arXiv subjects

Bruno Clerckx

Publications and source records attributed to Bruno Clerckx.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multi-Antenna Joint Radar and Communications

Dual-Functional Radar-Communication (DFRC) system is an essential and promising technique for beyond 5G. In this work, we propose a powerful and unified multi-antenna DFRC transmission framework, where an additional radar sequence is transmitted apart from communication streams to enhance radar beampattern matching capability, and Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) is adopted to better manage the interference. RSMA relies on multi-antenna Rate-Splitting (RS) with Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) receivers, and the split and encoding of messages into common and private streams. We design the message split and the precoders of the radar sequence and communication streams to jointly maximize the Weighted Sum Rate (WSR) and minimize the radar beampattern approximation Mean Square Error (MSE) subject to the per antenna power constraint. An iterative algorithm based on Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is developed to solve the problem. Numerical results first show that RSMA-assisted DFRC achieves a better tradeoff between WSR and beampattern approximation than Space-Division Multiple Access (SDMA)-assisted DFRC with or without radar sequence, and other simpler radar-communication strategies using orthogonal resources. We also show that the RSMA-assisted DFRC frameworks with and without radar sequence achieve the same tradeoff performance. This is because that the common stream is better exploited in the proposed framework. The common stream of RSMA fulfils the triple function of managing interference among communication users, managing interference between communication and radar, and beampattern approximation. Therefore, by enabling RSMA in DFRC, the system performance is enhanced while the system architecture is simplified since there is no need to use additional radar sequence and SIC. We conclude that RSMA is a more powerful multiple access for DFRC.

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arXiv2021

Range Expansion for Wireless Power Transfer using Joint Beamforming and Waveform Architecture: An Experimental Study in Indoor Environment

Far-field Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) has emerged as a potential power source for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN).The expansion of the power transfer range is one of the key challenges to make the technology viable. In this paper, we experimentally study a channel-adaptive joint beamforming and waveform architecture to expand the power transfer range. WPT experiments have been conducted in a variety of wireless channels at various distances in a realistic indoor environment. The measurement data have been fitted using a simple analytical model to analyze the output DC power and achievable range improvement depending on the signal design schemes and the number of tones and antennas. The model shows a clear relationship between signal design versus output DC power and achievable range, and highlight the significant benefit of the proposed architecture to expand the power transfer range.

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arXiv2021

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multi-Antenna Broadcast Channel with Imperfect CSIT and CSIR

Rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) has appeared as a powerful transmission and multiple access strategy for multi-user multi-antenna communications. Uniquely, this paper studies the optimization of the sum-rate of RSMA with imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter (CSIT) and the receivers (CSIR). The robustness of the RSMA approach against imperfect CSIT has been investigated in the previous studies while there has been no consideration for the effects of imperfect CSIR. This motivates us to develop a robust design relying on RSMA in the presence of both imperfect CSIT and CSIR. Since the optimization problem for the design of RSMA precoder and power allocations to maximize the sum-rate is non-convex, it is hard to solve directly. To tackle the non-convexity, we propose a novel alternating optimization algorithm based on semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and concave-convex procedure (CCCP) techniques. By comparing simulation results with conventional methods, it turns out that RSMA is quite robust to imperfect CSIR and CSIT, thereby improving the sum-rate performance.

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arXiv2021

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multigateway Multibeam Satellite Systems with Feeder Link Interference

This paper studies the precoder design problem of achieving max-min fairness (MMF) amongst users in multigateway multibeam satellite communication systems with feeder link interference. We propose a beamforming strategy based on a newly introduced transmission scheme known as rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA). RSMA relies on multi-antenna rate-splitting at the transmitter and successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receivers, such that the intended message for a user is split into a common part and a private part and the interference is partially decoded and partially treated as noise. In this paper, we formulate the MMF problem subject to per-antenna power constraints at the satellite for the system with imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). We also consider the case of two-stage precoding which is assisted by on-board processing (OBP) at the satellite. Numerical results obtained through simulations for RSMA and the conventional linear precoding method are compared. When RSMA is used, MMF rate gain is promised and this gain increases when OBP is used. RSMA is proven to be promising for multigateway multibeam satellite systems whereby there are various practical challenges such as feeder link interference, CSIT uncertainty, per-antenna power constraints, uneven user distribution per beam and frame-based processing.

