Accuracy Versus Complexity for mmWave Ray-Tracing: A Full Stack Perspective

The millimeter wave (mmWave) band will provide multi-gigabits-per-second connectivity in the radio access of future wireless systems. The high propagation loss in this portion of the spectrum calls for the deployment of large antenna arrays to compensate for the loss through high directional gain, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on wireless communications 2021-12, Vol.20 (12), p.7826-7841
Main Authors: Lecci, Mattia, Testolina, Paolo, Polese, Michele, Giordani, Marco, Zorzi, Michele
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Antenna arrays
channel modeling
Channel models
Complexity
Computational modeling
full-stack
Millimeter wave communication
Millimeter waves
millimeter waves (mmWaves)
ns-3
Performance evaluation
Propagation
Ray tracing
Simulation
Stochastic processes
Wireless communication
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Summary:The millimeter wave (mmWave) band will provide multi-gigabits-per-second connectivity in the radio access of future wireless systems. The high propagation loss in this portion of the spectrum calls for the deployment of large antenna arrays to compensate for the loss through high directional gain, thus introducing the need for a spatial dimension in the channel model to accurately represent the performance of a mmWave network. In this perspective, ray tracing can characterize the channel in terms of Multi Path Components (MPCs) to provide a highly accurate model, at the price of extreme computational complexity (e.g., for processing detailed environment information about the propagation), which may limit the scalability of the simulations. In this paper, we present possible simplifications to improve the trade-off between accuracy and complexity in ray-tracing simulations at mmWaves by reducing the total number of MPCs. The effect of such simplifications is evaluated from a full-stack perspective through end-to-end simulations, testing different configuration parameters, propagation scenarios, and higher-layer protocol implementations. We then provide guidelines on the optimal degree of simplification, for which it is possible to reduce the complexity of simulations with a minimal reduction in accuracy for different deployment scenarios.
ISSN:1536-1276
1558-2248
DOI:10.1109/TWC.2021.3088349