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The Impact of Higher Order Sectorisation on the Performance of Millimetre

Wave 5G Network

Conference Paper · August 2016

DOI: 10.1109/NGMAST.2016.20

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 2016 10th International Conference on Next Generation Mobile Applications, Security and Technologies

The Impact of Higher Order Sectorisation on the Performance of

Millimetre Wave 5G Network

Naser Al-Falahy and Omar Y. K. Alani

School of Computing, Science & Engineering
University of Salford
Manchester, United Kingdom
N.F.A.AL-Falahy@edu.salford.ac.uk , O.Y.K.Alani@salford.ac.uk

Abstract— The fifth Generation (5G) mobile network will multi services, built on a system that support multitude of
provide services with extreme data rate and latency demands applications and provide high speed access to massive
compared to current cellular network, and provide massive number of subscribers [3], [4].
capacity and connectivity to multitude of devices with
diverse requirements and applications. Therefore, it is
important to utilise all network resources to provide the 5G High order horizontal sectorisation in low carrier
vision. In this paper, performance evaluations and impact of frequency has been studied previously in [5] and [6] for
higher order horizontal sectorisation on next generation 5G old mobile generation as a way to increase frequency
mobile access is presented. The study has been focused on reuse and improve network capacity. In addition, vertical
busy urban areas in high carrier frequency. Millimetre wave sectorisation (see fig.1) has its benefits in maximizing
band has precious wide unexploited bandwidth that can be network capacity [7] and provide better coverage solution
harnessed for mobile communication. The results for these for high rise buildings [8].
scenarios show that higher-order horizontal sectorisation in
millimetre wave based smallcell deployment can significantly
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents
increase the network capacity to meet the future
requirement of 5G network, and provide high data rate and work motivation and challenges. Section III introduces
connectivity to huge number of devices. Moreover, our network model including directional antenna and
beamforming can highly increase the data rate by efficiently millimetre wave band. Section IV explains simulation
increase signal power and suppress interference from parameter, network elements, and results. And the impact
unwanted directions. of beamforming has been discussed in section V. Finally,
conclusions are drawn in Section VI.
Index Terms —5G network, millimetre wave, network
densification, higher order sectorisation, beamforming.
II. MOTIVATION AND CHALLENGES
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Motivation
Wireless broadband traffic growth has introduced Due to the adoption of highly directional antennas at
major impact on future mobile network architectures, and millimetre wave bands, higher order sectorisation (HOS)
hence, it requires more demands. These demands include: will be a promising solution to increase network resources
(i) High traffic volume (massive capacity): increases on and system coverage at these bands. Higher order
the order of several magnitudes. The future requirement is sectorisation will ensure enough resources to cope with
a 1000x increase in data traffic for 2020 and beyond. (ii) the massive increase in mobile data traffic and to provide
Increased indoor and smallcells/hotspot traffic: will be the a network with massive capacity and connectivity.
majority of mobile traffic volume. Today, about 70
percent of mobile traffic happens indoors; in the future,
B. Challenges
indoor data traffic as well as hotspot area may exceed this
figure. (iii) Higher number of connected devices (massive
The adoption of millimetre wave band as a potential
connectivity): will be created from huge connected spectrum for 5G will require radical change to the network
subscribers and from machine-to-machine (M2M) architecture due to the very different propagation condition
applications, as all devices that benefit from internet and hardware constraint. Furthermore, the huge traffic
traffic need to become connected. (iv) Energy expected to be generated due to the higher sectorised base-
consumption: 5G need to be a green network to reduce station operating in millimetre wave band should be
carbon footprint [1], [2]. backhauled to the core network. The current wired and
wireless traditional backhaul links are not a viable solution
Mobile communication has transformed from only voice due to their limited capacity and design requirements.
service into a complex inter-connected environment with

2161-2897/16 $31.00 ©$31.00

978-1-5090-0949-7/16 2016 IEEE
© 2016 IEEE 1
DOI 10.1109/NGMAST.2016.20
Optical fibre links on the other hand, can provide the Nth sector coverage
capacity when connecting the smallcells dense 1st sector coverage
deployment. However, bringing a fibre connection to the
2nd sector coverage
smallcell nodes is laborious and expensive, as the trend of
this deployment is with high density. Thus, the provision 3rd sector coverage
of a highly efficient and flexible wireless backhaul link to
replace the current optical fibre links is a promising
alternative [9].

III. NETWORK MODEL (a)

Sectorisation is a widely used technique for increasing Inner sector coverage

the capacity in wireless cellular networks by spatial reuse Outer sector coverage
of radio resources [10] with typical configuration being a
three sectored solution [5].