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arXiv2021

Globally Optimal Beamforming for Rate Splitting Multiple Access

We consider globally optimal precoder design for rate splitting multiple access in Gaussian multiple-input single-output downlink channels with respect to weighted sum rate and energy efficiency maximization. The proposed algorithm solves an instance of the joint multicast and unicast beamforming problem and includes multicast- and unicast-only beamforming as special cases. Numerical results show that it outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of numerical stability and converges almost twice as fast.

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arXiv2021

Multi-Antenna Joint Radar and Communications: Precoder Optimization and Weighted Sum-Rate vs Probing Power Tradeoff

In order to further exploit the potential of joint multi-antenna radar-communication (RadCom) system, we propose two transmission techniques respectively based on separated and shared antenna deployments. Both techniques are designed to maximize the weighted sum rate (WSR) and the probing power at target's location under average power constraints at the antennas such that the system can simultaneously communicate with downlink users and detect the target within the same frequency band. Based on a Weighted Minimized Mean Square Errors (WMMSE) method, the separated deployment transmission is designed via semidefinite programming (SDP) while the shared deployment problem is solved by majorization-minimization (MM) algorithm. Numerical results show that the shared deployment outperforms the separated deployment in radar beamforming. The tradeoffs between WSR and probing power at target are compared among both proposed transmissions and two practically simpler dual-function implementations i.e., time division and frequency division. Results show that although the separated deployment enables spectrum sharing, it experiences a performance loss compared with frequency division, while the shared deployment outperforms both and surpasses time division in certain conditions.

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arXiv2021

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multi-antenna Downlink Communication Systems: Spectral and Energy Efficiency Tradeoff

Rate-splitting (RS) has recently been recognized as a promising physical-layer technique for multi-antenna broadcast channels (BC). Due to its ability to partially decode the interference and partially treat the remaining interference as noise, RS is an enabler for a powerful multiple access, namely rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), that has been shown to achieve higher spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) than both space division multiple access (SDMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in a wide range of user deployments and network loads. As SE maximization and EE maximization are two conflicting objectives, the study of the tradeoff between the two criteria is of particular interest. In this work, we address the SE-EE tradeoff by studying the joint SE and EE maximization problem of RSMA in multiple input single output (MISO) BC with rate-dependent circuit power consumption at the transmitter. To tackle the challenges coming from multiple objective functions and rate-dependent circuit power consumption, we first propose two methods to transform the original problem into a single-objective problem, namely, weighted-sum method and weighted-power method. A successive convex approximation (SCA)-based algorithm is then proposed to jointly optimize the precoders and RS message split of the transformed problem. Numerical results show that our algorithm converges much faster than existing algorithms. In addition, the performance of RS is superior to or equal to non-RS strategy in terms of both SE and EE and their tradeoff.

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arXiv2021

Wireless Power Transfer for Future Networks: Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Computing, and Sensing

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is an emerging paradigm that will enable using wireless to its full potential in future networks, not only to convey information but also to deliver energy. Such networks will enable trillions of future low-power devices to sense, compute, connect, and energize anywhere, anytime, and on the move. The design of such future networks brings new challenges and opportunities for signal processing, machine learning, sensing, and computing so as to make the best use of the RF radiations, spectrum, and network infrastructure in providing cost-effective and real-time power supplies to wireless devices and enable wireless-powered applications. In this paper, we first review recent signal processing techniques to make WPT and wireless information and power transfer as efficient as possible. Topics include power amplifier and energy harvester nonlinearities, active and passive beamforming, intelligent reflecting surfaces, receive combining with multi-antenna harvester, modulation, coding, waveform, massive MIMO, channel acquisition, transmit diversity, multi-user power region characterization, coordinated multipoint, and distributed antenna systems. Then, we overview two different design methodologies: the model and optimize approach relying on analytical system models, modern convex optimization, and communication theory, and the learning approach based on data-driven end-to-end learning and physics-based learning. We discuss the pros and cons of each approach, especially when accounting for various nonlinearities in wireless-powered networks, and identify interesting emerging opportunities for the approaches to complement each other. Finally, we identify new emerging wireless technologies where WPT may play a key role -- wireless-powered mobile edge computing and wireless-powered sensing -- arguing WPT, communication, computation, and sensing must be jointly designed.

