Introduction to the Special Issue on Signal Processing for Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications

The eleven papers in this special section focus signal processing for millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless communications. These mmWave frequencies are defining a new era of wireless communication. The mmWave band relieves spectral gridlock at lower frequencies by offering much higher bandwidth communication channels than presently used in commercial wireless systems. The next generation of wireless local area networks is exploiting the mmWave unlicensed band at 60 GHz to provide multigigabit-per-second data rates. There is also growing interest in using mmWave licensed spectrum for 5G cellular systems. MmWave communication could also provide important benefits in other application scenarios like wearable networks, vehicular communications, or autonomous robots. The potential for mmWave is immense. Signal processing is critical for enabling the next generation of mmWave communication. Because of the wide bandwidth, overall complexity and mixed signal power consumption are significant concerns. The papers in this section bring together contributions from researchers and practitioners in the area of signal processing for wireless communications with an emphasis on communication at millimeter wave frequencies. I