Millimeter-Wave Communication with Out-of-Band Information

Configuring the antenna arrays is the main source of overhead in mmWave communication systems. In high mobility scenarios, the problem is exacerbated, as achieving the highest rates requires frequent link reconfiguration. One solution is to exploit spatial congruence between signals in different frequency bands and extract mmWave channel parameters with the aid of side information obtained in another band. In this article we propose the concept of out-of-band information aided mmWave communication. We analyze different strategies to leverage information derived from sensors or from other communication systems operating at sub-6 GHz bands to help configure the mmWave communication link. The overhead reductions that can be obtained when exploiting out-of-band information are characterized in a preliminary study. Finally, the challenges associated with using out-of-band signals as a source of side information at mmWave are analyzed in detail.