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Cheng-Xiang Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Cheng-Xiang Wang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

A Material-Aware Channel Model for Efficient CKM Generation via Environment Reconstruction

Channel knowledge map (CKM) is a promising technology for environment-aware wireless communication, sensing, and localization in 6G networks. Accurate CKM generation requires precise reconstruction of the environment, including 3D geometries and scatterer materials, typically from multi-modal sensory observations such as LiDAR point clouds and sparse channel measurements. While the former is relatively easy to acquire, materials remain difficult to obtain directly from sparse channel measurements due to the lack of an explicit channel model linking them. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a material-aware channel model that explicitly characterizes the influence of scatterer materials on the wireless channel. Based on this model, an iterative gradient descent based material reconstruction algorithm is proposed. Full wave simulation results validate the developed model and the proposed algorithm, demonstrating their potentials for efficient CKM generation via environment reconstruction.

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arXiv2026

An Optical Pathway to Movable Rydberg Atomic Quantum Receivers

This paper develops an optically movable Rydberg atomic quantum receiver (RAQR), in which the probe and coupling beams are steered within each vapor cell to dynamically reconfigure the effective radio-frequency (RF) sensing position without mechanical actuation. A closed-form equivalent baseband model is derived by separating the atomic transduction coefficient, optical steering phase, and cell-center array response into distinct factors and the accuracy of the resulting model is validated against numerical solutions of the Lindblad master equation. Based on the derived model, we reveal two complementary channel-shaping mechanisms, including intrinsic beam-pattern shaping through RF-to-optical transduction and per-cell phase control enabled by optical displacement. To further exploit these capabilities, a non-convex sum-rate maximization problem is formulated over the optical positions and local oscillator design and solved via an alternating optimization framework with analytical gradients. Simulation results validate the derived model and demonstrate substantial performance gains enabled by optical movability, highlighting its potential as a programmable receiver architecture for future wireless networks.

eess.AS↗
arXiv2026

Universal CKM for Environment-Aware Wireless Networks: Enabling Cross-Device and Cross-Task Channel Knowledge Transfer

Channel knowledge map (CKM) is a promising technology for environment-aware sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. However, most existing CKMs are tightly coupled with wireless devices and downstream tasks, which limit their scalability and reusability in wireless networks. To address these limitations, this article proposes the concept of universal CKM (uCKM) as a foundational wireless environment prior, which aims to enable cross-device and cross-task channel knowledge transfer for environment-aware wireless networks. We first revisit the representative CKMs and discuss their limitations. Then, the uCKM-enabled new paradigm for environment-aware wireless networks is introduced, and its benefits are highlighted from the perspectives of uCKM construction and utilization phases, for which we propose the visions of ``All for uCKM'' and ``uCKM for All'', i.e., the data acquired by all devices and tasks should contribute to the construction of uCKM, and vice versa. Subsequently, we discuss the main challenges of uCKM and propose potential solutions. Last, we provide simulation results to demonstrate the feasibility and performance gains brought by uCKM and outline future research directions.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

Channel Map-Based Channel Estimation for Near-Field UM-MIMO with Movable Planar Arrays

Accurate channel estimation is essential for coherent transmission in ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) systems, where near-field propagation and high-dimensional spatial channels impose substantial signal processing challenges. Movable antenna architectures increase the estimation complexity further due to geometry-dependent channel variations. Existing approaches struggle to balance accuracy and complexity, motivating the use of environment-dependent propagation structures for efficient estimation. To this end, this paper proposes a unified channel map-based channel estimation framework for UM-MIMO systems, which integrates movable planar array reconfiguration and near-field spherical-wave modeling to support geometry-aware line-of-sight (LoS) estimation and efficient non-LoS (NLoS) recovery. A channel map-based LoS estimator is proposed combining coarse user position information with a Fisher information-guided antenna placement strategy. Two efficient NLoS estimation methods are also presented, including a sketch-based reduced-subspace estimator for low-complexity processing and a channel map-based estimator that leverages scatterer location information for near-optimal performance. The framework further incorporates visibility-region modeling and a structural similarity-based pilot assignment strategy for multi-user scenarios. Simulation results show that the proposed channel map-based framework improves estimation accuracy, reduces computational overhead, and enhances scalability compared with state-of-the-art benchmarks without channel maps.

