pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Learning a Gaussian Mixture Model from Imperfect Training Data for Robust Channel Estimation
Authors: Benedikt Fesl, Nurettin Turan, Michael Joham, Wolfgang Utschick
Date: 2023-01-16 00:00:00

In this letter, we propose a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based channel estimator which is learned on imperfect training data, i.e., the training data are solely comprised of noisy and sparsely allocated pilot observations. In a practical application, recent pilot observations at the base station (BS) can be utilized for training. This is in sharp contrast to state-of-theart machine learning (ML) techniques where a training dataset consisting of perfect channel state information (CSI) samples is a prerequisite, which is generally unaffordable. In particular, we propose an adapted training procedure for fitting the GMM which is a generative model that represents the distribution of all potential channels associated with a specific BS cell. To this end, the necessary modifications of the underlying expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm are derived. Numerical results show that the proposed estimator performs close to the case where perfect CSI is available for the training and exhibits a higher robustness against imperfections in the training data as compared to state-of-the-art ML techniques.
Hearables: Ear EEG Based Driver Fatigue Detection
Authors: Metin C. Yarici, Pierluigi Amadori, Harry Davies, Takashi Nakamura, Nico Lingg, Yiannis Demiris, Danilo P. Mandic
Date: 2023-01-16 00:00:00
Tasks: EEG, Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Ear EEG based driver fatigue monitoring systems have the potential to provide a seamless, efficient, and feasibly deployable alternative to existing scalp EEG based systems, which are often cumbersome and impractical. However, the feasibility of detecting the relevant delta, theta, alpha, and beta band EEG activity through the ear EEG is yet to be investigated. Through measurements of scalp and ear EEG on ten subjects during a simulated, monotonous driving experiment, this study provides statistical analysis of characteristic ear EEG changes that are associated with the transition from alert to mentally fatigued states, and subsequent testing of a machine learning based automatic fatigue detection model. Novel numerical evidence is provided to support the feasibility of detection of mental fatigue with ear EEG that is in agreement with widely reported scalp EEG findings. This study paves the way for the development of ultra-wearable and readily deployable hearables based driver fatigue monitoring systems.
Min-Path-Tracing: A Diffraction Aware Alternative to Image Method in Ray Tracing
Authors: Jérome Eertmans, Claude Oestges, Laurent Jacques
Date: 2023-01-16 00:00:00

For more than twenty years, Ray Tracing methods have continued to improve on both accuracy and computational time aspects. However, most state-of-the-art image-based ray tracers still rely on a description of the environment that only contains planar surfaces. They are also limited by the number of diffractions they can simulate. We present Min-Path-Tracing (MPT), an alternative to the image method that can handle diffractions seamlessly, while also leveraging the possibility to use different geometries for surfaces or edges, such as parabolic mirrors. MPT uses implicit representations of objects to write the path finding challenge as a minimization problem. We further show that multiple diffractions can be important in some situations, which MPT is capable to simulate without increasing neither the computational nor the implementation complexity.
Multiple Sub-Pixel Target Detection for Hyperspectral Imaging Systems
Authors: Pia Addabbo, Nicomino Fiscante, Gaetano Giunta, Danilo Orlando, Giuseppe Ricci, Silvia Liberata Ullo
Date: 2023-01-16 00:00:00

Hyperspectral target detection is a task of primary importance in remote sensing since it allows identification, location, and discrimination of target features. To this end, the reflectance maps, which contain the spectral signatures and related abundances of the materials in the observed scene, are often used. However, due to the low spatial resolution of most hyperspectral sensors, targets occupy a fraction of the pixel and, hence, the spectra of different sub-pixel targets (including the background spectrum) are mixed together within the same pixel. To solve this issue, in this paper, we adopt a generalized replacement model accounting for multiple sub-pixel target spectra and formulate the detection problem at hand as a binary hypothesis test where under the alternative hypothesis the target is modeled in terms of a linear combination of endmembers whose coefficients also account for the presence of the background. Then, we devise detection architectures based upon the generalized likelihood ratio test where the unknown parameters are suitably estimated through procedures inspired by the maximum likelihood approach. The performances of the proposed decision schemes are evaluated by means of both synthetic as well as real data and compared with an analogous counterpart by showing the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.
An information-theoretic branch-and-prune algorithm for discrete phase optimization of RIS in massive MIMO
Authors: I. Zakir Ahmed, Hamid R. Sadjadpour, Shahram Yousefi
Date: 2023-01-16 00:00:00