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arXiv2021

Is NOMA Efficient in Multi-Antenna Networks? A Critical Look at Next Generation Multiple Access Techniques

In this paper, we take a critical and fresh look at the downlink multi-antenna NOMA literature. Instead of contrasting NOMA with OMA, we contrast NOMA with two other baselines. The first is conventional Multi-User Linear Precoding (MULP). The second is Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) based on multi-antenna Rate-Splitting (RS) and SIC. We show that there is some confusion about the benefits of NOMA, and we dispel the associated misconceptions. First, we highlight why NOMA is inefficient in multi-antenna settings based on basic multiplexing gain analysis. We stress that the issue lies in how the NOMA literature has been hastily applied to multi-antenna setups, resulting in a misuse of spatial dimensions and therefore loss in multiplexing gains and rate. Second, we show that NOMA incurs a severe multiplexing gain loss despite an increased receiver complexity due to an inefficient use of SIC receivers. Third, we emphasize that much of the merits of NOMA are due to the constant comparison to OMA instead of comparing it to MULP and RS baselines. We then expose the pivotal design constraint that multi-antenna NOMA requires one user to fully decode the messages of the other users. This design constraint is responsible for the multiplexing gain erosion, rate loss, and inefficient use of SIC receivers in multi-antenna settings. Our results confirm that NOMA should not be applied blindly to multi-antenna settings, highlight the scenarios where MULP outperforms NOMA and vice versa, and demonstrate the inefficiency, performance loss and complexity disadvantages of NOMA compared to RS. The first takeaway message is that, while NOMA is not beneficial in most multi-antenna deployments. The second takeaway message is that other non-orthogonal transmission frameworks, such as RS, exist which fully exploit the multiplexing gain and the benefits of SIC to boost the rate in multi-antenna settings.

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arXiv2020

Dirty Paper Coded Rate-Splitting for Non-Orthogonal Unicast and Multicast Transmission with Partial CSIT

A Non-Orthogonal Unicast and Multicast (NOUM) transmission system allows a multicast stream intended to all receivers to be jointly transmitted with unicast streams in the same time-frequency resource blocks. While the capacity of the two-user multi-antenna NOUM with perfect Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT) is known and achieved by Dirty Paper Coding (DPC)-assisted NOUM with Superposition Coding (SC), the capacity and the capacity-achieving strategy of the multi-antenna NOUM with partial CSIT remain unknown. In this work, we focus on the partial CSIT setting and make two major contributions. First, we show that linearly precoded Rate-Splitting (RS), relying on splitting unicast messages into common and private parts, encoding the common parts together with the multicast message and linearly precoding at the transmitter, can achieve larger rate regions than DPC-assisted NOUM with partial CSIT. Second, we study Dirty Paper Coded Rate-Splitting (DPCRS), that marries RS and DPC. We show that the rate region of DPCRS-assisted NOUM is enlarged beyond that of conventional DPC-assisted NOUM and that of linearly precoded RS-assisted NOUM with partial CSIT.

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arXiv2020

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Multigroup Multicast and Multibeam Satellite Systems

This work focuses on the promising Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) and its beamforming design problem to achieve max-min fairness (MMF) among multiple co-channel multicast groups with imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). Contrary to the conventional linear precoding (NoRS) that relies on fully treating any residual interference as noise, we consider a novel multigroup multicast beamforming strategy based on RSMA. RSMA relies on linearly precoded Rate-Splitting (RS) at the transmitter and Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) at the receivers, and has recently been shown to enable a flexible framework for non-orthogonal transmission and robust interference management in multi-antenna wireless networks. In this work, we characterize the MMF Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) achieved by RS and NoRS in multigroup multicast with imperfect CSIT and demonstrate the benefits of RS strategies for both underloaded and overloaded scenarios. Motivated by the DoF analysis, we then formulate a generic transmit power constrained optimization problem to achieve MMF rate performance. The superiority of RS-based multigroup multicast beamforming compared with NoRS is demonstrated via simulations in both terrestrial and multibeam satellite systems. In particular, due to the characteristics and challenges of multibeam satellite communications, our proposed RS strategy is shown promising to manage its interbeam interference.

