Optimized Base Station Deployment and Assignment for Smart Factory Millimeter Wave Networks

Millimeter wave communication (mmWave) is a promising technology that can be used to satisfy the high data rate and low latency requirements of emerging smart factory automation. In an mmWave network, to ensure reliable uplink and downlink connectivity for a large number of devices anywhere on a factory floor, the base station (BS) deployment must be carefully determined. The BS-to-device assignment configuration must also be considered to optimize the network throughput for a certain deployment. In this paper, we introduce a method to identify the optimal base station count and placement for a given factory floor layout with known obstacles, and an algorithm to optimally assign BSs to devices. The simulation results show that the proposed BS assignment method outperforms existing methods and that the BS placement method surpasses manual placement, improving both the average throughput and coverage probability of the network. The BS assignment algorithm extends the Worst Connection Swapping method from prior work, and the BS placement method is based on the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm. Our methods consider the directional beam interference, blockage effects, and load balancing between BSs to accurately optimize the network performance for the given factory environment.