Implementation and evaluation of a WLAN IEEE 802.11ay model in network simulator ns-3

Abstract

The IEEE Task Group ay has recently defined new physical and medium access control specifications to design the next-generation 60 GHz wireless standard IEEE 802.11ay. Built upon the predecessor IEEE 802.11ad, IEEE 802.11ay introduces various technological advancements such as Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication, channel bonding/aggregation, and new beamforming techniques to offer unprecedented performance with 100 Gbit/s of throughput and ultra-low latency. Such performance paves the way for new emerging wireless applications such as millimeterwave distribution networks, data center inter-rack connectivity, mobile offloading, augmented reality/virtual reality, and 8K video streaming. Studying and analyzing these new use-cases is of paramount importance and demands high fidelity network-level simulator due to the scarcity and cost of real IEEE 802.11ay test-beds.In this paper, we present our implementation of the IEEE 802.11ay standard in the network simulator ns-3. Our implementation captures the specifics of IEEE 802.11ay operations such as the 802.11ay frame structure, channel bonding, new beamforming training procedures, quasi-deterministic MIMO channel support, and singleuser MIMO and multi-user MIMO beamforming training. We also validate and demonstrate the performance of the aforementioned techniques by simulations. The code for our simulation model is publicly available. CCS CONCEPTS• Networks → Network simulations; Wireless local area networks.

A Comprehensive Analysis and Performance Enhancements for the IEEE 802.11ay Group Beamforming Protocol

“…We implemented IEEE 802.11ay in the system-level simulator ns-3, allowing us to evaluate high-density IEEE 802.11ay networks, taking into account different MAC layer aspects such as signalling overhead, channel access, packet collision, etc. We have expanded our previous implementation described in [9] to fully support the IEEE 802.11ay standard, including among other things Group Beamforming. Our implementation includes support for the transmission of the new Physical Layer Convergence Protocol (PLCP) frame format, the new Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCSs), all necessary new MAC headers and WiFi information elements, as well as the state machines for transmission and reception of the new TRN fields.…”

“…• We implement IEEE 802.11ay Group Beamforming in ns-3, based on the existing IEEE 802.11ay model [9]. The implementation extends the ns-3 IEEE 802.11ay model and will be made available to the research community.…”

A deep neural network based MU-MIMO beamforming training protocol for IEEE 802.11ay

“…We then conducted link abstraction to calculate the bit error rate in control mode communication specified in the IEEE 802.11ay standard, referring to studies [33] and [34]. Finally, we performed system-level simulations with network simulator (ns-3), which supports the procedure of MU-MIMO BFT specified in the standard by extending the findings of works [35] and [36].…”

SIGNiPHY: Reconciling random access with directional reception for efficient mmWave WLANs

“…We further demonstrate that SIGNiPHY ensures that none of the preamble functionalities are affected and, in fact, the decoding benefits from the SNR boost due to the quick antenna reconfiguration. Finally, we implement SIGNiPHY and several baseline solutions (RTS-CTS, CTS-to-Self, MAC filtering) in the IEEE 802.11ad/ay module of ns-3 [3] to evaluate its performance in dense scenarios with accurate modeling of the MAC layer and PHY channel of mmWave WiFi. The results show that SIGNiPHY outperforms the other solutions and improves up-link network throughput by up to 230%, depending on the scenario and baseline against which it is compared.…”