pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Enabling Ultra-Dense, Open-RAN, Vehicular Networks with Non-Linear MIMO Processing
Authors: George N. Katsaros, Konstantinos Nikitopoulos
Date: 2024-09-22 00:00:00

Future autonomous transportation systems necessitate network infrastructure capable of accommodating massive vehicular connectivity, despite the scarce availability of frequency resources. Current approaches for achieving such required high spectral efficiency, rely on the utilization of Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology. However, conventional MIMO processing approaches, based on linear processing principles, leave much of the system's capacity heavily unexploited. They typically require a large number of power-consuming antennas and RF-chains to support a substantially smaller number of concurrently connected devices, even when the devices are transmitting at low rates. This translates to inflated operational costs that become substantial, particularly in ultra-dense, metropolitan-scale deployments. Therefore, the question is how to efficiently harness this unexploited MIMO capacity and fully leverage the available RF infrastructure to maximize device connectivity. Addressing this challenge, this work proposes an Open Radio Access Network (Open-RAN) deployment, with Massively Parallelizable Non-linear (MPNL) MIMO processing for densely deployed, and power-efficient vehicular networks. For the first time, we quantify the substantial gains of MPNL in achieving massive vehicular connectivity with significantly reduced utilized antennas, compared to conventional linear approaches, and without any throughput loss. We find that an Open-RAN-based realization exploiting the MPNL advancements can yield an increase of over 300% in terms of concurrently transmitting single-antenna vehicles in urban mobility settings and for various Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Network (V2N) use cases. In this context, we discuss how implementing MPNL allows for simpler and more densely deployed radio units, paving the way for fully autonomous and sustainable transportation systems.
DNN-based Enhanced DOA Sensing via Massive MIMO Receiver with Switches-based Hybrid Architecture
Authors: YiFan Li, Kang Wei, Linqiong Jia, Jun Zou, Feng Shu, Yaoliang Song, Jiangzhou Wang
Date: 2024-09-22 00:00:00

Switches-based hybrid architecture has attracted much attention, especially in directional-of-arrival (DOA) sensing, due to its ability of significantly reducing the hardware cost by compressing massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) arrays with switching networks. However, this structure will lead to a degradation in the degrees of freedom (DOF) and accuracy of DOA estimation. To address these two issues, we first propose a switches-based sparse hybrid array (SW-SHA). In this method, we design a dynamic switching network to form a synthesized sparse array, i.e., SW-SHA, that can enlarge the virtual aperture obtained by the difference co-array, thereby significantly enhancing the DOF. Second, in order to improve the DOA estimation accuracy of switches-based hybrid arrays, a deep neural network (DNN)-based method called ASN-DNN is proposed. It includes an antenna selection network (ASN) for optimizing the switch connections based on the criterion of minimizing the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) under the peak sidelobe level (PSL) constraint and a DNN for DOA estimation. Then by integrating ASN and DNN into an iterative process, the ASN-DNN is obtained. Furthermore, the closed-form expression of CRLB for DOA estimation is derived to evaluate the performance lower bound of switches-based hybrid arrays and provide a benchmark for ASN-DNN. The simulation results show the proposed ASN-DNN can achieve a greater performance than traditional methods, especially in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions.
On Broad-Beam Reflection for Dual-Polarized RIS-Assisted MIMO Systems
Authors: Parisa Ramezani, Maksym A. Girnyk, Emil Björnson
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Stochastic Optimization

The use of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) for aiding user-specific transmission has been widely explored. However, little attention has been devoted to utilizing RIS for assisting cell-specific transmission, where the RIS needs to reflect signals in a broad angular range. Furthermore, although modern communication systems operate in two polarizations, the majority of the works on RIS consider a uni-polarized surface, only reflecting the signals in one polarization. To fill these gaps, we study a downlink broadcasting scenario where a base station (BS) sends a cell-specific signal to all the users residing at unknown locations with the assistance of a dual-polarized RIS. We utilize the duality between the auto-correlation function and power spectrum in the space/spatial frequency domain to design configurations for broad-beam reflection. We first consider a free-space line-of-sight BS-RIS channel and show that the RIS configuration matrices must form a Golay complementary array pair for broad-beam radiation. We also present how to form Golay complementary array pairs based on known Golay complementary sequence pairs. We then consider an arbitrary BS-RIS channel and propose an algorithm based on stochastic optimization to find RIS configurations that produce a practically broad beam by relaxing the requirement on uniform broadness. Numerical simulations are finally conducted to corroborate the analyses and evaluate the performance.
Analyzing the Impact of Class Transitions on the Design of Pattern Recognition-based Myoelectric Control Schemes
Authors: Shriram Tallam Puranam Raghu, Dawn T. MacIsaac, Erik J. Scheme
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00
Tasks: continuous-control, Continuous Control

