Performance Evaluation of Integrated Access and Backhaul in 5G Networks

Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) allows to ease the deployment of gNodeBs (gNBs) in a 5G network by connecting them using cellular connectivity. The radio frequencies to achieve such a result can be the same as the ones used to connect User Equipment (UE) (in-band) or specific ones can be reserved (out-of-band). Both sub 6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies can be used. IAB is relatively new and several contributions have been studying the lower layers (i.e. physical and link) in order to improve performance in scheduling and resource allocation. However, performance results are also very dependent on how the routing is implemented at the network layer which is an aspect that is not much studied in the state of the art. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of several IAB topologies against a topology without IAB-nodes. Results confirm the conclusions of the state of the art by showing that adding IAB-nodes significantly improve performance in terms of delay (more than 90 ms shorter delay) and Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) (by up to 15%), and also allows to extend the coverage area. These results reveal the high potential of IAB that could be improved even more using efficient routing.