5G mobile networks are expected to provide pervasive high speed wireless connectivity, to support increasingly resource intensive user applications. Network hyper-densification therefore becomes necessary, though connecting to the Internet tens of thousands of base stations is non-trivial, especially in urban scenarios where optical fibre is difficult and costly to deploy. The millimetre wave (mm-wave) spectrum is a promising candidate for inexpensive multi-Gbps wireless backhauling, but exploiting this band for effective multi-hop data communications is challenging. In particular, resource allocation and scheduling of very narrow transmission reception beams requires to overcome terminal deafness and link blockage problems, while managing fairness issues that arise when flows encounter dissimilar competition and traverse different numbers of links with heterogeneous quality. In this paper, we propose WiHaul, an airtime allocation and scheduling mechanism that overcomes these challenges specific to multi-hop mm-wave networks, guarantees max-min fairness among traffic flows, and ensures the overall available backhaul resources are fully utilised. We evaluate the proposed WiHaul scheme over a broad range of practical network conditions, and demonstrate up to 5 times individual throughput gains and a fivefold improvement in terms of measurable fairness, over recent mm-wave scheduling solutions.
A directional cooperative MAC protocol is introduced in @cite_14 , where user devices select intermediate nodes to relay the packets to the AP, in order to establish multi-hop paths that exhibit higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than direct links. Mandke and Nettles propose a dual-band architecture for multi-hop 60GHz networks where scheduling and routing decisions are communicated at 5.2GHz @cite_9 . Based on their feasibility study of in-band wireless backhauling, Taori present a qualitative scheduling framework for inter-base station communications @cite_53 . This resembles closely the Type 2 TDD scheme of LTE, with the difference that the authors apply it to in-band backhauling scenarios, whereas in the LTE standard this is specified for cellular access only. Despite considering the implications of terminal deafness, these designs do not tackle the airtime allocation problem. Relay selection so as to overcome blockage and scheduling in mm-wave backhauls is tackled in @cite_27 , with the aim of maximising throughput. However, neither airtime allocation nor fairness are taken into account.
@cite_27 @cite_9 @cite_14 @cite_53
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The enormous success of advanced wireless devices is pushing the demand for higher wireless data rates. Denser spectrum reuse through the deployment of more access points (APs) per square mile has the potential to successfully meet such demand. In principle, distributed multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO) provides the best approach to infrastructure density increase since several access points are connected to a central server and operate as a large distributed multiantenna access point. This ensures that all transmitted signal power serves the purpose of data transmission, rather than creating interference. In practice, however, a number of implementation difficulties must be addressed, the most significant of which is aligning the phases of all jointly coordinated APs. In this paper, we propose AirSync, a novel scheme that provides timing and phase synchronization accurate enough to enable distributed MU-MIMO. AirSync detects the slot boundary such that all APs are time-synchronous within a cyclic prefix (CP) of the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation and predicts the instantaneous carrier phase correction along the transmit slot such that all transmitters maintain their coherence, which is necessary for multiuser beamforming. We have implemented AirSync as a digital circuit in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) of the WARP radio platform. Our experimental testbed, comprising four APs and four clients, shows that AirSync is able to achieve timing synchronization within the OFDM CP and carrier phase coherence within a few degrees. For the purpose of demonstration, we have implemented two MU-MIMO precoding schemes, Zero-Forcing Beamforming (ZFBF) and Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding (THP). In both cases, our system approaches the theoretical optimal multiplexing gains. We also discuss aspects related to the MAC and multiuser scheduling design, in relation to the distributed MU-MIMO architecture. To the best of our knowledge, AirSync offers the first realization of the full distributed MU-MIMO multiplexing gain, namely the ability to increase the number of active wireless clients per time-frequency slot linearly with the number of jointly coordinated APs, without reducing the per client rate. We investigate spatial interference statistics for multigigabit outdoor mesh networks operating in the unlicensed 60-GHz "millimeter (mm) wave" band. The links in such networks are highly directional: Because of the small