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Liang Xia

Publications and source records attributed to Liang Xia.

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New Mid-Band (FR3, 6-24 GHz) XL-MIMO for 6G: Channel Modeling, Algorithm Evaluation, and Field Trials

The new mid-band (FR3, 6-24 GHz) spectrum is expected to play an important role in future 6G networks by providing a favorable balance among coverage, capacity, and deployment feasibility. Meanwhile, extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) has emerged as a key enabling technology to exploit the propagation and spatial multiplexing potential of these frequency bands. Firstly, this paper provides a systematic review of spectrum allocation and standardization activities for new mid-band spectrum, together with the 6G spectrum planning strategies of countries and regions. Secondly, the wideband massive MIMO channel sounder is also introduced, which is specially developed for channel measurements of new mid-band with over a thousand elements. Thirdly, propagation characteristics and channel modeling approaches of four representative XL-MIMO architectures, including co-located, cell-free, and intelligent XL-MIMO, are comprehensively reviewed and analyzed, with particular emphasis on near-field propagation, spatial non-stationarity, and capacity performance. Then, recent advances in channel estimation, beamforming, and artificial-intelligence-assisted signal processing are summarized. In addition, the performance of new mid-band XL-MIMO systems equipped with 1536 and 768 antenna elements is comparatively evaluated. Finally, real communication environment prototype system field trials conducted in the Upper 6 GHz (U6GHz) band are used to investigate practical system performance under realistic deployment conditions. The results indicate that the target signal-to-noise ratio is a critical factor affecting XL-MIMO performance in the U6GHz band.

eess.SP

Capacity Bounds and High-SNR Characterization for MIMO-OWC Channels Under Average-Power Constraint

This paper investigates the capacity of multipleinput multiple-output (MIMO) optical wireless communication (OWC) channels under a total average-power constraint. Since different nonnegative input vectors can be mapped to the same image vector and thus induce the same output distribution, we formulate a nonnegative basis pursuit (NN-BP) problem to identify the minimum-l1-norm input vector for each image vector. Based on the NN-BP characterization, we derive an equivalent expression for the channel capacity in terms of the image-vector distribution. We then establish computable lower and upper capacity bounds for both nT >= nR and nT < nR cases, and prove that the proposed bounds are asymptotically tight in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Numerical results for indoor and outdoor OWC scenarios demonstrate that the proposed bounds improve upon existing ones and close the constant gap in the high-SNR regime.

cs.IT

A Wireless World Model for AI-Native 6G Networks

Integrating AI into the physical layer is a cornerstone of 6G networks. However, current data-driven approaches struggle to generalize across dynamic environments because they lack an intrinsic understanding of electromagnetic wave propagation. We introduce the Wireless World Model (WWM), a multi-modal foundation framework predicting the spatiotemporal evolution of wireless channels by internalizing the causal relationship between 3D geometry and signal dynamics. Pre-trained on a massive ray-traced multi-modal dataset, WWM overcomes the data authenticity gap, further validated under real-world measurement data. Using a joint-embedding predictive architecture with a multi-modal mixture-of-experts Transformer, WWM fuses channel state information, 3D point clouds, and user trajectories into a unified representation. Across the five key downstream tasks supported by WWM, it achieves remarkable performance in seen environments, unseen generalization scenarios, and real-world measurements, consistently outperforming SOTA uni-modal foundation models and task-specific models. This paves the way for physics-aware 6G intelligence that adapts to the physical world.

cs.NI

Secrecy Capacity Analysis and Beamforming Optimization for MIMO-VLC Wiretap Channels

This paper investigates a multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) visible light communication (VLC) wiretap channel consisting of a transmitter, a legitimate receiver, and an eavesdropper. The optical input is subject to both peakand average-intensity constraints. By applying the generalized entropy-power inequality to truncated exponential inputs, we derive a novel closed-form expression for the achievable secrecy rate for general MIMO VLC configurations. To enhance transmission confidentiality, a fully-connected beamforming scheme is proposed, along with a low-complexity sub-connected alternative. Although the resulting beamforming design problems are nonconvex, they are efficiently addressed by transforming them into a sequence of convex subproblems solvable via the successive convex approximation framework. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed schemes achieve significant secrecy performance improvements compared with the benchmark scheme.

cs.IT

Wireless Environment Information Sensing, Feature, Semantic, and Knowledge: Four Steps Towards 6G AI-Enabled Air Interface

The air interface technology plays a crucial role in optimizing the communication quality for users. To address the challenges brought by the radio channel variations to air interface design, this article proposes a framework of wireless environment information-aided 6G AI-enabled air interface (WEI-6G AI$^{2}$), which actively acquires real-time environment details to facilitate channel fading prediction and communication technology optimization. Specifically, we first outline the role of WEI in supporting the 6G AI$^{2}$ in scenario adaptability, real-time inference, and proactive action. Then, WEI is delineated into four progressive steps: raw sensing data, features obtained by data dimensionality reduction, semantics tailored to tasks, and knowledge that quantifies the environmental impact on the channel. To validate the availability and compare the effect of different types of WEI, a path loss prediction use case is designed. The results demonstrate that leveraging environment knowledge requires only 2.2 ms of model inference time, which can effectively support real-time design for future 6G AI$^{2}$. Additionally, WEI can reduce the pilot overhead by 25\%. Finally, several open issues are pointed out, including multi-modal sensing data synchronization and information extraction method construction.

