TDD frame design for interference handling in mobile IAB networks

Integrated access and backhaul (IAB) is envisioned as a possible solution to address the need for network densification in situations where fiber connection is not viable. In Release 18, 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) will take another step on extending IAB capabilities. With mobile IAB (mIAB), IAB nodes can be deployed within vehicles, e.g., buses. As in every new technology, performance assessment and evaluation of the impact of interference is of interest for industry and academia. In this paper, we present contributions on those topics. First, we evaluate the performance of mIAB compared to fiber-connected deployments. Moreover, we study the impact of interference on the performance of mIAB networks and propose a solution based on inserting silent slots on the time division duplex (TDD) frame pattern. According to our simulation results, mIAB is capable of improving performance of onboard user equipments (UEs) without harming too much the quality of service (QoS) of surrounding UEs. Furthermore, we show that the TDD frame pattern should be carefully designed to account for scenarios with different levels of interference.