Despite continued efforts to improve classification accuracy, it has been reported that offline accuracy is a poor indicator of the usability of pattern recognition-based myoelectric control. One potential source of this disparity is the existence of transitions between contraction classes that happen during regular use and are reported to be problematic for pattern recognition systems. Nevertheless, these transitions are often ignored or undefined during both the training and testing processes. In this work, we propose a set of metrics for analyzing the transitions that occur during the voluntary changes between contraction classes during continuous control. These metrics quantify the common types of errors that occur during transitions and compare them to existing metrics that apply only to the steady-state portions of the data. We then use these metrics to analyze transition characteristics of 6 commonly used classifiers on a novel dataset that includes continuous transitions between all combinations of seven different contraction classes. Results show that a linear discriminant classifier consistently outperforms other conventional classifiers during both transitions and steady-state conditions, despite having an almost identical offline performance. Results also show that, although offline training metrics correlate with steady-state performance, they do not correlate with transition performance. These insights suggest that the proposed set of metrics could provide a shift in perspective on the way pattern recognition systems are evaluated and provide a more representative picture of a classifier's performance, potentially narrowing the gap between offline performance and online usability.
Decision-change Informed Rejection Improves Robustness in Pattern Recognition-based Myoelectric Control
Authors: Shriram Tallam Puranam Raghu, Dawn MacIsaac, Erik Scheme
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00
Tasks: Outlier Detection

Post-processing techniques have been shown to improve the quality of the decision stream generated by classifiers used in pattern-recognition-based myoelectric control. However, these techniques have largely been tested individually and on well-behaved, stationary data, failing to fully evaluate their trade-offs between smoothing and latency during dynamic use. Correspondingly, in this work, we survey and compare 8 different post-processing and decision stream improvement schemes in the context of continuous and dynamic class transitions: majority vote, Bayesian fusion, onset locking, outlier detection, confidence-based rejection, confidence scaling, prior adjustment, and adaptive windowing. We then propose two new temporally aware post-processing schemes that use changes in the decision and confidence streams to better reject uncertain decisions. Our decision-change informed rejection (DCIR) approach outperforms existing schemes during both steady-state and transitions based on error rates and decision stream volatility whether using conventional or deep classifiers. These results suggest that added robustness can be gained by appropriately leveraging temporal context in myoelectric control.
An Efficient Modified MUSIC Algorithm for RIS-Assisted Near-Field Localization
Authors: Parisa Ramezani, Alva Kosasih, Emil Björnson
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00

In this paper, we consider a single-anchor localization system assisted by a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), where the objective is to localize multiple user equipments (UEs) placed in the radiative near-field region of the RIS by estimating their azimuth angle-of-arrival (AoA), elevation AoA, and distance to the surface. The three-dimensional (3D) locations can be accurately estimated via the conventional MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm, albeit at the expense of tremendous complexity due to the 3D grid search. In this paper, capitalizing on the symmetric structure of the RIS, we propose a novel modified MUSIC algorithm that can efficiently decouple the AoA and distance estimation problems and drastically reduce the complexity compared to the standard 3D MUSIC algorithm. Additionally, we introduce a spatial smoothing method by partitioning the RIS into overlapping sub-RISs to address the rank-deficiency issue in the signal covariance matrix. We corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm via numerical simulations and show that it can achieve the same performance as 3D MUSIC but with much lower complexity.
Signal Detection in Near-field Communication with Unknown Noise Characteristics: A Diffusion Model Method
Authors: Changyuan Zhao, Jiacheng Wang, Ruichen Zhang, Dusit Niyato, Dong In Kim, Hongyang Du
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00

In this letter, we present a diffusion model method for signal detection in near-field communication with unknown noise characteristics. We consider an uplink transmission of a near-filed MIMO communication system consisting of multiple mobile terminals and one base station with multiple antennas. Then, we proposed a Maximum Likelihood Estimation Diffusion Detector (MLEDD) aiming at learning the distribution of unknown noise. To this end, we define an error function via Bayes' theorem to detect the source signal. Moreover, we present an implementation of the proposed framework. The performance of the proposed method in terms of bit error rate shows that it outperforms the MLE detector, Detection Network (DetNet), and Maximum Normalizing Flow Estimate method (MANFE) across different signal-to-noise ratios and noise distributions. Especially when the noise distribution is intractable, diffusion, as a state-of-the-art probability model, has the best distribution learning ability compared to other models. These results affirm that this framework can effectively detect signals in near-field scenarios.
Universal Modem Generation with Inherent Adaptability to Variant Underwater Acoustic Channels: a Data-Driven Perspective
Authors: Xiaoquan You, Hengyu Zhang, Xuehan Wang, Jintao Wang
Date: 2024-09-21 00:00:00

