Link Recovery Scheme for Multi-Point mmWave Communications
Directional transmission in millimeter wave (mmWave) communications results in prolonged access times. This is attributed to the increased number of conducted measurements to determine optimum beam directions at the mobile station (MS) and base station (BS) that return the highest received signal levels. Additionally, once these beams are determined and links are established for data-planes, then blockage effects and outages make these links more vulnerable to link failures, resulting in communications drops. Hence, dynamic and fast recovery schemes are required to maintain communications sessions following the beam access stage. In this paper, a novel recovery access scheme is proposed for multi-point mmWave communications based on fog access points (AP). Namely, the scheme leverages diversity and network coding techniques to achieve near-instantaneous recovery times, without the need for beam scanning. The scheme features near-instantaneous data recovery times and efficient power consumption as compared to traditional recovery methods.