Maximising the utility of enterprise millimetre-wave networks

Abstract

Millimetre-wave (mmWave) technology is a promising candidate for meeting the intensifying demand for ultra fast wireless connectivity, especially in high-end enterprise networks. Very narrow beam forming is mandatory to mitigate the severe attenuation specific to the extremely high frequency (EHF) bands exploited. Simultaneously, this greatly reduces interference, but generates problematic communication blockages. As a consequence, client association control and scheduling in scenarios with densely deployed mmWave access points become particularly challenging, while policies designed for traditional wireless networks remain inappropriate. In this paper we formulate and solve these tasks as utility maximisation problems under different traffic regimes, for the first time in the mmWave context. We specify a set of low-complexity algorithms that capture distinctive terminal deafness and user demand constraints, while providing near-optimal client associations and airtime allocations, despite the problems' inherent NP-completeness. To evaluate our solutions, we develop an NS-3 implementation of the IEEE 802.11ad protocol, which we construct upon preliminary 60GHz channel measurements. Simulation results demonstrate that our schemes provide up to 60% higher throughput as compared to the commonly used signal strength based association policy for mmWave networks, and outperform recently proposed load-balancing oriented solutions, as we accommodate the demand of 33% more clients in both static and mobile scenarios.1 See BBC IP Studio, http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/ip-studio 2 E.g.

Max-Min Fair Resource Allocation in Millimetre-Wave Backhauls

“…Sim et al exploit dual-band channel access to address terminal deafness and improve throughput [25]. Optimal client association and airtime allocation is pursued in [27] to maximise the utility of enterprise mm-wave deployments.…”

“…While our solution is applicable to any multi-hop mmwave backhauls that operate in a scheduled mode, for evaluation purposes we employ the 802.11ad PHY with the SP based MAC, as this standard is already mature. To incorporate multi-hop frame relaying, the controller logic, and the progressive filling algorithm in NS-3, we extended the IEEE 802.11ad SP based MAC implementation of Facchi et al [27]. The simulator incorporates the 802.11ad MAC frame structure and simple PHY functionality for directional multi-gigabit OFDM transmissions.…”