In this paper, we consider passive RIS-assisted multi-user communication between wireless nodes to improve the blocked line-of-sight (LOS) link performance. The wireless nodes are assumed to be equipped with Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output antennas, hybrid precoder, combiner, and low-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). We first derive the expression for the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) of the Mean Squared Error (MSE) of the received and combined signal at the intended receiver under interference. By appropriate design of the hybrid precoder, combiner, and RIS phase settings, it can be shown that the MSE achieves the CRLB. We further show that minimizing the MSE w.r.t. the phase settings of the RIS is equivalent to maximizing the throughput and energy efficiency of the system. We then propose a novel Information-Directed Branch-and-Prune (IDBP) algorithm to derive the phase settings of the RIS. We, for the first time in the literature, use an information-theoretic measure to decide on the pruning rules in a tree-search algorithm to arrive at the RIS phase-setting solution, which is vastly different compared to the traditional branch-and-bound algorithm that uses bounds of the cost function to define the pruning rules. In addition, we provide the theoretical guarantees of the near-optimality of the RIS phase-setting solution thus obtained using the Asymptotic Equipartition property. This also ensures near-optimal throughput and MSE performance.
Efficiently Computing Sparse Fourier Transforms of $q$-ary Functions
Authors: Yigit Efe Erginbas, Justin Singh Kang, Amirali Aghazadeh, Kannan Ramchandran
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00

Fourier transformations of pseudo-Boolean functions are popular tools for analyzing functions of binary sequences. Real-world functions often have structures that manifest in a sparse Fourier transform, and previous works have shown that under the assumption of sparsity the transform can be computed efficiently. But what if we want to compute the Fourier transform of functions defined over a $q$-ary alphabet? These types of functions arise naturally in many areas including biology. A typical workaround is to encode the $q$-ary sequence in binary, however, this approach is computationally inefficient and fundamentally incompatible with the existing sparse Fourier transform techniques. Herein, we develop a sparse Fourier transform algorithm specifically for $q$-ary functions of length $n$ sequences, dubbed $q$-SFT, which provably computes an $S$-sparse transform with vanishing error as $q^n \rightarrow \infty$ in $O(Sn)$ function evaluations and $O(S n^2 \log q)$ computations, where $S = q^{n\delta}$ for some $\delta < 1$. Under certain assumptions, we show that for fixed $q$, a robust version of $q$-SFT has a sample complexity of $O(Sn^2)$ and a computational complexity of $O(Sn^3)$ with the same asymptotic guarantees. We present numerical simulations on synthetic and real-world RNA data, demonstrating the scalability of $q$-SFT to massively high dimensional $q$-ary functions.
Bayesian Models of Functional Connectomics and Behavior
Authors: Niharika Shimona D'Souza
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Representation Learning, Variable Selection

The problem of jointly analysing functional connectomics and behavioral data is extremely challenging owing to the complex interactions between the two domains. In addition, clinical rs-fMRI studies often have to contend with limited samples, especially in the case of rare disorders. This data-starved regimen can severely restrict the reliability of classical machine learning or deep learning designed to predict behavior from connectivity data. In this work, we approach this problem from the lens of representation learning and bayesian modeling. To model the distributional characteristics of the domains, we first examine the ability of approaches such as Bayesian Linear Regression, Stochastic Search Variable Selection after performing a classical covariance decomposition. Finally, we present a fully bayesian formulation for joint representation learning and prediction. We present preliminary results on a subset of a publicly available clinical rs-fMRI study on patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Energy-Efficient Physical Layer Security for Wearable IoT Devices
Authors: Abel Zandamela, Nicola Marchetti, Adam Narbudowicz
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00

