Blockage Mitigation Method Employing Antenna Height and User Position in Millimeter-wave Communications

Abstract

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications are susceptible to blockage by dynamic objects such as pedestrians and vehicles. This paper proposes a low-complexity blockage mitigation method employing information about the antenna height and user position in mmWave communications. In the proposed method, taking advantage of the fact that the possible throughput considering the impact of blockage can be theoretically expressed by static parameters, such as the antenna height and user position, base station (BS) selection, including the impact of blockage, can be performed without the need for real-time sensing of instantaneous channel state information (CSI). Moreover, because an increase in antenna height reduces the blockage probability, the proposed approach can realize BS selection with a height diversity benefit. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in comparison with a traditional method that considers only the link distance via computer simulations.