Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) Communications in Wireless Cellular Networks

Authors

Abdurrahman FoudaFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Major/Program

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor's Name

Ahmed S. Ibrahim

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Armando Barreto

Second Advisor's Committee Title

committee member

Third Advisor's Name

Kemal Akkaya

Third Advisor's Committee Title

committee member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Elias Alwan

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

committee member

Keywords

3D localization, downlink, drone, drone antenna array (DAA), in-band, integrated access and backhaul (IAB), optimization, UAV.

Date of Defense

6-27-2019

Abstract

An integrated access and backhaul (IAB) network architecture can enable flexible and fast deployment of next-generation cellular networks. However, mutual interference between access and backhaul links, small inter-site distance and spatial dynamics of user distribution pose major challenges in the practical deployment of IAB networks. To tackle these problems, we leverage the flying capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as hovering IAB-nodes and propose an interference management algorithm to maximize the overall sum rate of the IAB network. In particular, we jointly optimize the user and base station associations, the downlink power allocations for access and backhaul transmissions, and the spatial configurations of UAVs. We consider two spatial configuration modes of UAVs: distributed UAVs and drone antenna array (DAA), and show how they are intertwined with the spatial distribution of ground users. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an average of 2.9× and 6.7× gains in the received downlink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and overall network sum rate, respectively. Finally, the numerical results reveal that UAVs cannot only be used for coverage improvement but also for capacity boosting in IAB cellular networks.

Identifier

FIDC007826

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6375-0082

Previously Published In

A. Fouda, A. S. Ibrahim, I. Guvenc, and M. Ghosh, ``Interference Management Framework for Integrated Access and Backhaul Drone Networks” IEEE Access, Jun. 2019.

A. Fouda, A. S. Ibrahim, I. Guvenc, and M. Ghosh, ``UAV-Based in-band Integrated Access and Backhaul for 5G Communications,” Proc. IEEE Vehic. Technol. Conf. (VTC-Fall)}, Aug 2018, pp. 1–5.

Recommended Citation

Fouda, Abdurrahman, "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) Communications in Wireless Cellular Networks" (2019). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4212.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/4212