Reliable THz Communications for Outdoor based Applications- Use Cases and Methods

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential and challenges of deploying outdoor THz communication systems for future wireless networks, analyzing use cases, critical parameters, and deployment considerations.

Contribution

It identifies outdoor THz application scenarios, categorizes them based on mobility, and provides preliminary analysis of deployment parameters and limitations.

Findings

High capacity and throughput are achievable with THz but are limited by path loss.

Deployment feasibility depends on parameters like distance, mobility, and environment.

Different use cases require tailored optimization strategies.

Abstract

Future (beyond 5G) wireless networks will demand high throughput and low latency and would benefit from greenfield, contiguous, and wider bandwidth, all of which THz spectrum can provide. Although THz has been envisioned to be deployed in an indoor setting, with proper enforcement and planning, we can draw a limited number of use cases for outdoor THz communication. THz can provide high capacity and ultra-high throughput but at the cost of high path loss and sensitivity to device orientation/mobility.. We identify scenarios where the use of the THz spectrum for an outdoor setting is justified and their critical operating parameters. We further categorize the applications based on the relative mobility between the access point (AP) and user equipment (UE). We present an approach for deploying THz on an outdoor framework by presenting preliminary technical parameter analysis for scenarios, like wireless backhaul, high-speed kiosks, and the aerial base station (ABS). Our preliminary analysis shows that the application for each of these scenarios is limited based on multiple parameters, such as distance, device mobility, device orientation, user geometry, antenna gain, and environment settings, which requires separate consideration and optimization.