5G Millimeter Wave Hotspots

Male Voice: InterDigital's Millimeter Wave Hotspots are the 5G solution for longer-term wireless capacity growth, enabling backhaul and access throughput beyond what’s available with the emerging small-cell and spectrum-sharing solutions. Demand for wireless capacity is growing at an unprecedented rate, doubling in each of the last five years, according to one operator. At this rate, we could need 100X improvements by the year 2020, exhausting advancements that are becoming available through current spectrum-sharing and small-cell initiatives. By 2023 and beyond, we need to consider how to provide more than 1000X growth. And more spectrum, through higher-frequency Millimeter Wave bands is the answer. These advancements must be realized without raising costs. Typical Millimeter Wave Hotspot deployments include lampposts, strand mounting, storefront, as well as large public spaces, such as airports and malls. The Millimeter Wave Hotspot architecture is built upon three key innovative elements: electrically-steerable, phased-array antennas, which provide multidirectional coverage with higher gain; wireless backhaul, for enabling a high-capacity mesh network of small cells; and, finally, Millimeter Wave Hotspot access links, enabling gigabit data to our mobile devices. Our analysis and experimentation shows that it is possible to meet the 1000X capacity demand of the next decade with Millimeter Wave Hotspots covering approximately 150 meter ranges. Douglas Castor: InterDigital’s wireless research is driven by looking at the needs of next-generation systems. And early on, we saw the need to utilize higher-frequency spectrum. There is a historical trend of wireless moving to higher frequencies, and we didn’t see this stopping for 5G. So, we built a comprehensive set of research tools that allow evaluation of our Millimeter Wave architecture envision. And this year, we are presenting our Millimeter Wave Hotspot concept, along with our evolving platform. Daniel Steinbach: What we will now demonstrate is a three-node mesh network, using InterDigital’s Millimeter Wave technology. What we see is that the nodes are in discovery mode, where they’re trying to form a mesh network. At this point, node one has connected to node two, and now node three has just connected to node one, as well. And as soon as nodes two and three form a link, we will send pseudorandom data through the system, where data will be passing through all three nodes. And then, at some point, we will then break the link between nodes two and three, which will then reroute the data around the mesh network. At this point, all three nodes are connected, and we see, through quick graphs, are streaming data through. What we see here is, we see a relatively consistent RSSI throughput and uplink throughput, as well. And now we’re going to break the link between nodes two and three, and we see that the link is down, and that the throughput has gone up between nodes two, one, and three, simply because it’s rerouting the data that used to pass between two and three. We now reestablish the link between node two and three, and the data has gone back to its initial state. Male Voice: Millimeter Wave Hotspots are one of the ways InterDigital is leading the way with 5G research. Our platforms and technologies will soon be available for integration within the 5G research and industry community.

Millimeter Wave Hotspots

InterDigital. mmWave Hotspot: How it Works.


Firing on more cells the inventiveness behind (mmH) millimeter wave hotspots. Data demand is increasing. Frequency bands are getting more congested. Millimeter wave hotspots meet the challenge.


mmH technology will provide small cell backhaul.


mmH technology will be in your handheld devices.


Where is this spectrum? Available bandwidth is becoming scarce. (Red) U.S. unlicensed; (Blue) U.S. licensed. (Blue) mmWave Frequencies.


More spectrum is available at 60GHz than all over sub 6GHz frequencies combined!


Wireless backhaul is a top priority for small cell deployment. Operator solutions (such as small cells) require expensive backhaul installation.


Offloading to Wi-Fi and TVWS provides some additional capacity but will become quickly overloaded.


Networks are becoming more congested -- a strong signal no longer means a good connection.


Hotspots for a self-organizing mesh network for low-cost installation.


Phased-array antennas provide:
1) Narrow beams with high gain
2) Precise pointing for interference and multipath rejection


Phased arrays form directional connections to other hotspots and to end-user devices.


High data rate apps are offloaded to millimeter wave hotspots.


What are the benefits of mmHs? mmWave hotspots provide the following operational advantages:
1) Millimeter wave hotspots provide spectrum relief to congested cellular networks
2) Cost-effective small cell backhaul via self-configuring wireless mesh


Our thinking is always at the heart of a better user experience!

Advanced Waveforms Demo Interview with Doug Castor

Doug Castor: Under the advanced waveforms in [RF] project we’re looking at some of the limitations of OFDM and searching for new waveforms for 5G and future system architectures. Some of the future system architectures are built on assumptions which are a lot different than 4G and prior system architectures. We’re now looking at small cells, heterogeneous networks, TV white space, and shared spectrum situations where we have to be more conscious of the interference that we’re causing to neighboring spectrum. So, it forces us to rethink OFDM and whether that’s an appropriate waveform for systems going forward. We’re looking at providing advantages and energy efficiency and spectral agility.

Spectral agility is the ability to support noncontiguous waveforms in flexible bandwidth. On this platform we have the advanced waveforms evaluation platform which allows us to load on baseband waveforms under the class of filter bank multicarrier and look at energy efficiency, spectral agility solutions, and ways that we can reduce the side loads of modulations so that they have less interference to neighboring systems. The baseband waveforms are able to be played out through two different radios. The first one is our LTE 1.9 GHz radio and the second one is the wireless LAN 5.5 GHz radio. The evaluation [board] also has the capabilities for press factor reduction, envelope tracking, and digital pre-distortion.

When I turn on each of these technologies, with press factor reduction we see an increase in average power of roughly 1.5dB for a total average output power of 20.5dB and we also have digital pre-distortion capabilities in this platform. With digital pre-distortion we’ll see a decrease in the adjacent channel interference from -40dB to roughly -50dB. So, we have a 10dB decrease on adjacent channel interference. So, in this platform we’re able to take our baseband waveforms and evaluate those in a combined manner with the envelope tracking, digital pre-distortion, and press factor reduction techniques. And this is a platform that [we’re] going to be used to continue to evaluate future, 5G [air] interface waveforms.

VIDEOS

5G Millimeter Wave Hotspots

Millimeter Wave Hotspots

Advanced Waveforms Demo Interview with Doug Castor