Mobility management is a major challenge for millimeter-wave (mmWave) cellular networks. In particular, directional beamforming in mmWave devices renders high-speed mobility support very complex. This complexity, however, is not limited to system design but also the performance estimation and evaluation. Hence, some have turned their attention to stochastic modeling of mmWave vehicular communication to derive closed-form expressions that can characterize the coverage and rate behavior of the network. In this article, we model and analyze the beam management for mmWave vehicular networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that goes beyond coverage and rate analysis. Specifically, we focus on a multi-lane divided highway scenario in which base stations and vehicles are present on both sides of the highway. In addition to providing analytical expressions for the average number of beam switching and handover events, we provide design insights for the operators to fine-tune their network through more informed choice of system parameters, including the number of resources dedicated to channel feedback and beam alignment operations.

An effective method for supporting the large volume of information required for future vehicular networks is leveraging caching techniques as well as relying on millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies. However, characterizing such a system under mmWave directional beamforming and vehicular mobility is a complex task. In this article, we propose the first stochastic geometry framework for V2X caching in mmWave networks. In addition to common parameters considered in stochastic geometry models, our derivations account for caching as well as the speed and the trajectory of the vehicles. Furthermore, our evaluations provide interesting design insights: (i) higher base station/vehicle densities does not necessarily improve caching performance; (ii) although using a narrower beam leads to a higher SINR, it also reduces the connectivity probability; and (iii) V2X caching can be an inexpensive way of compensating some of the unwanted mmWave channel characteristics.