A Virtual Time-Slot Allocation Throughput Enhancement Scheme with Multiple Modulations for a Multi-Gbps Millimeter-Wave WPAN System

This paper proposes a virtual time-slot allocation (VTSA) throughput enhancement scheme with multiple modulation methods to realize a multi-Gbps time division multiple access (TDMA) wireless personal area network (WPAN) system in a realistic millimeter-wave residential multipath environment. The VTSA scheme allows multiple communication links in the network to simultaneously use the same time-slot, thus increases system throughput. Additionally, by coupling to higher-order modulation schemes, higher data rate can be achieved. The combination of both is found to be capable of realizing a multi- Gbps WPAN system. However, the employment of the VTSA scheme causes the generation of co-channel interference (CCI) in the system, and CCI is found to affect the modulation schemes differently. This paper investigates the tradeoff parameters between varying CCI due to the employment of the VTSA scheme, and the higher-order modulations applied. As a result, it is found that the VTSA scheme is capable of increasing 30% of the system throughput. It is also found that in low CCI environment, 16QAM offers the highest achievable system throughput, whereas when CCI becomes higher, the more-robust BPSK offers the highest throughput.