On the Performance of Indoor Ultra-Dense Networks for Millimetre-Wave Cellular Systems

The combination of Ultra-Dense Networks (UDN) and millimetre Waves (mmW) communications has recently been recognized by the industry and research community as a promising solution to cope with the evolving requirements of the fifth generation (5G) of cellular networks. Indeed, the problem of capacity provisioning has drawn the attention to mmW due to the spectrum scarcity at lower frequency bands. Additionally, the densification process has already started with the introduction of the well-known Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets). Thus the use of UDN is another natural approach for increasing the overall network capacity, especially in such indoor environments where high data rates and service demand are expected. In this paper, the combination of the previous paradigms is analysed by means of comprehensive system-level simulations. Unfortunately, the particularities of indoor deployments make radio propagation difficult to predict and limit the macro-cell coverage, hence these simulations have been evaluated using advanced Ray Tracing (RT) techniques. Results confirm the superior system performance of the mmW and UDN tandem with respect to current operating bands.