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arXiv2026

Where to Perform Channel Measurements for CKM Construction: A Random Field Theory Analysis

Channel knowledge map (CKM) is regarded as a promising technology for future sixth-generation (6G) networks, facilitating environmental-aware wireless communication, sensing, and localization. Research works on CKM construction can be classified as model-based methods and data-based approaches. Specifically, data-based CKM construction exploits the fundamental principle of spatial correlation to complete CKM based on limited measurement data, leading to the question of "where to perform channel measurements". In this paper, we study the spatial measurement strategy for efficient data-based CKM construction, and consider a specific type of CKM named channel gain map (CGM). The general objective is to select a subset of locations for channel measurements, so as to minimize the average mean-squared-error (AMSE) of the global CGM construction. In order to reduce the infinite measurement locations to a finite set, we discretize the underlying physical space into a finite number of cubic grid points, and formulate a combinatorial optimization problem to select measurement locations from them. In order to solve the proposed problem, we employ two representative algorithms, namely the greedy algorithm and the simulated annealing (SA), and discuss their respective advantages. To overcome the accuracy-complexity trade-off of traditional uniform discretization, we develop an adaptive discretization strategy from the viewpoint of Gaussian random field theory to minimize the information loss from the original continuous field to its approximated discrete representation in the mean-squared sense. Compared to uniform discretization, the proposed adaptive discretization strategy achieves a significant performance gain in terms of AMSE-reduction, establishing the theoretical framework of spatial measurement and providing practical guidance for implementation.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

Cross-Field Channel Parameter Estimation and Channel Characterization at THz Bands in Indoor Scenarios

The terahertz (THz) frequency band offers the potential for ultra-high data rate transmission in future wireless communication systems. To extend the transmission distance and enhance spectral efficiency, the deployment of large-scale antenna arrays emerges as a promising solution in the THz band. This paper targets the critical challenge of cross-field (hybrid near-field/far-field) channel parameter estimation and channel characterization in such configurations. We first establish a 260-380 GHz virtual uniform linear array (ULA) measurement framework in an indoor scenario, capturing high-resolution channel transfer functions (CTFs) that reveal spatial non-stationarity and cross-field wavefront characteristics. Building upon these empirical observations, we propose a cross-field space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm that discriminatively estimates near-field and far-field multipath components (MPCs) via Bayesian phase-curvature classification, while explicitly tracking spatial birth-death phenomena through visibility region estimation. Analysis of the measurement data validates the algorithm's effectiveness in resolving cross-field MPCs and quantifies that near-field MPCs account for over 90% of total MPCs at 2 m transmission distance (380 GHz). We observe that spatial non-stationarity intensifies as the carrier frequency increases and the transmission distance decreases. These findings offer quantitative guidelines for channel modeling and system design in wireless THz communication systems.

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arXiv2026

Channel Charting With Physical Channel Fingerprints For Massive MIMO-OFDM Channel Acquisition

The advancement of 6G mobile communication and positioning technologies has amplified the significance of location-aware tools, such as location-indexed channel fingerprints (CFs) and channel charting, which are becoming key enablers for massive MIMO-OFDM systems. In this paper, we propose a novel channel charting with physical CFs (PCFs) and demonstrate its effectiveness in channel state information (CSI) acquisition. First, we define the PCF based on a cluster-based geometric stochastic channel model (GBSM), enabling a comprehensive representation of physical channel characteristics using a compact set of parameters. We then develop a methodology for PCF acquisition in massive MIMO-OFDM systems. By exploiting the relationship between PCFs and the space-frequency-time (SFT) domain channel, the proposed method extracts PCFs from multi-location channel measurements and constructs a structured channel charting with location-indexed PCFs. Furthermore, we propose a low-complexity algorithm to acquire beam domain statistical CSI (sCSI) using the PCFs in the channel charting. The resulting sCSI can be directly employed as prior information for channel estimation. Simulation results show that the proposed method delivers sCSI performance comparable to traditional online probing techniques, and the generated sCSI can serve as reliable prior knowledge to significantly enhance the accuracy of channel estimation. These results validate the proposed PCF as a powerful and versatile tool for channel acquisition and system design of the next-generation mobile communication.

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arXiv2026

Flexible Coupler Antenna Enhanced Wireless Communication: Modeling and Coupler Position Optimization

This paper proposes a novel flexible coupler antenna (FCA) that translates passive coupling elements around a fixed-position active antenna to reshape the induced currents on the passive elements for radiation. A new form of mechanical beamforming is achieved by moving only the passive coupling elements while keeping the active antenna stationary. The proposed design significantly reduces the antenna and radio-frequency (RF) chain costs of conventional active array beamforming with low mechanical control complexity and energy consumption. For the purpose of exposition, we consider a point-to-point communication system with one FCA at the transmitter and one fixed antenna at the receiver. Specifically, based on multi-port circuit theory, we establish both the line-of-sight (LoS) and multipath channel models and derive the mechanical beamforming weights of the passive couplers as functions of their positions. Then, we formulate a new problem to maximize the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by optimizing the positions of passive couplers at the transmitter, subject to coupler movement and transmit power constraints. Solving the resulting problem is inherently difficult because coupled channel and mechanical beamforming create non-linearity in the objective function.To tackle this problem, we propose an efficient block-coordinate conditional gradient method to search for the best positions of all passive couplers by sequentially optimizing the position of each coupler with those of the other couplers fixed in an iterative manner.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed system significantly outperforms benchmark schemes in terms of achievable rate, but with significantly reduced active antennas and RF chains.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