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Electromagnetic Wave Property Inspired Radio Environment Knowledge Construction and AI-based Verification for 6G Digital Twin Channel

As the underlying foundation of a digital twin network (DTN), a digital twin channel (DTC) can accurately depict the process of radio propagation in the air interface to support the DTN-based 6G wireless network. Since radio propagation is affected by the environment, constructing the relationship between the environment and radio wave propagation is the key to improving the accuracy of DTC, and the construction method based on artificial intelligence (AI) is the most concentrated. However, in the existing methods, the environment information input into the neural network (NN) has many dimensions, and the correlation between the environment and the channel relationship is unclear, resulting in a highly complex relationship construction process. To solve this issue, in this paper, we propose a construction method of radio environment knowledge (REK) inspired by the electromagnetic wave property to quantify the contribution of radio propagation. Specifically, a range selection scheme for effective environment information based on random geometry is proposed to reduce the redundancy of environment information. We quantify the contribution of radio propagation reflection, diffraction and scatterer blockage using environment information and propose a flow chart of REK construction to replace the feature extraction process partially based on NN. To validate REK's effectiveness, we conduct a path loss prediction task based on a lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) employing a simple two-layer convolutional structure. The results show that the accuracy of the range selection method reaches 90\%; the constructed REK maintains the prediction error of 0.3 and only needs 0.04 seconds of testing time, effectively reducing the network complexity.

eess.SP

6G Channel Modeling: Requirement, Measurement, Methodology and Simulator

Sixth-generation (6G) mobile communications have attracted substantial attention in the global research community of information and communication technologies (ICTs). 6G systems are expected to support not only extended 5G usage scenarios but also new usage scenarios, such as integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), integrated artificial intelligence (AI) and communication, and communication and ubiquitous connectivity. To achieve this goal, channel characteristics must be comprehensively studied and properly exploited to promote the design, standardization, and optimization of 6G systems. In this paper, we first summarize the requirements and challenges in 6G channel research. Our focus is on channels for six promising technologies enabling 6G, including ISAC, extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO), mid-band and terahertz (THz) technologies, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), and space-air-ground integrated networks (SAGINs). A survey of the progress in 6G channel research regarding the above six promising technologies is presented in terms of the latest measurement campaigns, new characteristics, modeling methods, and research prospects. To support testing, optimization and evaluation, existing 6G channel simulators are summarized. Then, BUPTCMCCCMG-IMT2030 is introduced as an example of a simulator that was developed on the basis of the ITU/3GPP 3D geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) methodology. We also address open issues covering standardization activities, AI-enabled methods, and system performance analysis in the context of 6G channel research. This paper offers in-depth, hands-on insights into the best practices of channel measurements, modeling, and simulations for the evaluation of 6G technologies, the development of 6G standards, and the implementation and optimization of 6G systems.

eess.SP

Frequency-Angle Two-Dimensional Reflection Coefficient Modeling Based on Terahertz Channel Measurement

Terahertz (THz) channel propagation characteristics are vital for the design, evaluation, and optimization for THz communication systems. Moreover, reflection plays a significant role in channel propagation. In this letter, the reflection coefficient of the THz channel is researched based on extensive measurement campaigns. Firstly, we set up the THz channel sounder from 220 to 320 GHz with the incident angle ranging from 10° to 80°. Based on the measured propagation loss, the reflection coefficients of five building materials, i.e., glass, tile, aluminium alloy, board, and plasterboard, are calculated separately for frequencies and incident angles. It is found that the lack of THz relative parameters leads to the Fresnel model of non-metallic materials can not fit the measured data well. Thus, we propose a frequency-angle two-dimensional reflection coefficient model by modifying the Fresnel model with the Lorenz and Drude model. The proposed model characterizes the frequency and incident angle for reflection coefficients and shows low root-mean-square error with the measured data. Generally, these results are useful for modeling THz channels.

eess.SP

A systematic review of recent air source heat pump (ASHP) systems assisted by solar thermal, photovoltaic and photovoltaic/thermal sources

The air source heat pump (ASHP) systems assisted by solar energy have drawn great attentions, owing to their great feasibility in buildings for space heating/cooling and hot water purposes. However, there are a variety of configurations, parameters and performance criteria of solar assisted ASHP systems, leading to a major inconsistency that increase the degree of complexity to compare and implement different systems. A comparative literature review is lacking, with the aim to evaluate the performance of various ASHP systems from three main solar sources, such as solar thermal (ST), photovoltaic (PV) and hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T). This paper thus conducts a systematic review of the prevailing solar assisted ASHP systems, including their boundary conditions, system configurations, performance indicators, research methodologies and system performance. The comparison result indicates that PV-ASHP system has the best techno-economic performance, which performs best in average with coefficient of performance (COP) of around 3.75, but with moderate cost and payback time. While ST-ASHP and PV/T-ASHP systems have lower performance with mean COP of 2.90 and 3.03, respectively. Moreover, PV/T-ASHP system has the highest cost and longest payback time, while ST-ASHP has the lowest ones. Future research are discussed from aspects of methodologies, system optimization and standard evaluation.

eess.SY