Measurement-based blockage and intra-cluster interference analysis in mmWave multi-point connectivity networks

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) is one key enabler for high data rates in (beyond-)5G wireless communication networks. The use of directive beams and the shorter transmission range in mmWave communications make it easily obstructed or blocked by humans in dynamic real-world scenarios. Connectivity diversity, a solution to link disruption and blockage, could be achieved by deploying distributed multi-point infrastructure. To this end, a mmWave User Equipment (UE) requires a multi-reception capability. This paper investigates how different multi-point connectivity schemes, established by a set of non-cooperative and cooperative serving Base Stations (BSs), perform in the ideal Line-of-Sight (LoS) and the worst-case blocked scenarios. The results and analysis found that the impact of intra-cluster interference on spectral efficiency is much more significant than the blockage. Without any interference cancellation, regardless of LoS or blocked scenarios, adding extra serving BSs does not necessarily improve the spectral efficiency due to the dominant inter-stream interference within a cluster of services.