carrier wavelength (an order of magnitude smaller than those for existing cellular and wireless local area networks), narrow beams are essential for overcoming higher path loss and can be implemented using compact electronically steerable antenna arrays. Directionality drastically reduces interference, but it also leads to "deafness," making implicit coordination using carrier sense infeasible. In this paper, we make a quantitative case for rethinking medium access control (MAC) design in such settings. Unlike existing MAC protocols for omnidirectional networks, where the focus is on interference management, we contend that MAC design for 60-GHz mesh networks can essentially ignore interference and must focus instead on the challenge of scheduling half-duplex transmissions with deaf neighbors. Our main contribution is an analytical framework for estimating the collision probability in such networks as a function of the antenna patterns and the density of simultaneously transmitting nodes. The numerical results from our interference analysis show that highly directional links can indeed be modeled as pseudowired, in that the collision probability is small even with a significant density of transmitters. Furthermore, simulation of a rudimentary directional slotted Aloha protocol shows that packet losses due to failed coordination are an order of magnitude higher than those due to collisions, confirming our analytical results and highlighting the need for more sophisticated coordination mechanisms. A number of algorithmic and protocol assumptions taken for granted in the design of existing wireless communication technologies need to be revisited in extending their scope to the new cognitive radio (CR) paradigm. The fact that channel availability can rapidly change over time and the need for coordinated quiet periods in order to quickly and robustly detect the presence of incumbents, are just some of the examples of the unique challenges in protocol and algorithm design for CR networks and, in particular, in the medium access control (MAC) layer. With this in mind, in this paper we introduce a novel cognitive MAC (C-MAC) protocol for distributed multi-channel wireless networks. C-MAC operates over multiple channels, and hence is able to effectively deal with, among other things, the dynamics of resource availability due to primary users and mitigate the effects of distributed quiet periods utilized for primary user signal detection. In C-MAC, each channel is logically divided into recurring superframes which, in turn, include a slotted beaconing period (BP) where nodes exchange information and negotiate channel usage. Each node transmits a beacon in a designated beacon slot during the BP, which helps in dealing with hidden nodes, medium reservations, and mobility. For coordination amongst nodes in different channels, a rendezvous channel (RC) is employed that is decided dynamically and in a totally distributed fashion. Among other things, the RC is used to support network-wide multicast and broadcast which are often neglected in existing multi-channel MAC protocols. We present promising performance results of C- MAC. We also describe our efforts to implement features of C- MAC in a real CR prototype with Atheros chipset, which currently includes the spectrum sensing module and preliminary features of C-MAC. We propose the cross-layer based opportunistic multi-channel medium access control (MAC) protocols, which integrate the spectrum sensing at physical (PHY) layer with the packet scheduling at MAC layer, for the wireless ad hoc networks. Specifically, the MAC protocols enable the secondary users to identify and utilize the leftover frequency spectrum in a way that constrains the level of interference to the primary users. In our proposed protocols, each secondary user is equipped with two transceivers. One transceiver is tuned to the dedicated control channel, while the other is designed specifically as a cognitive radio that can periodically sense and dynamically use the identified un-used channels. To obtain the channel state accurately, we propose two collaborative channel spectrum-sensing policies, namely, the random sensing policy and the negotiation-based sensing policy, to help the MAC protocols detect the availability of leftover channels. Under the random sensing policy, each secondary user just randomly selects one of the channels for sensing. On the other hand, under the negotiation-based sensing policy, different secondary users attempt to select the distinct channels to sense by overhearing the control packets over the control channel. We develop the Markov chain model and the M GY 1-based queueing model to characterize the performance of our proposed multi-channel MAC protocols under the two types of channel-sensing policies for the saturation network and the non-saturation network scenarios, respectively. In the non-saturation network case, we quantitatively identify the tradeoff between the aggregate traffic throughput and the packet transmission delay, which can provide the insightful guidelines to improve the delay-QoS provisionings over cognitive radio wireless networks.