A Comprehensive Analysis and Performance Enhancements for the IEEE 802.11ay Group Beamforming Protocol

Published

June 1, 2022

Author(s)

Nina Grosheva, Hany Assasa, Tanguy Ropitault, Pablo Jimenez Mateo, Joerg Widmer, Nada T. Golmie

Abstract

Millimeter-wave technology provides the necessary improvements in capacity and performance for the next generation of wireless networks. The new IEEE 802.11ay amendment extends IEEE 802.11ad to offer 100 Gbps connectivity in the unlicensed 60 GHz band through technical advancements such as Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO), channel bonding and aggregation. Additionally, it offers improvements to the Beamforming Training (BFT) process in order to improve its efficiency and accuracy. One new technique defined by IEEE 802.11ay is Group Beamforming, which allows to simultaneously train all stations, and significantly reduces training overhead, especially in very dense networks. In this paper, we provide an implementation of IEEE 802.11ay in ns-3 and perform, to the best of our knowledge, the first detailed system-level evaluation of the performance of the novel IEEE 802.11ay protocol. We specifically study the performance of Group Beamforming and compare it against the legacy 802.11ad BFT. We explore how different BFT approaches scale in large networks, identify the possible problems and look at how the BFT process influences the performance of the network overall. Our analysis shows that Group Beamforming can outperform the legacy approach, resulting in lower overhead and improved network performance. However, it also has severe limitations particularly when training the access points in the network. Lastly, we propose several improvements to Group Beamforming that improve performance and provide robust beamforming even in very dense scenarios.

Proceedings Title

IEEE WoWMoM 2022: IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks

Conference Dates

June 14-17, 2022

Conference Location

Belfast, GB

Conference Title

IEEE WoWMoM 2022 : IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/wowmom54355.2022.00038

Local Download

Keywords

Millimeter Wave, IEEE 802.1 1ay, Group Beamforming, 60 GHz, WiGig, ns-3, Simulations

Citation

Grosheva, N. , Assasa, H. , Ropitault, T. , Mateo, P. , Widmer, J. and Golmie, N. (2022), A Comprehensive Analysis and Performance Enhancements for the IEEE 802.11ay Group Beamforming Protocol, IEEE WoWMoM 2022: IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks, Belfast, GB, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/wowmom54355.2022.00038, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=933847 (Accessed October 13, 2025)