A Hybrid Near-field Indoor Channel Model for THz Bands Based on Surface Scattering Characteristics

Terahertz (THz) communication and extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO) are essential for achieving ultra-high data rates in future 6G systems. However, at sub-millimeter wavelengths, typical indoor materials exhibit significant roughness that invalidates conventional ideal smooth surface assumptions, while massive array apertures introduce pronounced near-field effects and spatial non-stationarity. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a hybrid near-field channel model utilizing surface scattering characteristics based on distinct measurement campaigns. First, based on typical indoor materials scattering measurements across the 260-400 GHz band, an improved Beckmann-Kirchhoff (B-K) model is developed to accurately characterize surface roughness and diffuse scattering behavior. The model independently analyzes single-bounce (SB) and multi-bounce (MB) clusters by applying deterministic rough surface scattering theory and geometry-statistical approach, respectively. Then, using near-field spatial non-stationarity measurements from a 630-element virtual array in the 330-360 GHz band, a Dual-Gaussian Mixture Model (DMM) and a Negative Binomial (NB) distribution are adopted to describe the lengths and the number of spatial visibility regions (VRs), respectively. Additionally, a Weibull distribution is employed to model the intra-region power fluctuations. Finally, comprehensive XL-MIMO channel evaluations within the same band demonstrate that the proposed model aligns closely with measured results in terms of the spatial cross-correlation function (SCCF), frequency cross-correlation function (FCF), and channel capacity. By reproducing the spatial sparsity of THz band, the proposed model overcomes the limitation of conventional standard models, such as 3GPP 38.901 and WINNER II, in significantly overestimating channel capacity.

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arXiv2026

R$^{2}$Net: 2D Deep Residual Learning with Height Embedding for 3D Radio Map Estimation

Acquiring channel knowledge is required by many applications. For instance, handover in cellular networks is mainly decided based on the knowledge of pathloss. In contrast to traditional statistical distance-determined models that might provide misleading pathloss estimates, researchers started to explore deep learning methods recently to accurately estimate the radio map that characterizes the spatial distribution of pathloss according to the specific physical wireless propagation environment. However, existing works mainly focused on 2D radio map estimation by assuming that all receivers are at the same height. In fact, radio maps could be significantly different at different receiver heights, highlighting the importance of 3D radio map estimation. In this paper, we first propose a method to embed height information into 2D images, and then propose a general 2D radio residual network (R$^{2}$Net) for 3D radio map estimation. Since pathloss exhibits different characteristics in indoor and outdoor scenarios, we specifically propose R$^{2}$Net-In for indoor scenarios and R$^{2}$Net-Out for outdoor scenarios to better capture penetration loss and diffraction loss, respectively. Extensive experimental results show that our R$^{2}$Net significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art benchmarks in terms of estimation accuracy, computational and storage costs, and inference speed. In addition, due to the lack of publicly available 3D radio map datasets, a 3D indoor radio map dataset (3DiRM3200) is created, which took more than $1,000$ labour hours. The dataset and codes will be available at https://github.com/lighttime2023/3DiRM3200.git.

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arXiv2026

A Novel 6G Dynamic Channel Map Based on a Hybrid Channel Model

In the sixth generation (6G) wireless communication networks, the device density, antenna number, and the complexity of communication scenarios will significantly increase, which brings great challenges for system design and network optimization. By obtaining channel information in advance, channel map has become a promising solution to these challenges in 6G era. However, conventional channel maps cannot be updated in time as physical environment changes. To solve the problem, a novel dynamic channel map (DCM) is proposed in this work. For DCM construction, we further present a ray tracing (RT) and geometric stochastic hybrid channel model (RT-GSHCM), which pre-constructs the DCM offline by RT and updates it online by geometry-based stochastic channel model (GBSM). By this way, the DCM can provide time-varying channel information and channel properties while matintaining accuracy. Next, a channel measurement campaign is conducted, and the measurement results are compared with the RT-GSHCM, RT, and GBSM. The comparison results validate the accuracy of DCM. Meanwhile, the time cost on DCM update is compared with that of conventional channel maps, illustrating the time-efficiency of DCM. Finally, important statistical channel properties of RT-GSHCM are further derived, analyzed, and compared under different configurations of interaction objects in physical environment.

