Performance characterization of millimeter-wave networked sensing systems under high-mobility constraints for 6G Industrial IoT

The growth of technology and the increasing demands of data-intensive applications in terms of high throughput and low latency explain the evolution of telecommunication network standards. Beyond fifth-generation (B5G) wireless networks are expected to satisfy the growing demands of data-hungry applications such as autonomous vehicles, drones, and augmented and virtual reality, building on the new applications and features that 5G has already introduced through its high data rate and low latency support. Mm-wave is one of the strong candidates to support beyond 5G and 6G wireless communications. This paper gives a simulation-based analysis on the performance of mm-wave networks at the NS-3 simulator in terms of throughput and end-to-end latency under four conditions, namely, static, moderate mobility, high mobility and inter-cell handover conditions. The findings indicate that in the static state mm-wave will reach optimal performance with throughput of about 80 Mb/s and latency of about 30 ms. Performance is also compromised as mobility rises with throughput decreasing to 60-63 Mb/s and latency rising to 37-42 ms at moderate speeds and dropping to approximately 50 Mb/s and latency of 45-50 ms at high mobility. Inter-cell handover is the period that experiences the greatest degradation where throughput reduces to almost 44 Mb/s and the latency rises to about 70 ms. By decomposing the handover latency into a mobility-related component and a handover-specific signaling component, and comparing the resulting baseline against a velocity aware adaptive handover scheme reported in the literature, this study also provides an analytical projection of the improvement such a scheme could deliver on top of the fixed-parameter configuration characterized here. These results give reason to believe that although mm-wave communication can be used to serve high-capacity applications, its behavior is prone to the effects of mobility including beam misalignment and frequent handovers, which means that advanced mobility management and optimization methods are required to use mm-wave communication effectively in dynamic 6G operating environments.