Home networking at 60 GHz: challenges and research issues

Abstract

The recent developments in CMOS technology are about opening a new exciting door to affordable 60-GHz radio applications. One promising application area for 60-GHz radio is home networks in which there is an increasing demand for multi-gigabit wireless networking. The research efforts so far have generally focused on utilizing the 60-GHz band for point-to-point communication by addressing its physical aspects like propagation characteristics and channel models. The issues of 60-GHz networking at the system level have not been adequately considered. In this paper, the challenges and the research issues of 60-GHz networking are reviewed from the system-level perspective. We present them in the context of wireless local area networks for future home networks with discussions on some possible solutions for the introduced challenges.