D2D-Aware Device Caching in MmWave-Cellular Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel policy for device caching that facilitates popular content exchange through high-rate device-to-device (D2D) millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication. The D2D-aware caching policy splits the cacheable content into two content groups and distributes it randomly to the user equipment devices, with the goal to enable D2D connections. By exploiting the high bandwidth availability and directionality of mmWaves, we ensure high rates for the D2D transmissions, while mitigating the co-channel interference that limits the throughput gains of the D2D communication in the sub-6-GHz bands. Furthermore, based on a stochastic-geometry modeling of the network topology, we analytically derive the offloading gain that is achieved by the proposed policy and the distribution of the content retrieval delay considering both half- and full-duplex modes for the D2D communication. The accuracy of the proposed analytical framework is validated through Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, for a wide range of a content popularity indicator, the results show that the proposed policy achieves higher offloading and lower content-retrieval delays than existing state-of-the-art approaches.