Unlike conventional network planning in the legacy

(b)
<3GHz spectrum, HOS seems a promising key enabler to
improve network capacity and data throughput, as Fig.1. High order Sectorisation, (a) Horizontal Sectorisation, and (b)
millimetre wave tends to use highly directional antennas Vertical Sectorisation
with high gain to compensate for the high pathloss at these
bands. In our model, different scenarios (sectorisation It is widely accepted that mm-wave need to be used with
order) were simulated. The focus of this work is on very limited cell radius <200 m, to minimize high pathloss
meeting the high data throughput demands required from at this band (by bringing the access point closer to the
5G network. The performance of the following scenarios user). Fortunately, this action fits well with the dense
has been compared: deployment of smallcell which will be the trend of next
generation mobile system [15]. As per our model,
- Three horizontal sectors - Four horizontal sectors smallcell with high order sectorisation is considered as
- Six horizontal sectors - Eight horizontal sectors shown in fig.1 (a); the coverage of smallcell area is
- Ten horizontal sectors divided equally by the HOS.
A. Directional Antennas
IV. SIMULATION AND RESULTS
In order to compensate for a large pathloss and
penetration loss of mm-wave signals, we use directional Simulations are carried out by Wireless InSite tool
antennas with a high antenna gain. [16], a ray-tracing analyser and high-fidelity EM solvers
for radio network planning, a 130m inter site distance
A linear array antenna has been used by [11] for simpler (ISD) has been selected based on recent contribution [15],
analysis and a rectangular planar array antenna has been [17], [18] with random UE distribution and network share
used by [12] as a more practical directional antenna.
the available resources among users according to the
Furthermore, horn antenna can be used as a high gain
received SNR for each user equipment (UE) and the load
solution in millimetre wave as described in [13]. We use a
horn antenna as a directional beamforming pattern factor. A 300x300 m2 area is considered, and due to high
obtained through XFdtd, a full wave 3D simulation tool pathloss and penetration loss at millimetre wave band, 1st
[14] as shown in fig.2. non-line-of-site (NLOS) is considered to be 15 dB weaker
than line-of-site (LOS), 2nd NLOS is further reduced by
B. Millimetre wave smallcells another 15 dB, other reflections are excluded from
analysis due to their very weak signals. Details of
parameters are listed in table I.
Since the overwhelming majority of communication
systems are already operating in the microwave band
(MW) below 3GHz, due to its favourable propagation
characteristics. This makes MW band too scarce.
Therefore, 5G system is anticipated to use mm-wave
bands, particularly (20-90) GHz, due to the availability of
wide chunk of unused bandwidth. This step is
revolutionary because mm-wave frequency band has very
different propagation condition, atmospheric absorption
and hardware constraint. Such challenges, however, could
be compensated using beamforming and larger antenna
Fig.2, Beamforming patterns, left is horizontal and right is vertical.
array.

2
The data throughput of a user in a cellular network is
Average Data Throughput per user (Gbps)
upper-bounded by Shannon channel capacity theorem 7

Average per user Data Rate (Gbps)

[19]: 6
5
4
Cch = m (B / n ) log2 (1 + SINR) (1)
3
where m is the number of spatial streams between a base 2
station and user, B is the signal bandwidth, n (loading 1
factor) is the number of users served by a base station, and 0
SINR is the received signal power, to interference plus 1 2 4 8 16 32 64
# of user served per sector
noise ratio, respectively. In this study, the scenario was
conducted in a busy urban area as it is the first choice of
5G deployment, assuming (600) users to be outdoor, Fig.4, Average data throughput per user vs. loading factor
distributed in in the streets of the city as shown in fig.3.
The number of user served by sectorised site is increasing
The number of spatial link (m) is assumed to be 1 and the with the increase of sectorisation order, which is known as
load factor (n) is variable from scenario to scenario and the sectorisation gain, the sectorisation has another
region to region, however, when load factor is small, user advantage in distributing user around nearby cells and
within this area experience data speed in excess of multi sectors, which eventually minimize the load factor and
Gbps (see fig.4). Therefore, sectorisation with wide increase the data throughput as a result, fig.4 demonstrate
bandwidth (1 GHz) at millimetre wave band is a promising this case. However, this relation does not hold linearly, as
solution to the massive increase in mobile data traffic. the sectorisation order increase, the interference from
nearby sectors and sites increase consequently, therefore,
TABLE I. NETWORK MODEL PARAMETERS. at the 10th order of sectorisation; the number of users
receiving (fair) SINR has decreased (SINR values are
Model parameter Value shown in fig.5), which affect the coverage probability in
Tx Power 30 dBm LOS and NLOS regions, as shown in fig.6.
Tx antenna gain 15 dB
Tx Pattern As per fig.2
Antenna type SISO, 2x2 MIMO
SINR degradation due to increasing Sectorisation
Rx antenna gain 2 dB
36
Rx pattern i- Omni 3 Sectors
4 Sectors
ii- Beamforming 6 Sectors
32
Carrier frequency 28GHz 8 Sectors
Bandwidth 500 MHz 10 Sectors
28
SINR (dB)

