Joint Beamforming and Combining Design for mmWave Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks

Integrated access and backhaul (IAB) networks operating in full-duplex (FD) mode at millimeter wave frequencies have been actively investigated in the context of future-generation communications networks. However, conventional analog cancellation techniques cannot adequately mitigate the self-interference resulting from the FD operation and the multi-user interference. Hence, in this paper, we consider a multi-cell, multi-user IAB network and jointly design the beamforming and combining matrices to maximize the network’s weighted sum rate. Given the non-convex nature of the problem, we reformulate it using weighted minimum-mean-square-error (WMMSE) and extended fractional programming (FP) techniques followed by a block coordinate descent (BCD) approach. Extensive simulation results validate the superior performance of our proposed algorithms. Specifically, the WMMSE and FP methods can achieve 50 bits/sec/Hz higher than the benchmark scheme for a network employing three cells with two uplink and two downlink users per cell.