impact of interference from the side lanes on mmWave/THz band V2V communication systems with directional antennas

Abstract Communications systems operating in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) band have been recently suggested to enable high data-rate vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications in 5G and beyond wireless networks. However, massive deployment of such systems may lead to significant interference, affecting the performance of information transmission. While the multipath interference caused by the signal reflections from the road has been extensively discussed in the literature, the interference caused by the vehicles on the side lanes has been insufficiently studied so far. In this paper, using a combination of measurement, simulation, and analytical methods, we comprehensively characterize the interference from the side lanes in two typical deployments including highway and urban road environments for millimeter-wave and low terahertz bands. Both the multipath interference and direct interference from the transmitting vehicles on the side lanes are taken into account. As a result of our study, we reveal that: the interference from the side lanes can be well approximated using two-dimensional stochastic models without any significant loss of accuracy; and even when highly directional antennas are used there are special spatial configurations, where the interference may greatly affect the performance of the communication systems. We lately apply the developed models to estimate the signal-to-interference ratio and link capacity of mmWave/THz band V2V communications