Title:  Analyzing the Performance of Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks with SNR-Dependent Beam Alignment Errors

Committee: 

Dr. Weitnauer, Advisor

Dr. Blough, Co-Advisor 

Dr. Stuber, Chair

Dr. Barry

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to model the effect of beam alignment errors arising due to inaccurate channel estimation and analyze the impact on the system-level performance of a directional millimeter-wave (mm-wave) cellular network. Specifically, by modeling the variance of the beam alignment errors using the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) of angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimates and utilizing stochastic geometric techniques, this research aims to quantify the loss in the achievable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and rate coverage of the network. The overall research is divided into three phases: 1) Modeling and analysis of a mm-wave only network with single-user beamforming at the BS and an isotropic antenna at the user, 2) Extension to a multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scenario, and 3) Extension to a heterogeneous network consisting of sub-6 GHz and mm-wave BSs.