Tx Antenna height 8m
Rx antenna height 1.5 m
24
No. of Rx 600 randomly distributed
Area of steady (300x300)m2 20
Noise Figure 8 dB
Noise Density -174 dBm/Hz 16
Rx Thermal noise -74 dBm
Sectorisation 3 to 10 12
Scheduler Proportional Fair 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
UE ID

Fig.5, Average data throughput per user vs. loading factor

Coverage Probability (%) Interference Ratio

100 0.60
Coverage Probability (%)

80 0.50
Interference ratio

0.40
60
0.30
40
0.20
20 0.10
0 0.00
3 sectors 4 sectors 6 sectors 8 sectors 10 sectors
Horizental Sectorisation Order

Fig.6, Base station coverage probability vs. interference in different site

Fig.3, Network model, urban area with 600 user distribution topologies

3
Therefore, an eight order sectorisation is favourable TABLE II. LOS AND OVERALL COVERAGE PROBABILITY IN DIFFERENT
SECTORISATION SCENARIOS.
choice to maintain coverage probability while increasing
the data speed in certain geographical area. If, for specific
Sectorisation LOS Coverage Coverage
case, a more data rate is required in a hot spot due to their Order Probability (%) Probability (%)
extreme demands, a vertical sectorisation is recommended 51.00 55.67
3 sectors
which will boost the 8 sector site data speed, through 4 sectors 63.50 64.17
orthogonal polarized antennas that provide orthogonal 6 sectors 67.33 67.33
beams to user (horizontal polarization (HP) and vertical 8 sectors 75.67 92.83
polarization VP)), so that the same system bandwidth is 10 sectors 75.17 78.17
utilised for both sectors as shown in Fig.1 b, and defined
in equation (2). Here, the resources are doubled in the signal reception. As the steering angle (from the
polarized beams: boresight) increase, the losses will increase. In three
sectored site, the steering should cover at least 120º
BT = Binn (HP) = Bout (VP) (2) (±60º), however, with eight sectored site, steering
where BT is the total bandwidth and Binn(HP) , Bout(VP) are requirements will decrease to only 45º, which will
the bandwidths of inner and outer vertical sectors, improve beamsteering efficiency as shown in fig.7.
respectively.
The improvement comes in term of total interference, as
Increasing the probability of having LOS exist is highly UE’s now can reject unwanted interference by steering
recommended in millimetre wave communications; high their own patterns to the parent station. Rx Beamforming
order sectorisation has increased the coverage probability has improved received signal strength by steering its main
with LOS transmission. In table II, the LOS coverage lobe toward the direction of transmission.
probabilities as well as the overall coverage probability
for different site topologies are shown. TxBF has higher gain than RxBF due to the higher
number of antennas that can be equipped in the base
It’s worth mentioning here, that new site (smallcell) station. TxBF can simultaneously assign beams to user
deployment to improve LOS coverage outperform and improve cell-edge users due to high path gain and low
sectorisation results as the operator has full control on site interference. As shown in fig.8, TxBF outperform RxBF,
which can accommodate higher pathloss and atmospheric
location, planning and optimization to provide the best
attenuation, and improve SINR to fulfil quality of
link.
experience (QoE) provision in next generation 5G
network.
Therefore, dense deployment of smallcells in millimetre
wave band is a key enabler for 5G massive connectivity to
provide access channel to a massive number of machines
and devices to enable the internet-of-Things (IoT).
However, the resulted interference should be managed
with interference cancellation techniques, here, we will
introduce beamforming as a way to supress unwanted
signal, as clarified in the next section.

V. BEAMFORMING

Beamforming (BF) is the concentration of power in Fig.7, Sectorisation order effect on beamforming, left-side is 3 sectors
certain direction, which will increase wanted signal power and right-side is 8 sectors solution
and suppress other signals (interference) efficiently.
Beamforming in millimetre wave is key enabling Beamfoming vs. Received power
0.6 1.2
technologies of next generation 5G system, as they can No BF
significantly improve signal strength, which can lead to 0.5 Rx BF 1
Tx BF
higher cell throughput and better cell edge performance 0.4 CDF No BF 0.8
compared to 4G network. CDF Rx BF
PDF

0.3 CDF Tx BF 0.6

C

Beamforming can be used in base station (TxBF) as well 0.2 0.4

as UE (RxBF), as future mm-wave handset could be 0.1 0.2
developed with higher number of antennas that can beam-
0 0
form and steer their reception and transmission with higher
-115 -110 -105 -100 -95 -90 -85 -80 -75
gain and efficiency. One of the advantages of HOS
Received Power(dBm)
recently discussed is that it reduces the losses due to beam
steering, for instance, in Tx beamforming; base station will
steer its beams to their parented subscribers for maximum Fig.8, received power in (dBm) with and without beamforming

4
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7

5
3sectors 4sectors 6sectors 8sectors 10sectors
Sectorisation order

Fig.9, Base station data throughput in different sectorisation options and

beamforming.

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