This paper presents the design and experimental evaluation of 60GHz small cell radio access based on IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig. The access point (AP) prototype used combines three RF modules with beamforming technology to provide 360° area coverage. In order to compensate for limited communication distance, multiple APs are employed to achieve wide area coverage. A handover algorithm suitable for IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig is employed to achieve flexible control of the cell coverage of each AP. As a proof of concept, a prototype system is set up at Narita International Airport and the capability of multiuser Gb/s wireless access is successfully demonstrated. In addition, the system behavior under stringent conditions is evaluated by load testing and throughput degradation due to co-channel and inter-channel interference is investigated.

This paper presents a wideband digital predistortion (DPD) architecture suitable for wideband wireless systems, such as IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig, where low oversampling ratio of the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is a bottleneck for available linearization bandwidth. In order to overcome the bandwidth limitation in the conventional DPD, the proposed DPD introduces a complex coefficient filter in the DPD signal processing, which enables it to achieve asymmetric linearization. This approach effectively suppresses one side of adjacent channel leakages with twice the bandwidth as compared to the conventional DPD. The concept is verified through system simulation and measurements. Using a scaled model of a 2 GHz RF carrier frequency, the measurement shows a 4.2 dB advantage over the conventional DPD in terms of adjacent channel leakage.

This paper presents a 60 GHz analog/digital beamforming receiver that effectively suppresses interference signals, targeting the IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig standard. Combining two-stream analog frontends with interference rejection digital signal processing, the analog beamforming steers the antenna beam to the desired direction while the digital beamforming provides gain suppression in the interference direction. A prototype has been built with 40 nm CMOS analog frontends as well as offline baseband digital signal processing. Measurements show a 3.1 dB EVM advantage over conventional two-stream diversity during a packet collision situation.

Heterogeneous networks (HetNet) with different radio access technologies have been deployed to support a range of communication services. To manage these HetNets efficiently, some interworking solutions such as MIH (media independent handover), ANQP (access network query protocol) or ANDSF (access network discovery and selection function) have been studied. Recently, the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) based HetNet has been explored to provide multi-gigabits-per-second data rates over short distances in the 60GHz frequency band for 5G wireless networks. WiGig (Wireless Gigabit Alliance) is one of the available radio access technologies using mm-wave. However, the conventional interworking solutions are not sufficient for the implementation of LTE (Long Term Evolution)/WiGig HetNets. Since the coverage area of WiGig is very small due to the high propagation loss of the mm-wave band signal, it is difficult for UEs to perform cell discovery and handover if using conventional LTE/WLAN (wireless local area networks) interworking solutions, which cannot support specific techniques of WiGig well, such as beamforming and new media access methods. To solve these problems and find solutions for LTE/WiGig interworking, RAN (radio access network)-level tightly coupled interworking architecture will be a promising solution. As a RAN-level tightly coupled interworking solution, this paper proposes to design a LTE/WiGig protocol adaptor above the protocol stacks of WiGig to process and transfer control signaling and user data traffic. The proposed extended control plane can assist UEs to discover and access mm-wave BSs successfully and support LTE macro cells to jointly control the radio resources of both LTE and WiGig, so as to improve spectrum efficiency. The effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated. Simulation results show that LTE/WiGig HetNets with the proposed interworking solution can decrease inter-cell handover and improve user throughput significantly. Moreover, the downlink backhaul throughput and energy efficiency of mm-wave HetNets are evaluated and compared with that of 3.5GHz LTE HetNets. Results indicate that 60GHz mm-wave HetNets have better energy efficiency but with much heavier backhaul overhead.