Two-hop-relay architecture for next-generation WWAN/WLAN integration

Abstract

Next-generation wireless systems (4G and beyond) are envisioned to provide ubiquitous high-speed access over heterogeneous radio technologies. The integration of cellular WWANs and WLANs has drawn considerable attention from the research and commercial communities (e.g., 3G+802.11). Emerging dualmode mobile terminals could provide flexibility and system performance enhancement by providing seamless roaming between WWANs and WLANs. In this article we propose a novel integrated WWAN/WLAN two-hop-relay architecture that both enhances the system capacity of existing WWAN systems and extends the system coverage of WLAN terminals. The proposed two-hop-relay architecture can be considered as a system-level macro diversity technique that utilizes temporal channel quality variation to achieve increased system capacity. Significant capacity gain is achieved with the proposed twohop-relay architecture in both a fixed-rate uplink CDMA system and a variable data rate downlink HDR-like system.