  The millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies offer the availability of huge
bandwidths to provide unprecedented data rates to next-generation cellular
mobile terminals. However, directional mmWave links are highly susceptible to
rapid channel variations and suffer from severe isotropic pathloss. To face
these impairments, this paper addresses the issue of tracking the channel
quality of a moving user, an essential procedure for rate prediction, efficient
handover and periodic monitoring and adaptation of the user's transmission
configuration. The performance of an innovative tracking scheme, in which
periodic refinements of the optimal steering direction are alternated to
sparser refresh events, are analyzed in terms of both achievable data rate and
energy consumption, and compared to those of a state-of-the-art approach. We
aim at understanding in which circumstances the proposed scheme is a valid
option to provide a robust and efficient mobility management solution. We show
that our procedure is particularly well suited to highly variant and unstable
mmWave environments.
