The Potential of Millimeter Waves for Future 5G Cellular and Vehicular Networks

The fifth generation of wireless technology (5G) is positioned to address the demands and business contexts of 2020 and beyond. It is expected to enable a fully mobile and connected society, related to the significant growth in connectivity and volume of traffic that will be required in the near future. In this context, the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum is rapidly emerging as a key enabler of the 5G performance demands, thanks to the large available bandwidth at such high frequencies. Communication at mmWaves, however, suffers from severe path and penetration loss, requires the maintenance of directional transmissions and calls for the definition of new control operations for both cellular and vehicular networks. Among all the challenges that will be faced, in this thesis we (i) focus on the design of mobility management strategies for devices in idle and connected mode, (ii) investigate how to deploy mmWave networking architectures, (iii) validate the potential of the mmWave technology as a means to foster the automotive revolution towards connected and autonomous transportation systems, (iv) study the most promising options to broadcast vehicular sensory observations in an efficient way, and (v) envision how 5G technologies can evolve into 6G to address the needs of the future digital society. Among other results, we demonstrate the importance of combining multiple radio technologies into a single solution that is more robust and efficient than any individual approach, discuss the trade-offs of mobility management in 3GPP NR, and evaluate practical strategies for assigning value of information in 5G networks.