A Survey on Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks

TL;DR

This survey reviews the development, integration, and challenges of integrated access and backhaul (IAB) networks in 5G, highlighting their potential to reduce fiber deployment costs and enhance network flexibility.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of IAB technology, including recent research, integrations with other networks, and future challenges and opportunities.

Findings

IAB reduces fiber deployment costs in 5G networks.

Integration of IAB with cache-enabled, optical, and non-terrestrial networks enhances flexibility.

Identifies key challenges and future research directions for IAB deployment.

Abstract

Benefiting from the usage of the high-frequency band, utilizing part of the large available bandwidth for wireless backhauling is feasible without considerable performance sacrifice. In this context, integrated access and backhaul (IAB) was proposed by 3GPP to reduce the fiber optics deployment cost of 5G and beyond networks. In this paper, we first give a brief introduction of IAB based on the 3GPP release. After that, we survey existing research on IAB networks, the integrations of IAB to cache-enabled network, optical communication transport network, and the non-terrestrial network. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities that might arise while developing and commercializing IAB networks.