This paper provides an overview of the features of fifth generation (5G) wireless communication systems now being developed for use in the millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands. Early results and key concepts of 5G networks are presented, and the channel modeling efforts of many international groups for both licensed and unlicensed applications are described here. Propagation parameters and channel models for understanding mmWave propagation, such as line-of-sight (LOS) probabilities, large-scale path loss, and building penetration loss, as modeled by various standardization bodies, are compared over the 0.5–100 GHz range.

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Overview of Millimeter Wave Communications for Fifth-Generation (5G) Wireless Networks—With a Focus on Propagation Models

Providing various wireless connectivities for vehicles enables the communication between vehicles and their internal and external environments. Such a connected vehicle solution is expected to be the next frontier for automotive revolution and the key to the evolution to next generation intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). Moreover, connected vehicles are also the building blocks of emerging Internet of Vehicles (IoV). Extensive research activities and numerous industrial initiatives have paved the way for the coming era of connected vehicles. In this paper, we focus on wireless technologies and potential challenges to provide vehicle-to-x connectivity. In particular, we discuss the challenges and review the state-of-the-art wireless solutions for vehicle-to-sensor, vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-Internet, and vehicle-to-road infrastructure connectivities. We also identify future research issues for building connected vehicles.

http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~xshen/paper/2015/cvsac.pdf

Connected Vehicles: Solutions and Challenges

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have found numerous applications and are expected to bring fertile business opportunities in the next decade. Among various enabling technologies for UAVs, wireless communication is essential and has drawn significantly growing attention in recent years. Compared to the conventional terrestrial communications, UAVs’ communications face new challenges due to their high altitude above the ground and great flexibility of movement in the 3-D space. Several critical issues arise, including the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant UAV-ground channels and induced strong aerial-terrestrial network interference, the distinct communication quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for UAV control messages versus payload data, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight, and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the exploitation of the new design degree of freedom (DoF) brought by the highly controllable 3-D UAV mobility. In this article, we give a tutorial overview of the recent advances in UAV communications to address the above issues, with an emphasis on how to integrate UAVs into the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) and future cellular networks. In particular, we partition our discussion into two promising research and application frameworks of UAV communications, namely UAV-assisted wireless communications and cellular-connected UAVs, where UAVs are integrated into the network as new aerial communication platforms and users, respectively. Furthermore, we point out promising directions for future research.

Accessing From the Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

As driving becomes more automated, vehicles are being equipped with more sensors generating even higher data rates. Radars are used for object detection, visual cameras as virtual mirrors, and LIDARs for generating high resolution depth associated range maps, all to enhance the safety and efficiency of driving. Connected vehicles can use wireless communication to exchange sensor data, allowing them to enlarge their sensing range and improve automated driving functions. Unfortunately, conventional technologies, such as DSRC and 4G cellular communication, do not support the gigabit-per-second data rates that would be required for raw sensor data exchange between vehicles. This article makes the case that mmWave communication is the only viable approach for high bandwidth connected vehicles. The motivations and challenges associated with using mmWave for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure applications are highlighted. A high-level solution to one key challenge - the overhead of mmWave beam training - is proposed. The critical feature of this solution is to leverage information derived from the sensors or DSRC as side information for the mmWave communication link configuration. Examples and simulation results show that the beam alignment overhead can be reduced by using position information obtained from DSRC.

Millimeter-Wave Vehicular Communication to Support Massive Automotive Sensing

Mobile communications have been undergoing a generational change every ten years or so. However, the time difference between the so-called “G’s” is also decreasing. While fifth-generation (5G) systems are becoming a commercial reality, there is already significant interest in systems beyond 5G, which we refer to as the sixth generation (6G) of wireless systems. In contrast to the already published papers on the topic, we take a top-down approach to 6G. More precisely, we present a holistic discussion of 6G systems beginning with lifestyle and societal changes driving the need for next-generation networks. This is followed by a discussion into the technical requirements needed to enable 6G applications, based on which we dissect key challenges and possibilities for practically realizable system solutions across all layers of the Open Systems Interconnection stack (i.e., from applications to the physical layer). Since many of the 6G applications will need access to an order-of-magnitude more spectrum, utilization of frequencies between 100 GHz and 1 THz becomes of paramount importance. As such, the 6G ecosystem will feature a diverse range of frequency bands, ranging from below 6 GHz up to 1 THz. We comprehensively characterize the limitations that must be overcome to realize working systems in these bands and provide a unique perspective on the physical and higher layer challenges relating to the design of next-generation core networks, new modulation and coding methods, novel multiple-access techniques, antenna arrays, wave propagation, radio frequency transceiver design, and real-time signal processing. We rigorously discuss the fundamental changes required in the core networks of the future, such as the redesign or significant reduction of the transport architecture that serves as a major source of latency for time-sensitive applications. This is in sharp contrast to the present hierarchical network architectures that are not suitable to realize many of the anticipated 6G services. While evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of key candidate 6G technologies, we differentiate what may be practically achievable over the next decade, relative to what is possible in theory. Keeping this in mind, we present concrete research challenges for each of the discussed system aspects, providing inspiration for what follows.

