Multi-beam Transmissions for Blockage Resilience and Reliability in Millimeter-Wave Systems

Irmak Aykin; Berk Akgun; Marwan Krunz

doi:10.1109/JSAC.2019.2947938

Multi-beam Transmissions for Blockage Resilience and Reliability in Millimeter-Wave Systems

Irmak Aykin, Berk Akgun, Marwan Krunz

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Directionality in millimeter-wave (mmW) systems make link establishment and maintenance challenging, due to the search-time overhead of beam scanning and the vulnerability of directional links to blockages. In this paper, we propose a communication protocol called SmartLink, which exploits the clustering phenomenon at mmW frequencies to establish a multi-beam link between a base station and a user. By utilizing multiple clusters, SmartLink enables efficient link maintenance and sustained throughput. We develop a logarithmic-time search algorithm called multi-lobe beam search (MLBS), which is used in SmartLink to discover the clusters. MLBS probes several directions simultaneously, using multi-lobe beam patterns. The number of simultaneous lobes is selected to minimize the search time of the clusters. We provide detailed analysis of the false alarm and misdetection probabilities for the designed beam patterns. Following cluster discovery, SmartLink divides antennas into sub-arrays to generate the optimal multi-lobe beam pattern that maximizes the average data rate under blockage. Extensive simulations using actual channel traces obtained by utilizing phased-array antennas at 29 GHz are used to verify the efficiency of SmartLink. MLBS decreases the discovery time by up to 88% compared to common existing search schemes, and exploiting multiple clusters improves the average data rate by 10%.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	8878130
Pages (from-to)	2772-2785
Number of pages	14
Journal	IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
Volume	37
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JSAC.2019.2947938
State	Published - Dec 2019

Keywords

Millimeter-wave
analog beamforming
beam scanning
blockage
initial access
multi-lobe beams

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Networks and Communications
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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10.1109/JSAC.2019.2947938

Cite this

@article{793ee0a52ea24ad79936f7cd41795302,

title = "Multi-beam Transmissions for Blockage Resilience and Reliability in Millimeter-Wave Systems",

abstract = "Directionality in millimeter-wave (mmW) systems make link establishment and maintenance challenging, due to the search-time overhead of beam scanning and the vulnerability of directional links to blockages. In this paper, we propose a communication protocol called SmartLink, which exploits the clustering phenomenon at mmW frequencies to establish a multi-beam link between a base station and a user. By utilizing multiple clusters, SmartLink enables efficient link maintenance and sustained throughput. We develop a logarithmic-time search algorithm called multi-lobe beam search (MLBS), which is used in SmartLink to discover the clusters. MLBS probes several directions simultaneously, using multi-lobe beam patterns. The number of simultaneous lobes is selected to minimize the search time of the clusters. We provide detailed analysis of the false alarm and misdetection probabilities for the designed beam patterns. Following cluster discovery, SmartLink divides antennas into sub-arrays to generate the optimal multi-lobe beam pattern that maximizes the average data rate under blockage. Extensive simulations using actual channel traces obtained by utilizing phased-array antennas at 29 GHz are used to verify the efficiency of SmartLink. MLBS decreases the discovery time by up to 88% compared to common existing search schemes, and exploiting multiple clusters improves the average data rate by 10%.",

keywords = "Millimeter-wave, analog beamforming, beam scanning, blockage, initial access, multi-lobe beams",

author = "Irmak Aykin and Berk Akgun and Marwan Krunz",

note = "Funding Information: Manuscript received April 30, 2019; revised September 9, 2019; accepted October 10, 2019. Date of publication October 21, 2019; date of current version November 27, 2019. This work was supported by NSF (Grants CNS-1409172, CNS-1513649, CNS-1563655, CNS-1731164, and IIP-1822071) and by the Broadband Wireless Access and Applications Center (BWAC). An abridged version of this article was presented in the INFOCOM 2019 Conference, Paris, France, April 29–May 2, 2019. (Corresponding author: Irmak Aykin.) I. Aykin and B. Akgun are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA (e-mail: aykin@email.arizona.edu; berkakgun@email.arizona.edu). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 1983-2012 IEEE.",

year = "2019",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1109/JSAC.2019.2947938",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "37",

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journal = "IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications",

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AU - Aykin, Irmak

AU - Akgun, Berk

AU - Krunz, Marwan

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received April 30, 2019; revised September 9, 2019; accepted October 10, 2019. Date of publication October 21, 2019; date of current version November 27, 2019. This work was supported by NSF (Grants CNS-1409172, CNS-1513649, CNS-1563655, CNS-1731164, and IIP-1822071) and by the Broadband Wireless Access and Applications Center (BWAC). An abridged version of this article was presented in the INFOCOM 2019 Conference, Paris, France, April 29–May 2, 2019. (Corresponding author: Irmak Aykin.) I. Aykin and B. Akgun are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA (e-mail: aykin@email.arizona.edu; berkakgun@email.arizona.edu). Publisher Copyright: © 1983-2012 IEEE.

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N2 - Directionality in millimeter-wave (mmW) systems make link establishment and maintenance challenging, due to the search-time overhead of beam scanning and the vulnerability of directional links to blockages. In this paper, we propose a communication protocol called SmartLink, which exploits the clustering phenomenon at mmW frequencies to establish a multi-beam link between a base station and a user. By utilizing multiple clusters, SmartLink enables efficient link maintenance and sustained throughput. We develop a logarithmic-time search algorithm called multi-lobe beam search (MLBS), which is used in SmartLink to discover the clusters. MLBS probes several directions simultaneously, using multi-lobe beam patterns. The number of simultaneous lobes is selected to minimize the search time of the clusters. We provide detailed analysis of the false alarm and misdetection probabilities for the designed beam patterns. Following cluster discovery, SmartLink divides antennas into sub-arrays to generate the optimal multi-lobe beam pattern that maximizes the average data rate under blockage. Extensive simulations using actual channel traces obtained by utilizing phased-array antennas at 29 GHz are used to verify the efficiency of SmartLink. MLBS decreases the discovery time by up to 88% compared to common existing search schemes, and exploiting multiple clusters improves the average data rate by 10%.

AB - Directionality in millimeter-wave (mmW) systems make link establishment and maintenance challenging, due to the search-time overhead of beam scanning and the vulnerability of directional links to blockages. In this paper, we propose a communication protocol called SmartLink, which exploits the clustering phenomenon at mmW frequencies to establish a multi-beam link between a base station and a user. By utilizing multiple clusters, SmartLink enables efficient link maintenance and sustained throughput. We develop a logarithmic-time search algorithm called multi-lobe beam search (MLBS), which is used in SmartLink to discover the clusters. MLBS probes several directions simultaneously, using multi-lobe beam patterns. The number of simultaneous lobes is selected to minimize the search time of the clusters. We provide detailed analysis of the false alarm and misdetection probabilities for the designed beam patterns. Following cluster discovery, SmartLink divides antennas into sub-arrays to generate the optimal multi-lobe beam pattern that maximizes the average data rate under blockage. Extensive simulations using actual channel traces obtained by utilizing phased-array antennas at 29 GHz are used to verify the efficiency of SmartLink. MLBS decreases the discovery time by up to 88% compared to common existing search schemes, and exploiting multiple clusters improves the average data rate by 10%.

KW - Millimeter-wave

KW - analog beamforming

KW - beam scanning

KW - blockage

KW - initial access

KW - multi-lobe beams

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Multi-beam Transmissions for Blockage Resilience and Reliability in Millimeter-Wave Systems

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Keywords

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