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arXiv2026

DBU-OFDM: A Trainable Deep Block-Unitary OFDM Waveform for Integrated Sensing and Communication

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a dominant waveform in modern wireless systems, yet its high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and limited adaptability hinder efficient support for integrated communication and sensing. This paper proposes deep block-unitary precoded OFDM (DBU-OFDM), a structure-preserving learning framework that enables trainable waveform adaptation while preserving the DFT-based signal structure, pilot/null resource protection, and compatibility with low-complexity frequency-domain equalization. The proposed design restricts learning to a block-unitary transformation over data subcarriers and preserves pilot and null resources for structural compatibility. The transform is parameterized by recursive Householder reflections, ensuring strict unitarity as well as differentiable, numerically stable, and complexity-controllable implementation. Results show that DBU-OFDM achieves PAPR tails close to block-pilot DFT-s-OFDM while retaining comb-type pilots, improves communication reliability in frequency-selective fading via frequency-domain diversity, and enhances range and velocity estimation in direct sensing, especially in dimension-limited settings. Over-the-air USRP experiments and FPGA prototyping further verify its practical feasibility, demonstrating low error vector magnitude (EVM), clear PAPR reduction in real transmission, and hardware throughput up to 200~MS/s with microsecond-level latency. DBU-OFDM therefore offers a practical intermediate solution between conventional model-based OFDM waveforms and unconstrained neural transceivers for next-generation integrated communication and sensing systems.

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arXiv2026

Data-Model Co-Driven Continuous Channel Map Construction: A Perceptive Foundation for Embodied Intelligent Agents in 6G Networks

Future 6G networks will host massive numbers of embodied intelligent agents, which require real-time channel awareness over continuous-space for autonomous decision-making. By pre-obtaining location-specific channel state information (CSI), channel map can be served as a foundational world model for embodied intelligence to achieve wireless channel perception. However, acquiring CSI via measurements is costly, so in practice only sparse observations are available, leaving agents blind to channel conditions at unvisited locations. Meanwhile, purely model-driven channel maps can provide dense CSI but often yields unsatisfactory accuracy and robustness, while purely data-driven interpolation from sparse measurements is computationally prohibitive for real-time updates. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a data-model co-driven (DMcD) framework that performs a two-stage interpolation toward a space-time continuous channel map, First, a hybrid ray tracing and geometry-based channel model (H-RT/GBSM) is developed to capture dynamic scatterers, providing dense, time-variant channel properties that match measurement statistics as a physically consistent prior. Then, an inductive edge-conditioned graph neural network (InductE-GNN) fuses the prior with sparse measurements to perform real-time spatial interpolation, enabling rapid online adaptation without retraining, ensuring the synchronization with the dynamic physical reality. Evaluations with measured datasets show that the proposed DMcD framework significantly outperforms data-only and model-only baselines, providing accurate and queryable channel information for embodied intelligent agents.

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arXiv2026

Channel Estimation for 6G Near-Field Wireless Communications: A Comprehensive Survey

The sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems are expected to adopt extremely large aperture arrays (ELAAs), novel antenna architectures, and operate in extremely high-frequency bands to meet growing data demands. ELAAs significantly increase the number of antennas, enabling finer spatial resolution and improved beamforming. At high frequencies, ELAAs shift communication from the conventional far-field to near-field regime, where spherical wavefronts dominate and the channel response depends on both angle and distance, increasing channel dimensionality. Conventional far-field channel estimation methods, which rely on angular information, struggle in near-field scenarios due to increased pilot overhead and computational complexity. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of recent advances in near-field channel estimation. It first defines the near- and far-field boundary from an electromagnetic perspective and discusses key propagation differences, alongside a brief review of ELAA developments. Then, it introduces mainstream near-field channel models and compares them with far-field models. Major estimation techniques are reviewed under different configurations (single/multi-user, single/multi-carrier), including both direct estimation and RIS-assisted cascaded estimation. These techniques reveal trade-offs among estimation accuracy, complexity, and overhead. This survey aims to provide insights and foundations for efficient and scalable near-field channel estimation in 6G systems, while identifying key challenges and future research directions.

