Abstract

Reliable consistent communication over millimeter-wave (mmWave) channels is a challenging problem due to their sensitivity to blocking of Line of Sight connections. MmWave is a key building block in 5G and future generation cellular networks, making solutions to this problem space important. Our aim is to use predictive control to manage and simultaneously use multiple available mmWave paths to achieve reliable consistent communication (i.e., steady transmission rate with low delay) with a multipath proxy. To this end we investigate transient solutions of Markov Modulated Fluid Queue models (MMFQ), apt because the mmWave blocking has been modeled with Markovian models. We propose a combination of models that can be solved using newly proposed matrix analytic techniques in a timely enough manner for use in real-time control. This gives us a prediction of either proxy queue distributions or probabilities of reaching proxy buffer levels over a short time horizon, enabling the proxy to make preemptive path decisions to maintain a desired Quality of Service. A proof of concept simulation study demonstrates the efficacy of our proposed MMFQ-based predictive approach over either static or purely reactive control approaches.