On medium access control schemes for wireless networks in the millimeter-wave and Terahertz bands

Abstract Millimeter wave (mmW) and Terahertz band (THz) play important roles for future wireless communications to support ultra-high data rates. However, the high propagation loss and inherent directivity features pose critical challenges on the medium access control (MAC) protocol design to fully exploit their potential benefits, including deafness, control channel selection mechanism, line-of-sight (LoS) blockage, mobility management and spatial reuse strategy. To address these challenges, in-depth literature survey is conducted on MAC protocols for the mmW and THz bands wireless networks in this paper. A taxonomy of the MAC protocols based on their network architectures and the channel access mechanisms is presented. Furthermore, emphasizing the benefits and requirements of the MAC design choices, extensive qualitative comparison is described on the advantages and disadvantages among the different directional MAC design choices. Numerical evaluations on delay, network throughput, outage probability, and fairness are detailed to guide the corresponding performance-oriented design selections. Finally, some open problems and possible future directions on the mmW and THz MAC design are respectively elaborated.