This work proposes an energy-efficient Directional Modulation (DM) scheme for on-body Internet of Things (IoT) devices. DM performance is tested using a 5-port stacked-patch MIMO antenna under two scenarios: a free space case and using a four-layer human forearm phantom to simulate the user's wrist. It is demonstrated that the scheme achieves steerable secure transmissions across the entire horizontal plane. With a low Bit Error Rate (BER) of ${1.5\times10^{-5}}$ at the desired directions, eavesdroppers experience a high error rate of up to ${0.498}$. Furthermore, this work investigates the DM performance using a subset of the stacked patches in the MIMO antenna, revealing that some combinations achieve a low BER performance using a lower antenna profile, albeit high side-lobes of BER${<10^{-2}}$ seen outside the desired region. Overall, the solution is proposed as a good candidate to enable secure wireless communications in emerging wearable IoT devices that are subject to size and energy constraints.
Cell-Free Massive MIMO in O-RAN: Energy-Aware Joint Orchestration of Cloud, Fronthaul, and Radio Resources
Authors: Özlem Tuğfe Demir, Meysam Masoudi, Emil Björnson, Cicek Cavdar
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00

For the energy-efficient deployment of cell-free massive MIMO functionality in a practical wireless network, the end-to-end (from radio site to the cloud) energy-aware operation is essential. In line with the cloudification and virtualization in the open radio access networks (O-RAN), it is indisputable to envision prospective cell-free infrastructure on top of the O-RAN architecture. In this paper, we explore the performance and power consumption of cell-free massive MIMO technology in comparison with traditional small-cell systems, in the virtualized O-RAN architecture. We compare two different functional split options and different resource orchestration mechanisms. In the end-to-end orchestration scheme, we aim to minimize the end-to-end power consumption by jointly allocating the radio, optical fronthaul, and virtualized cloud processing resources. We compare end-to-end orchestration with two other schemes: i) "radio-only" where radio resources are optimized independently from the cloud and ii) "local cloud coordination" where orchestration is only allowed among a local cluster of radio units. We develop several algorithms to solve the end-to-end power minimization and sum spectral efficiency maximization problems. The numerical results demonstrate that end-to-end resource allocation with fully virtualized fronthaul and cloud resources provides a substantial additional power saving than the other resource orchestration schemes.
Deep-learning-aided Low-complexity DOA Estimators for Ultra-Massive MIMO Overlapped Receive Array
Authors: YiWen Chen, Xichao Zhan, Feng Shu
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00

Massive multiple input multiple output(MIMO)-based fully-digital receive antenna arrays bring huge amount of complexity to both traditional direction of arrival(DOA) estimation algorithms and neural network training, which is difficult to satisfy high-precision and low-latency applications in future wireless communications. To address this challenge, two estimators called OPSC and OSAP-CBAM-CNN are proposed in this paper. The computational complexity of the traditional DOA algorithm is first considered to be reduced by dividing the total set of antennas into multiple overlapped subarrays uniformly, each subarray crosses each other proportionally and performs DOA estimation to generate coarse angles, and all angles are coherently combined to get the better estimation, the final DOA estimation can given by maximum likelihood alternating projection(ML-AP) in a very small range, which has a better performance than the direct partitioning of subarrays. To further reduce the complexity of traditional estimation algorithms, deep neural networks(DNN) are utilized to offline train the relationship between the received signal covariance matrix and the estimated angles. Due to the high complexity of the training network based on large-scale arrays, in the OSAP-CBAM-CNN method, the complex network is divided into several smaller networks based on the overlapped subarray to give rough DOA estimations, followed by coherent combining and AP algorithm to get the final DOA estimation. Simulation results show that as the number of antennas goes to large-scale, the proposed methods can achieve a remarkable complexity reduction over conventional ML-AP algorithm.
Multiple-Antenna Aided Aeronautical Communications in Air-Ground Integrated Networks: Channel Estimation, Reliable Transmission, and Multiple Access
Authors: Jingjing Zhao, YanBo Zhu, Kaiquan Cai, Zhen Gao, Zhu Han, Lajos Hanzo
Date: 2023-01-15 00:00:00
Tasks: Management

