Picocellular architectures are essential for providing the spatial reuse required to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for mobile data. A key deployment challenge is to provide backhaul connections with sufficiently high data rate. Providing wired support (e.g., using optical fiber) to pico base stations deployed opportunistically on lampposts and rooftops is impractical, hence wireless backhaul becomes an attractive approach. A multihop mesh network comprised of directional millimeter wave links is considered here for this purpose. The backhaul design problem is formulated as one of joint routing and resource allocation, accounting for mutual interference across simultaneously active links. A computationally tractable formulation is developed by leveraging the localized nature of interference and the provable existence of a sparse optimal allocation. Numerical results are provided for millimeter (mm) wave mesh networks, which are well suited for scaling backhaul data rates due to abundance of spectrum, and the ability to form highly directional, electronically steerable beams.
This paper considers the following question for viable wide-area millimeter wave cellular networks. What is the maximum extended coverage area of a single fiber site using multi-hop relaying, while achieving a minimum target per user data rate? We formulate an optimization problem to maximize the minimum end-to-end per user data rate, and exploit unique features of millimeter wave deployments to yield a tractable solution. The mesh network is modeled as a @math ring urban-canyon type deployment, where @math is the number of hops back to the fiber site. The total number of relays per fiber site grows as @math . We consider both integrated access-backhaul (IAB) and orthogonal access-backhaul (OAB) resource allocation strategies, as well as both half and full duplex base stations (BSs). With a few validated simplifications, our results are given as simple closed-form expressions that are easy to evaluate even for large networks. Several design guidelines are provided, including on the choice of routing and scheduling strategy, the maximum allowable self-interference in full duplex relays and role of dual connectivity to reduce load imbalance across BSs. For example, we show that for certain load conditions there is very little gain to IAB (as considered for 5G) as opposed to tunable OAB (using separate spectrum for access and backhaul links); the latter being significantly simpler to implement. With the shortage of spectrum in conventional cellular frequencies, millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands are being widely considered for use in next-generation networks. Multihop relaying is likely to play a significant role in mmWave cellular systems for self backhauling, range extension and improved robustness from path diversity. However, designing scheduling policies for these systems is challenging due to the need to account for both adaptive directional transmissions and dynamic time-division duplexing schedules, which are key enabling features of mmWave systems. This paper considers the problem of joint scheduling and congestion control in a multihop mmWave network using a Network Utility Maximization (NUM) framework. Interference is modeled with an exact model and two auxiliar simplified models: actual interference (AI), with a graph-based calculation of the Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) depending on dynamic link activity and directivity, as well as upper and lower bounds computed from worst-case interference (WI) and interference free (IF) approximations. Throughput and utility optimal policies are derived for all interference models (AI, WI and IF) with both deterministic Maximum Weighted and randomized Pick and Compare scheduling algorithms, jointly with decentralized Dual Congestion Control. Results are evaluated with numerical simulations, using accurate mmWave channel and beamforming gain approximations based on measurement campaigns. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is a promising technology to cope with the expected exponential increase in data traffic in 5G networks. mmWave networks typically require a very dense deployment of mmWave base stations (mmBS). To reduce cost and increase flexibility, wireless backhauling is needed to connect the mmBSs. The characteristics of mmWave communication, and specifically its high directional- ity, imply new requirements for efficient routing and scheduling paradigms. We propose an efficient scheduling method, so-called schedule-oriented optimization, based on matching theory that optimizes QoS metrics jointly with routing. It is capable of solving any scheduling problem that can be formulated as a linear program whose variables are link times and QoS metrics. As an example of the schedule-oriented optimization, we show the optimal solution of the maximum throughput fair scheduling (MTFS). Practically, the optimal scheduling can be obtained even for networks with over 200 mmBSs. To further increase the runtime performance, we propose an efficient edge-coloring based approximation algorithm with provable performance bound. It achieves over 80 of the optimal max-min throughput and runs 5 to 100 times faster than the optimal algorithm in practice. Finally, we extend the optimal and approximation algorithms for the cases of multi-RF-chain mmBSs and integrated backhaul and access networks. As wireless access technologies improve in data rates, the problem focus is shifting towards providing adequate backhaul from the wireless access points to the Internet. Existing wired backhaul technologies such as copper wires running at DSL, T1, or T3 speeds can be expensive to install or lease, and are becoming a performance bottleneck as wireless access speeds increase. Longhaul, non-line-of-sight wireless technologies such as WiMAX (802.16) hold the promise of enabling a high speed wireless backhaul as a cost-effective alternative. However, the biggest challenge in building a wireless backhaul is achieving guaranteed performance (throughput and delay) that is typically provided by a wired backhaul. This paper explores the problem of efficiently designing a multihop wireless backhaul to connect multiple wireless access points to a wired gateway. In particular, we provide a generalized link activation framework for scheduling packets over this wireless backhaul, such that any existing wireline scheduling policy can be implemented locally at each node of the wireless backhaul. We also present techniques for determining good interference-free routes within our scheduling framework, given the link rates and cross-link interference information. When a multihop wireline scheduler with worst case delay bounds (such as WFQ or Coordinated EDF) is implemented over the wireless backhaul, we show that our scheduling and routing framework guarantees approximately twice the delay of the corresponding wireline topology. Finally, we present simulation results to demonstrate the low delays achieved using our framework.