In underwater acoustic (UWA) communication, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is commonly employed to mitigate the inter-symbol interference (ISI) caused by delay spread. However, path-specific Doppler effects in UWA channels could result in significant inter-carrier interference (ICI) in the OFDM system. To address this problem, we introduce a multi-resolution convolutional neural network (CNN) named UWAModNet in this paper, designed to optimize the modem structure, specifically modulation and demodulation matrices. Based on a trade-off between the minimum and the average equivalent sub-channel rate, we propose an optimization criterion suitable to evaluate the performance of our learned modem. Additionally, a two-stage training strategy is developed to achieve quasi-optimal results. Simulations indicate that the learned modem outperforms zero-padded OFDM (ZP-OFDM) in terms of equivalent sub-channel rate and bit error rate, even under more severe Doppler effects during testing compared to training.
Transfer Learning and Double U-Net Empowered Wave Propagation Model in Complex Indoor Environment
Authors: Ziheng Fu, Swagato Mukherjee, Michael T. Lanagan, Prasenjit Mitra, Tarun Chawla, Ram M. Narayanan
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Transfer Learning

A Machine Learning (ML) network based on transfer learning and transformer networks is applied to wave propagation models for complex indoor settings. This network is designed to predict signal propagation in environments with a variety of objects, effectively simulating the diverse range of furniture typically found in indoor spaces. We propose Attention U-Net with Efficient Networks as the backbone, to process images encoded with the essential information of the indoor environment. The indoor environment is defined by its fundamental structure, such as the arrangement of walls, windows, and doorways, alongside varying configurations of furniture placement. An innovative algorithm is introduced to generate a 3D environment from a 2D floorplan, which is crucial for efficient collection of data for training. The model is evaluated by comparing the predicted signal coverage map with ray tracing (RT) simulations. The prediction results show a root mean square error of less than 6 dB across all tested scenarios, with significant improvements observed when using a Double U-Net structure compared to a single U-Net model.
Delay Alignment Modulation with Hybrid Analog/Digital Beamforming for Millimeter Wave and Terahertz Communications
Authors: Jieni Zhang, Yong Zeng, Xiangbin Yu, Shi Jin, Jinhong Yuan, Ying-Chang Liang, Rui Zhang
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00

For millimeter wave (mmWave) or Terahertz (THz) communications, by leveraging the high spatial resolution offered by large antenna arrays and the multi-path sparsity of mmWave/THz channels, a novel inter-symbol interference (ISI) mitigation technique called delay alignment modulation (DAM) has been recently proposed. The key ideas of DAM are delay pre-compensation and path-based beamforming. However, existing research on DAM is mainly based on fully digital beamforming, which requires the number of radio frequency (RF) chains to be equal to the number of antennas. This paper proposes the hybrid analog/digital beamforming based DAM, including both fully and partially connected structures. The analog and digital beamforming matrices are designed to achieve performance close to DAM based on fully digital beamforming. While DAM was considered for the path-based channel model with integer delays in the previous work, this paper extends DAM to a more general tap-based model that accounts for fractional path delays. To further reduce the cost of channel estimation and improve the performance for wireless channels with fractional delays, DAM with codebook-based beam alignment and DAM-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DAM-OFDM) with hybrid beamforming are proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed techniques is verified by extensive simulation results.
FPGA Implementation of Complex Value-based Clustering Filter for Chromatic Dispersion Compensation in Coherent Metro Links with Ultra-low Power Consumption
Authors: Geraldo Gomes, Pedro Freire, Jaroslaw E. Prilepsky, Sergei K. Turitsyn
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00

This paper introduces a new machine learning-assisted chromatic dispersion compensation filter, demonstrating its superior power efficiency compared to conventional FFT-based filters for metro link distances. Validations on FPGA confirmed an energy efficiency gain of up to 63.5\% compared to the standard frequency-domain chromatic dispersion equalizer.
Super-Resolution via Learned Predictor
Authors: Sampath Kumar Dondapati, Omkar Nitsure, Satish Mulleti
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Super-Resolution

Frequency estimation from measurements corrupted by noise is a fundamental challenge across numerous engineering and scientific fields. Among the pivotal factors shaping the resolution capacity of any frequency estimation technique are noise levels and measurement count. Often constrained by practical limitations, the number of measurements tends to be limited. This work introduces a learning-driven approach focused on predicting forthcoming measurements based on available samples. Subsequently, we demonstrate that we can attain high-resolution frequency estimates by combining provided and predicted measurements. In particular, our findings indicate that using just one-third of the total measurements, the method achieves a performance akin to that obtained with the complete set. Unlike existing learning-based frequency estimators, our approach's output retains full interpretability. This work holds promise for developing energy-efficient systems with reduced sampling requirements, which will benefit various applications.
A Survey of 5G-Based Positioning for Industry 4.0: State of the Art and Enhanced Techniques
Authors: Karthik Muthineni, Alexander Artemenko, Josep Vidal, Montse Nájar
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00

