Performance of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 coexistence: spectrum sharing based on optimized duty cycle

Abstract

Smart mobile device usage is increasing rapidly; hence, cellular operators face the challenge of spectrum resource shortage. To address this issue, researchers have explored several approaches to achieving a highly efficient utilization of wireless communication network resources. One promising solution lies in the fair coexistence of 5G/Wi-Fi 6 in the unlicensed 5 GHz band. This research investigates a duty cycle mechanism to perform fair spectrum sharing between these two wireless technologies, intending to optimize performance metrics such as throughput, capacity, bit error rate (BER), and latency. The results of this study demonstrate a significant improvement in system performance when employing the proposed coexistence method compared to using 5G alone in a single cell. Specifically, a 40% increase in throughput and a 14% improvement in capacity are reported. Moreover, for a single cell using Wi-Fi 6 only, the BER was reduced by 19%, and the latency was less than one millisecond. Additionally, the duty cycle mechanism reported here is used to prioritize call services, with the blocking probability for voice-over internet protocol (VoIP) and video stream calls being improved. Furthermore, the adaptive bandwidth reservation reduced the blocking probability of video calls from 21.8% to 0.9% compared to the fixed method; no VoIP calls were blocked.