Title
Directional Cell Discovery in Millimeter Wave Cellular Networks
Abstract
The acute disparity between increasing bandwidth demand and available spectrum has brought millimeter wave (mmWave) bands to the forefront of candidate solutions for the next-generation cellular networks. Highly directional transmissions are essential for cellular communication in these frequencies to compensate for higher isotropic path loss. This reliance on directional beamforming, however, complicates initial cell search since mobiles and base stations must jointly search over a potentially large angular directional space to locate a suitable path to initiate communication. To address this problem, this paper proposes a directional cell discovery procedure where base stations periodically transmit synchronization signals, potentially in time-varying random directions, to scan the angular space. Detectors for these signals are derived based on a Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) under various signal and receiver assumptions. The detectors are then simulated under realistic design parameters and channels based on actual experimental measurements at 28 GHz in New York City. The study reveals two key findings: (i) digital beamforming can significantly outperform analog beamforming even when digital beamforming uses very low quantization to compensate for the additional power requirements; and (ii) omnidirectional transmissions of the synchronization signals from the base station generally outperforms random directional scanning.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1109/TWC.2015.2457921
IEEE Trans. Wireless Communications
Keywords
Field
DocType
Millimeter wave radio, cellular systems, directional cell discovery
Base station,Omnidirectional antenna,Beamforming,Synchronization,Cellular communication,Real-time computing,Path loss,Bandwidth (signal processing),Cellular network,Mathematics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
PP
99
1536-1276
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
46
1.68
16
Authors
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
C. Nicolas Barati1905.20
S. Amir Hosseini21218.51
Sundeep Rangan33101163.90
Pei Liu474840.33
Thanasis Korakis51401115.56
Shivendra S. Panwar62368177.48
Theodore S. Rappaport74510344.77