The fifth generation (5G) mobile communication technology integrates communication, positioning, and mapping functionalities as an in-built feature. This has drawn significant attention from industries owing to the capability of replacing the traditional wireless technologies used in industries with 5G infrastructure that can be used for both connectivity and positioning. To this end, we identify the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) as a primary use case to benefit from the 5G functionalities. Given that there have been various works focusing on 5G positioning, it is necessary to analyze the existing works about their applicability with AGVs in industrial environments and provide insights to future research. In this paper, we present state of the art in 5G-based positioning, with a focus on key features, such as Millimeter Wave (mmWave) system, Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), Ultra-Dense Network (UDN), Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, and Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS). Moreover, we present the shortcomings in the current state of the art. Additionally, we propose enhanced techniques that can complement the accuracy of 5G-based positioning in controlled industrial environments.
6D Movable Antenna Enhanced Interference Mitigation for Cellular-Connected UAV Communications
Authors: Tianshi Ren, Xianchao Zhang, Lipeng Zhu, Wenyan Ma, Xiaozheng Gao, Rui Zhang
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00
Tasks: Position

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications is an enabling technology to transmit control signaling or payload data for UAVs through cellular networks. Due to the line-of-sight (LoS) dominant air-to-ground channels, efficient interference mitigation is crucial to UAV communications, while the conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA) arrays have limited degrees of freedom (DoFs) to suppress the interference between the UAV and its non-associated co-channel base stations (BSs). To address this challenge, we propose in this letter a new approach by utilizing the six-dimensional movable antenna (6DMA) arrays to enhance the interference mitigation for the UAV. Specifically, we propose an efficient block coordinate descent (BCD) algorithm to iteratively optimize the antenna position vector (APV), array rotation vector (ARV), receive beamforming vector, and associated BS of the UAV to maximize its signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). Numerical results show that the proposed 6DMA enhanced cellular-connected UAV communication can significantly outperform that with the traditional FPA arrays and other benchmark schemes in terms of interference mitigation.
Leafeon: Towards Accurate, Robust and Low-cost Leaf Water Content Sensing Using mmWave Radar
Authors: Mark Cardamis, Hong Jia, Hao Qian, Wenyao Chen, Yihe Yan, Oula Ghannoum, Aaron Quigley, Chung Tung Chou, Wen Hu
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00

Plant sensing plays an important role in modern smart agriculture and the farming industry. Remote radio sensing allows for monitoring essential indicators of plant health, such as leaf water content. While recent studies have shown the potential of using millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar for plant sensing, many overlook crucial factors such as leaf structure and surface roughness, which can impact the accuracy of the measurements. In this paper, we introduce Leafeon, which leverages mmWave radar to measure leaf water content non-invasively. Utilizing electronic beam steering, multiple leaf perspectives are sent to a custom deep neural network, which discerns unique reflection patterns from subtle antenna variations, ensuring accurate and robust leaf water content estimations. We implement a prototype of Leafeon using a Commercial Off-The-Shelf mmWave radar and evaluate its performance with a variety of different leaf types. Leafeon was trained in-lab using high-resolution destructive leaf measurements, achieving a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of leaf water content as low as 3.17% for the Avocado leaf, significantly outperforming the state-of-the-art approaches with an MAE reduction of up to 55.7%. Furthermore, we conducted experiments on live plants in both indoor and glasshouse experimental farm environments (see Fig. 1). Our results showed a strong correlation between predicted leaf water content levels and drought events.
MotionLeaf: Fine-grained Multi-Leaf Damped Vibration Monitoring for Plant Water Stress using Low-Cost mmWave Sensors
Authors: Mark Cardamis, Chun Tung Chou, Wen Hu
Date: 2024-09-20 00:00:00
Tasks: blind source separation

In this paper, we introduce MotionLeaf , a novel mmWave base multi-point vibration frequency measurement system that can estimate plant stress by analyzing the surface vibrations of multiple leaves. MotionLeaf features a novel signal processing pipeline that accurately estimates fine-grained damped vibration frequencies based on noisy micro-displacement measurements from a mmWave radar. Specifically we explore the Interquartile Mean (IQM) of coherent phase differences from neighboring Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar chirps to calculate micro-displacements. Furthermore, we use the measurements from multiple received antennas in the radar to estimate the vibration signals of different leaves via a Blind Source Separation (BSS) method. Experimental results demonstrate that MotionLeaf can accurately measure the frequency of multiple leaves in a plant with average error of 0.0176 Hz, which is less than 50% of that (0.0416 Hz) of the state-of-the-art approach (mmVib). Additionally, the estimated natural vibration frequencies from MotionLeaf are shown to be an excellent feature to detect the water stress in the plant during 7-day drought experiments.