A Survey on Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks

Benefiting from the usage of the high-frequency band, utilizing part of the large available bandwidth for wireless backhauling is feasible without considerable performance sacrifice. In this context, integrated access and backhaul (IAB) was proposed by 3GPP to reduce the fiber optics deployment cost of 5G and beyond networks. In this paper, we first give a brief introduction of IAB based on the 3GPP release. After that, we survey existing research on IAB networks, the integrations of IAB to cache-enabled network, optical communication transport network, and the non-terrestrial network. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities that might arise while developing and commercializing IAB networks.