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arXiv2026

Shared Sky, Shared Spectrum: Coordinated Satellite-5G Networks for Low-Altitude Economy

Driven by both technological development and practical demands, the low-altitude economy relying on low-altitude aircrafts (LAAs) is booming. However, neither satellites nor terrestrial fifth-generation (5G) networks alone can effectively satisfy the communication requirements for ubiquitous lowaltitude coverage. While full integration of satellites and 5G networks offers theoretical benefits, the associated overhead and complexity pose significant challenges for rapid deployment. As a more economical and immediately viable alternative, this paper investigates partially-integrated networks where satellites and 5G systems operate with coarse synchronization yet achieve coordinated spectrum sharing, pooling their capabilities to jointly serve LAAs. Leveraging the inherent position-awareness of LAAs, we propose a framework for joint time-frequency spectrum sharing with an adaptive synchronization time scale, where only large-scale channel state information (CSI) is required. To avoid solving the NP-hard optimization problem directly, link-feature-aided clustering is employed following a divide-andconquer strategy. The proposed framework achieves substantial performance gains with low overhead and complexity, enabling swift advancement of low-altitude applications while paving the way for future integrated satellite-terrestrial network evolution.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

Channel Extrapolation for MIMO Systems with the Assistance of Multi-path Information Induced from Channel State Information

Acquiring channel state information (CSI) through traditional methods, such as channel estimation, is increasingly challenging for the emerging sixth generation (6G) mobile networks due to high overhead. To address this issue, channel extrapolation techniques have been proposed to acquire complete CSI from a limited number of known CSIs. To improve extrapolation accuracy, environmental information, such as visual images or radar data, has been utilized, which poses challenges including additional hardware, privacy and multi-modal alignment concerns. To this end, this paper proposes a novel channel extrapolation framework by leveraging environment-related multi-path characteristics induced directly from CSI without integrating additional modalities. Specifically, we propose utilizing the multi-path characteristics in the form of power-delay profile (PDP), which is acquired using a CSI-to-PDP module. CSI-to-PDP module is trained in an AE-based framework by reconstructing the PDPs and constraining the latent low-dimensional features to represent the CSI. We further extract the total power & power-weighted delay of all the identified paths in PDP as the multi-path information. Building on this, we proposed a MAE architecture trained in a self-supervised manner to perform channel extrapolation. Unlike standard MAE approaches, our method employs separate encoders to extract features from the masked CSI and the multi-path information, which are then fused by a cross-attention module. Extensive simulations demonstrate that this framework improves extrapolation performance dramatically, with a minor increase in inference time (around 0.1 ms). Furthermore, our model shows strong generalization capabilities, particularly when only a small portion of the CSI is known, outperforming existing benchmarks.

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arXiv2026

Time-Scale-Adaptable Spectrum Sharing for Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Networks

Cooperation between satellite and terrestrial wireless networks promises great potential in meeting fast-growing demands for ubiquitous communications coverage. To tackle spectrum scarcity, spectrum sharing is studied for a hybrid satellite-terrestrial network where satellite links share the same group of time-slotted sub-carriers with terrestrial links opportunistically. In particular, with coarse network-wide time synchronization, a time-scale-adaptable spectrum sharing framework is proposed based on a satellite-terrestrial cooperation time scale that can be flexibly adjusted according to practical requirements. For generality, it is assumed that both full and partial frequency reuse could be adopted among the base stations (BSs) and satellite selection is supported when multiple satellites are available. Relying on only statistical channel state information (CSI), joint link scheduling and power control are explored to maximize the average sum rate of the network while ensuring quality of service (QoS) for users. To solve the complicated mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, a low-complexity spectrum sharing scheme is presented based on link-feature-sketching-aided hierarchical link clustering and Monte-Carlo-and-successive-approximation-aided transmit power optimization. Simulation results demonstrate that by link feature sketching, diversity of the links brought by the spatial distribution of the users could be well utilized. The proposed scheme promises a significant performance gain even under strict inter-link interference constraints.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

Hybrid Mamba-Attention Neural Architecture for Channel Estimation

This paper proposes a hybrid Mamba-attention neural architecture to achieve improved channel estimation for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) waveforms, particularly for configurations with a large number of subcarriers. By integrating a customized Mamba module, the proposed framework handles large-scale subcarrier channel estimation efficiently while capturing long-distance dependencies among these subcarriers effectively. Unlike the conventional Mamba structure, this paper implements a bidirectional selective scan to enable information propagation from both directions, because channel gains at different subcarriers are inherently non-causal. In addition, by integrating Mamba to reduce the reliance on quadratic-complexity self-attention, the proposed solution achieves lower space complexity than fully transformer architectures. Simulation results based on the 3GPP TS 36.101 channel demonstrate that compared to other baseline neural networks, the proposed method achieves superior channel estimation performance with fewer tunable parameters and exhibits good generalization across previously unseen channels.

cs.LG↗