3D Cellular Network Architecture with Drones for beyond 5G

In this paper, a novel concept of three-dimensional (3D) cellular networks, that integrate drone base stations (drone-BS) and drone users (drone-UEs), is introduced. For this new 3D cellular network architecture, a novel framework for the deployment of drone-BSs and latency-minimal cell association for drone-UEs is proposed. For drone-BSs’ deployment, a tractable method based on the notion of truncated octahedron shapes is proposed that ensures full coverage for a given space with minimum number of drone-BSs. Then, an optimal 3D cell association scheme is determined such that the drone-UEs’ latency, considering transmission, computation, and backhaul latencies, is minimized. In particular, using optimal transport theory, the optimal 3D cell partitions are derived according to the spatial distribution of drone-UEs and the drone-BSs’ locations. Simulation results show that the proposed approach reduces the latency of drone-UEs compared to the classical cell association approach that uses a signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) criterion. In particular, the proposed approach yields a reduction of up to 46% in average latency compared to the SINR-based association. Also, it is shown that the proposed latency-optimal cell association improves the spectral efficiency of a 3D wireless cellular network of drones.

Mozaffari Mohammad, Kasgari Ali Taleb Zadeh, Saad Walid, Bennis Mehdi, Debbah Mérouane

A4 Article in conference proceedings

2018 IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2018

M. Mozaffari, A. T. Z. Kasgari, W. Saad, M. Bennis and M. Debbah, "3D Cellular Network Architecture with Drones for beyond 5G," 2018 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2018, pp. 1-6. doi: 10.1109/GLOCOM.2018.8647225

https://doi.org/10.1109/GLOCOM.2018.8647225 http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe202003248971