Enabling device-to-device communications in millimeter-wave 5G cellular networks

Millimeter-wave communication is a promising technology for future 5G cellular networks to provide very high data rate (multi-gigabits-per-second) for mobile devices. Enabling D2D communications over directional mmWave networks is of critical importance to efficiently use the large bandwidth to increase network capacity. In this article, the propagation features of mmWave communication and the associated impacts on 5G cellular networks are discussed. We introduce an mmWave+4G system architecture with TDMA-based MAC structure as a candidate for 5G cellular networks. We propose an effective resource sharing scheme by allowing non-interfering D2D links to operate concurrently. We also discuss neighbor discovery for frequent handoffs in 5G cellular networks.