To provide seamless coverage during all flight phases, aeronautical communications systems (ACS) have to integrate space-based, air-based, as well as ground-based platforms to formulate aviation-oriented space-air-ground integrated networks (SAGINs). In continental areas, L-band aeronautical broadband communications (ABC) are gaining popularity for supporting air traffic management (ATM) modernization. However, L-band ABC faces the challenges of spectrum congestion and severe interference due to the legacy systems. To circumvent these, we propose a novel multiple-antenna aided L-band ABC paradigm to tackle the key issues of reliable and high-rate air-to-ground (A2G) transmissions. Specifically, we first introduce the development roadmap of the ABC. Furthermore, we discuss the peculiarities of the L-band ABC propagation environment and the distinctive challenges of the associated multiple-antenna techniques. To overcome these challenges, we propose an advanced multiple-antenna assisted L-band ABC paradigm from the perspective of channel estimation, reliable transmission, and multiple access. Finally, we shed light on the compelling research directions of the aviation component of SAGINs.
Hand Gesture Recognition through Reflected Infrared Light Wave Signals
Authors: Md Zobaer Islam, Li Yu, Hisham Abuella, John F. O'Hara, Christopher Crick, Sabit Ekin
Date: 2023-01-14 00:00:00
Tasks: Gesture Recognition, Hand Gesture Recognition, Hand-Gesture Recognition

In this study, we present a wireless (non-contact) gesture recognition method using only incoherent light wave signals reflected from a human subject. In comparison to existing radar, light shadow, sound and camera-based sensing systems, this technology uses a low-cost ubiquitous light source (e.g., infrared LED) to send light towards the subject's hand performing gestures and the reflected light is collected by a light sensor (e.g., photodetector). This light wave sensing system recognizes different gestures from the variations of the received light intensity within a 20-35cm range. The hand gesture recognition results demonstrate up to 96% accuracy on average. The developed system can be utilized in numerous Human-computer Interaction (HCI) applications as a low-cost and non-contact gesture recognition technology.
Flexible Multimode-Based Beamforming MIMO Antenna
Authors: Abel Zandamela, Nicola Marchetti, Adam Narbudowicz
Date: 2023-01-14 00:00:00

This work proposes compact, flexible Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas. The design principle is based on the excitation of different orthogonal radiating modes within the same antenna volume. Via phase control of the excited modes, beamforming is demonstrated in azimuth and elevation planes using single-layered structures. For flexibility, the antennas are designed using Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as the substrate. Numerical results demonstrate that isolation better than 23 dB is realized in all investigated antennas under different bend configurations. Moreover, the proposed technique demonstrates an antenna with unidirectional beamsteering across the entire elevation plane, and a second design realizes a bidirectional beamsteering in the horizontal plane. Overall, the results highlight the potential of multimode-based beamforming for flexible MIMO antennas in Internet of Things (IoT) systems.
State Estimation of Wireless Sensor Networks in the Presence of Data Packet Drops and Non-Gaussian Noise
Authors: Jiacheng He, Gang Wang, Xuemei Mao, Song Gao, Bei Peng
Date: 2023-01-14 00:00:00
Tasks: State Estimation

Distributed Kalman filter approaches based on the maximum correntropy criterion have recently demonstrated superior state estimation performance to that of conventional distributed Kalman filters for wireless sensor networks in the presence of non-Gaussian impulsive noise. However, these algorithms currently fail to take account of data packet drops. The present work addresses this issue by proposing a distributed maximum correntropy Kalman filter that accounts for data packet drops (i.e., the DMCKF-DPD algorithm). The effectiveness and feasibility of the algorithm are verified by simulations conducted in a wireless sensor network with intermittent observations due to data packet drops under a non-Gaussian noise environment. Moreover, the computational complexity of the DMCKF-DPD algorithm is demonstrated to be moderate compared with that of a conventional distributed Kalman filter, and we provide a sufficient condition to ensure the convergence of the proposed algorithm.
Minimum Error Entropy Rauch-Tung-Striebel Smoother
Authors: Jiacheng He, Hongwei Wang, Gang Wang, Shan Zhong, Bei Peng
Date: 2023-01-14 00:00:00
Tasks: State Estimation