6G Wireless Systems: Vision, Requirements, Challenges, Insights, and Opportunities

To make transportation safer, more efficient, and less harmful to the environment, traffic telematics services are currently being intensely investigated and developed. Such services require dependable wireless vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communications providing robust connectivity at moderate data rates. The development of such dependable vehicular communication systems and standards requires accurate models of the propagation channel in all relevant environments and scenarios. Key characteristics of vehicular channels are shadowing by other vehicles, high Doppler shifts, and inherent nonstationarity. All have major impact on the data packet transmission reliability and latency. This paper provides an overview of the existing vehicular channel measurements in a variety of important environments, and the observed channel characteristics (such as delay spreads and Doppler spreads) therein. We briefly discuss the available vehicular channel models and their respective merits and deficiencies. Finally, we discuss the implications for wireless system design with a strong focus on IEEE 802.11p. On the road towards a dependable vehicular network, room for improvements in coverage, reliability, scalability, and delay are highlighted, calling for evolutionary improvements in the IEEE 802.11p standard. Multiple antennas at the onboard units and roadside units are recommended to exploit spatial diversity for increased diversity and reliability. Evolutionary improvements in the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers are required to yield dependable systems. Extensive references are provided.

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Vehicular Channel Characterization and Its Implications for Wireless System Design and Performance

Vehicular communication channels are characterized by a nonstationary time-frequency-selective fading process due to rapid changes in the environment. The nonstationary fading process can be characterized by assuming local stationarity for a region with finite extent in time and frequency. For this finite region, the wide-sense stationarity and uncorrelated scattering assumption approximately holds, and we are able to calculate a time-frequency-dependent local scattering function (LSF). In this paper, we estimate the LSF from a large set of measurements collected in the DRIVEWAY'09 measurement campaign, which focuses on scenarios for intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). We then obtain the time-frequency-varying power delay profile (PDP) and the time-frequency-varying Doppler power spectral density (DSD) from the LSF. Based on the PDP and the DSD, we analyze the time-frequency-varying root-mean-square (RMS) delay spread and the RMS Doppler spread. We show that the distribution of these channel parameters follows a bimodal Gaussian mixture distribution. High RMS delay spread values are observed in situations with rich scattering, whereas high RMS Doppler spreads are obtained in drive-by scenarios.

Delay and Doppler Spreads of Nonstationary Vehicular Channels for Safety-Relevant Scenarios

The fading process in high speed vehicular traffic telematic
applications at 5 GHz is expected to fulfill the wide-sense
stationarity uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) assumption for
very short time-intervals only. In order to test this assumption
we apply the concept of a local time– and frequency–variant
scattering function, which we estimate from measurements
of vehicle-to-vehicle wave propagation channels by means
of a multi-window spectrogram. The obtained temporal sequence
of local scattering functions (LSF) is used to calculate
a collinearity measure. We define the stationarity time
as the support of the region where the collinearity exceeds a
certain threshold. The stationarity time is the maximum time
duration over which the WSSUS assumption is valid. Measurements
from an highway with vehicles driving in opposite
directions show stationarity times as small as 23 ms whereas
vehicles driving in the same direction show stationarity times
of 1479 ms.

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Non-WSSUS vehicular channel characterization in highway and urban scenarios at 5.2 GHz using the local scattering function

This paper deals with channel estimation for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) in time-variant wireless propagation channels. We particularly consider the challenges of the IEEE 802.11p standard, which is the worldwide dominant system for vehicular communications. For historic reasons, 802.11p uses a pilot pattern that is identical to the pattern used in 802.11a, which was initially designed for the estimation of indoor channels with little or no time variations. Therefore, this pilot pattern violates the sampling theorem for channels with both large delay spread and large Doppler spread, as often occurs in vehicular communications. To remedy this problem, we design a robust iterative channel estimator based on a 2-D subspace spanned by generalized discrete prolate spheroidal sequences. Due to the tight subspace design, the iterative receiver is able to converge to the same bit error rate (BER) as a receiver with perfect channel knowledge. Furthermore, we propose a backward compatible modification of the 802.11p pilot pattern such that the number of iterations sufficient for convergence can be reduced by a factor of 2-3, strongly reducing implementation complexity.

Iterative Time-Variant Channel Estimation for 802.11p Using Generalized Discrete Prolate Spheroidal Sequences

The assumption of wide-sense-stationarity (WSS) and uncorrelated scattering (US) of wireless propagation channels is widespread for the design and analysis of wireless propagation channels. However, the assumption is only valid within a limited range. In this paper, we investigate the extension of this range not only in time (WSS), but also in frequency (US), for measured vehicular propagation channels. We do this by using the collinearity of the local scattering function, which is a bounded spectral distance metric, and thus allows us to set an indicative threshold, which in turn enables a WSS and a US test. We prove that the fading process in vehicular communications is strongly non-WSS, which agrees with results previously reported in the literature. Furthermore, for the first time (to the authors' knowledge), we show their non-US behavior as well, mainly in scenarios with rich scattering. The dimensions of the minimum stationarity region are on the order of 40 ms in time and 40MHz in frequency.

/pdf/the-in-validity-of-the-wssus-assumption-in-vehicular-radio-1hybgszg27.pdf

Laura Bernado

Papers

Vehicular Channel Characterization and Its Implications for Wireless System Design and Performance

Delay and Doppler Spreads of Nonstationary Vehicular Channels for Safety-Relevant Scenarios

Non-WSSUS vehicular channel characterization in highway and urban scenarios at 5.2 GHz using the local scattering function

Iterative Time-Variant Channel Estimation for 802.11p Using Generalized Discrete Prolate Spheroidal Sequences

The (in-) validity of the WSSUS assumption in vehicular radio channels