On the impact of blockage on the throughput of multi-tier millimeter-wave networks

We characterize upper bounds on the throughput capacity of a multi-tier millimeter wave (mmWave) network with diverse blockage probability, p(n), scaling scenarios. Communication links in the network are divided into three communication tiers sharing a single mmWave frequency. The bottom tier considers transmissions between n terminals and M (n) access points (APs). The top tier includes links between the APs and the backhaul. The bottom tier and the top tier are connected by the AP tier, referring to the communications between APs. We derive the optimal APs scaling orders M(n) for the multi-tier mmWave network under various blockage scaling scenarios p(n). To show the effectiveness of the multi-tier mmWave network, we benchmark its performance against the general mmWave network topology. By comparing the throughput scaling with and without blockage, we show that under certain blockage probability scalings, the performance degradation of the multi-tier mmWave network can be avoided by choosing the appropriate M (n). However, we find that p(n) = 1 - Θ(1/n
^1+√5/2
) is the threshold above which the throughput of multi-tier mmWave network tends to zero.