Outliers and impulsive disturbances often cause heavy-tailed distributions in practical applications, and these will degrade the performance of Gaussian approximation smoothing algorithms. To improve the robustness of the Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) smother against complicated non-Gaussian noises, a new RTS-smoother integrated with the minimum error entropy (MEE) criterion (MEE-RTS) is proposed for linear systems, which is also extended to the state estimation of nonlinear systems by utilizing the Taylor series linearization approach. The mean error behavior, the mean square error behavior, as well as the computational complexity of the MEE-RTS smoother are analyzed. According to simulation results, the proposed smoothers perform better than several robust solutions in terms of steady-state error.
Optimization of the energy efficiency in Smart Internet of Vehicles assisted by MEC
Authors: Jiafei Fu, Pengcheng Zhu, Jingyu Hua, Jiamin Li, Jiangang Wen
Date: 2023-01-14 00:00:00
Tasks: CPU, Edge-computing

Smart Internet of Vehicles (IoV) as a promising application in Internet of Things (IoT) emerges with the development of the fifth generation mobile communication (5G). Nevertheless, the heterogeneous requirements of sufficient battery capacity, powerful computing ability and energy efficiency for electric vehicles face great challenges due to the explosive data growth in 5G and the sixth generation of mobile communication (6G) networks. In order to alleviate the deficiencies mentioned above, this paper proposes a mobile edge computing (MEC) enabled IoV system, in which electric vehicle nodes (eVNs) upload and download data through an anchor node (AN) which is integrated with a MEC server. Meanwhile, the anchor node transmitters radio signal to electric vehicles with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technology so as to compensate the battery limitation of eletric vehicles. Moreover, the spectrum efficiency is further improved by multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) and full-duplex (FD) technologies which is equipped at the anchor node. In consideration of the issues above, we maximize the average energy efficiency of electric vehicles by jointly optimize the CPU frequency, vehicle transmitting power, computing tasks and uplink rate. Since the problem is nonconvex, we propose a novel alternate interior-point iterative scheme (AIIS) under the constraints of computing tasks, energy consumption and time latency. Results and discussion section verifies the effectiveness of the proposed AIIS scheme comparing with the benchmark schemes.
Exploring Automatic Gym Workouts Recognition Locally On Wearable Resource-Constrained Devices
Authors: Sizhen Bian, Xiaying Wang, Tommaso Polonelli, Michele Magno
Date: 2023-01-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Activity Recognition, Quantization

Automatic gym activity recognition on energy- and resource-constrained wearable devices removes the human-interaction requirement during intense gym sessions - like soft-touch tapping and swiping. This work presents a tiny and highly accurate residual convolutional neural network that runs in milliwatt microcontrollers for automatic workouts classification. We evaluated the inference performance of the deep model with quantization on three resource-constrained devices: two microcontrollers with ARM-Cortex M4 and M7 core from ST Microelectronics, and a GAP8 system on chip, which is an open-sourced, multi-core RISC-V computing platform from GreenWaves Technologies. Experimental results show an accuracy of up to 90.4% for eleven workouts recognition with full precision inference. The paper also presents the trade-off performance of the resource-constrained system. While keeping the recognition accuracy (88.1%) with minimal loss, each inference takes only 3.2 ms on GAP8, benefiting from the 8 RISC-V cluster cores. We measured that it features an execution time that is 18.9x and 6.5x faster than the Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M7 cores, showing the feasibility of real-time on-board workouts recognition based on the described data set with 20 Hz sampling rate. The energy consumed for each inference on GAP8 is 0.41 mJ compared to 5.17 mJ on Cortex-M4 and 8.07 mJ on Cortex-M7 with the maximum clock. It can lead to longer battery life when the system is battery-operated. We also introduced an open data set composed of fifty sessions of eleven gym workouts collected from ten subjects that is publicly available.