Design and Evaluation of Millimeter Wave Communication Services in Mobile Environments

As 5G networks expand, the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum is expected to provide additional radio resources to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband services. However, this new spectrum comes with challenging propagation characteristics, requiring revisions of established signaling concepts. Directional communications using array antennas with steerable main lobes are essential for mmWave networks. This work explores beam management in mobile environments, designing and evaluating solutions for mmWave communication services. An advanced laboratory setup, combined with a digital twin, allows for the analysis of these concepts in various scenarios. Additionally, a simulation framework has been extended to include the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology, enabling city-scale vehicular simulations. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed beam alignment and tracking methods, considering device mobility. The proposed positioning method also offers a beam alignment-based location service. An experimental validation of a custom-designed passive reflector shows significant coverage improvements with the same number of base stations and simulations highlight the potential of RIS technology for future networks like 6G. While 5G has enabled the use of mmWave spectrum, its actual utilization remains limited. This work underscores the potential and added value of mmWave spectrum for mobile services, as envisioned for 6G and beyond.