Sensing of Side Lobes Interference for Blockage Prediction in Dense mmWave Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a low-complexity sensing method for millimeter-wave networks that detects environmental blockages by analyzing interference fluctuations in antenna side lobes, enabling proactive link management.

Contribution

It proposes a novel opportunistic sensing mechanism that uses existing infrastructure to detect and characterize blockers in mmWave systems, improving blockage prediction capabilities.

Findings

Effective detection of blocker direction and trajectory

Potential to estimate blocker location, speed, and size

Promising results in numerical evaluations

Abstract

The integration of sensing capability in the design of wireless communication systems is foreseen as a key enabler for efficient radio resource management in next-generation networks. This paper focuses on millimeter-wave communications, which are subject to severe attenuation due to blockages, ultimately detrimental to system performance. In this context, the sensing functionality can allow measuring or even imaging the wireless environment allowing anticipation of possible link failures, thus enabling proactive resource reallocation such as handover. This work proposes a novel mechanism for opportunistic environment sensing, which leverages existing network infrastructure with low complexity. More specifically, our approach exploits the fluctuations of interference, perceived in antenna side lobes, to detect local activity due to a moving blocker around the reference communication link. Numerical evaluations show that the proposed method is promising as it allows effective assessment of the blocker direction, trajectory and possibly, its location, speed, and size.