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arXiv2020

Wireless Power Transfer with Distributed Antennas: System Design, Prototype, and Experiments

In this paper, we design and experiment a far-field wireless power transfer (WPT) architecture based on distributed antennas, so-called WPT DAS, that dynamically selects transmit antenna and frequency to increase the output dc power. Uniquely, spatial and frequency diversities are jointly exploited in the proposed WPT DAS with low complexity, low cost, and flexible deployment to combat the wireless fading channel. A numerical experiment is designed to show the benefits using antenna and frequency selections in spatially and frequency selective fading channels for single-user and multi-user cases. Accordingly, the proposed WPT DAS for single-user and two-user cases is prototyped. At the transmitter, we adopt antenna selection to exploit spatial diversity and adopt frequency selection to exploit frequency diversity. A low-complexity over-the-air limited feedback using an IEEE 802.15.4 RF interface is designed for antenna and frequency selections and reporting from the receiver to the transmitter. The proposed WPT DAS prototype is demonstrated in a real indoor environment. The measurements show that WPT DAS can boost the output dc power by up to 30 dB in single-user case and boost the sum of output dc power by up to 21.8 dB in two-user case and broaden the service coverage area in a low cost, low complexity, and flexible manner.

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arXiv2020

Rate Splitting Multiple Access in C-RAN: A Scalable and Robust Design

Cloud radio access networks (C-RAN) enable a network platform for beyond the fifth generation of communication networks (B5G), which incorporates the advances in cloud computing technologies to modern radio access networks. Recently, rate splitting multiple access (RSMA), relying on multi-antenna rate-splitting (RS) at the transmitter and successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receivers, has been shown to manage the interference in multi-antenna communication networks efficiently. This paper considers applying RSMA in C-RAN. We address the practical challenge of a transmitter that only knows the statistical channel state (CSI) information of the users. To this end, the paper investigates the problem of stochastic coordinated beamforming (SCB) optimization to maximize the ergodic sum-rate (ESR) in the network. Furthermore, we propose a scalable and robust RS scheme where the number of the common streams to be decoded at each user scales linearly with the number of users, and the common stream selection only depends on the statistical CSI. The setup leads to a challenging stochastic and non-convex optimization problem. A sample average approximation (SAA) and weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) based algorithm is adopted to tackle the intractable stochastic non-convex optimization and guarantee convergence to a stationary point asymptotically. The numerical simulations demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed RS strategy and show a gain up to 27\% in the achievable ESR compared with state-of-the-art schemes, namely treating interference as noise (TIN) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes.

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arXiv2020

Beamforming Optimization for MIMO Wireless Power Transfer with Nonlinear Energy Harvesting: RF Combining versus DC Combining

In this paper, we study the multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) wireless power transfer (WPT) system so as to enhance the output DC power of the rectennas. To that end, we revisit the rectenna nonlinearity considering multiple receive antennas. Two combining schemes for multiple rectennas at the receiver, DC and RF combinings, are modeled and analyzed. For DC combining, we optimize the transmit beamforming, adaptive to the channel state information (CSI), so as to maximize the total output DC power. For RF combining, we compute a closed-form solution of the optimal transmit and receive beamforming. In addition, we propose a practical RF combining circuit using RF phase shifter and RF power combiner and also optimize the analog receive beamforming adaptive to CSI. We also analytically derive the scaling laws of the output DC power as a function of the number of transmit and receive antennas. Those scaling laws confirm the benefits of using multiple antennas at the transmitter or receiver. They also highlight that RF combining significantly outperforms DC combining since it leverages the rectenna nonlinearity more efficiently. Two types of performance evaluations, based on the nonlinear rectenna model and based on realistic and accurate rectenna circuit simulations, are provided. The evaluations demonstrate that the output DC power can be linearly increased by using multiple rectennas at the receiver and that the relative gain of RF combining versus DC combining in terms of the output DC power level is very significant, of the order of 240% in a one-transmit antenna ten-receive antenna setup.

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arXiv2020

Max-min Fairness of K-user Cooperative Rate-Splitting in MISO Broadcast Channel with User Relaying

Cooperative Rate-Splitting (CRS) strategy, relying on linearly precoded rate-splitting at the transmitter and opportunistic transmission of the common message by the relaying user, has recently been shown to outperform typical Non-cooperative Rate-Splitting (NRS), Cooperative Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (C-NOMA) and Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) in a two-user Multiple Input Single Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC) with user relaying. In this work, the existing two-user CRS transmission strategy is generalized to the K-user case. We study the problem of jointly optimizing the precoders, message split, time slot allocation, and relaying user scheduling with the objective of maximizing the minimum rate among users. An efficient self-organizing relaying protocol is first proposed followed by a Successive Convex Approximation (SCA)-based algorithm to jointly optimize time slot, precoders and message split. Numerical results show that the worst-case achievable rate achieved by CRS is significantly increased over that of NRS and SDMA in a wide range of network loads and user deployments. Importantly, the proposed SCA-based algorithm dramatically reduces the computational complexity without any rate loss compared with the conventional algorithm in the literature of CRS. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed K-user CRS is more powerful than the existing transmission schemes.

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arXiv2020

Signal and System Design for Wireless Power Transfer : Prototype, Experiment and Validation

A new line of research on communications and signals design for Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) has recently emerged in the communication literature. Promising signal strategies to maximize the power transfer efficiency of WPT rely on (energy) beamforming, waveform, modulation and transmit diversity, and a combination thereof. To a great extent, the study of those strategies has so far been limited to theoretical performance analysis. In this paper, we study the real over-the-air performance of all the aforementioned signal strategies for WPT. To that end, we have designed, prototyped and experimented an innovative radiative WPT architecture based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) that can operate in open-loop and closed-loop (with channel acquisition at the transmitter) modes. The prototype consists of three important blocks, namely the channel estimator, the signal generator, and the energy harvester. The experiments have been conducted in a variety of deployments, including frequency flat and frequency selective channels, under static and mobility conditions. Experiments highlight that a channeladaptive WPT architecture based on joint beamforming and waveform design offers significant performance improvements in harvested DC power over conventional single-antenna/multiantenna continuous wave systems. The experimental results fully validate the observations predicted from the theoretical signal designs and confirm the crucial and beneficial role played by the energy harvester nonlinearity.

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arXiv2020

Beyond Dirty Paper Coding for Multi-Antenna Broadcast Channel with Partial CSIT: A Rate-Splitting Approach

Imperfect Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT) is inevitable in modern wireless communication networks, and results in severe multi-user interference in multi-antenna Broadcast Channel (BC). While the capacity of the multi-antenna (Gaussian) BC with perfect CSIT is known and achieved by Dirty Paper Coding (DPC), the capacity and the capacity-achieving strategy of the multi-antenna BC with imperfect CSIT remain unknown. Conventional approaches therefore rely on applying communication strategies designed for perfect CSIT to the imperfect CSIT setting. In this work, we break this conventional routine and make two major contributions. First, we show that linearly precoded Rate-Splitting (RS), relying on the split of messages into common and private parts and linear precoding at the transmitter, and successive interference cancellation at the receivers, can achieve larger rate regions than DPC in multi-antenna BC with partial CSIT. Second, we propose a novel achievable scheme, denoted as Dirty Paper Coded Rate-Splitting (DPCRS), that relies on RS to split the user messages into common and private parts, and DPC to encode the private parts. We show that the rate region achieved by DPCRS in Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) BC with partial CSIT is enlarged beyond that of conventional DPC and that of linearly precoded RS. Gaining benefits from the capability of RS to partially decode the interference and partially treat interference as noise, DPCRS is less sensitive to CSIT inaccuracies, networks loads and user deployments compared with DPC and other existing transmission strategies. The proposed DPCRS acts as a new benchmark and the best-known achievable strategy for multi-antenna BC with partial CSIT.

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arXiv2020

Rate-Splitting Multiple Access for Overloaded Cellular Internet of Things

In the near future, it is envisioned that cellular networks will have to cope with extensive Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Therefore, a required feature of cellular IoT will be the capability to serve simultaneously a large number of devices with heterogeneous demands and qualities of Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT). In this paper, we focus on an overloaded Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC) with two groups of CSIT qualities, namely one group of users (representative of high-end devices) for which the transmitter has partial knowledge of the CSI, the other group of users (representative of IoT devices) for which the transmitter only has knowledge of the statistical CSI. We introduce Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA), a new multiple access based on multi-antenna Rate-Splitting (RS) for cellular IoT. Two strategies are proposed, namely, Time Partitioning-RSMA (TP-RSMA) and Power Partitioning-RSMA (PP-RSMA). The former independently serves the two groups of users over orthogonal time slots while the latter jointly serves the two groups of users within the same time slot in a non-orthogonal manner. We first show at high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) that PP-RSMA achieves the optimum Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) in an overloaded MISO BC with heterogeneous CSIT qualities and then show at finite SNR that, by marrying the benefits of PP and RSMA, PP-RSMA achieves explicit sum rate gain over TP-RSMA and all baseline schemes. Furthermore, PP-RSMA is robust to CSIT inaccuracy and flexible to cope with Quality of Service (QoS) rate constraints of all users. The DoF and rate analysis helps us draw the conclusion that PP-RSMA is a powerful framework for cellular IoT with a large number of devices.

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