arXiv subjects

Robert Schober

Publications and source records attributed to Robert Schober.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

6D Movable Antenna Enhanced Wireless Network Via Discrete Position and Rotation Optimization

Six-dimensional movable antenna (6DMA) is an effective approach to improve wireless network capacity by adjusting the 3D positions and 3D rotations of distributed antenna surfaces based on the users' spatial distribution and statistical channel information. Although continuously positioning/rotating 6DMA surfaces can achieve the greatest flexibility and thus the highest capacity improvement, it is difficult to implement due to the discrete movement constraints of practical stepper motors. Thus, in this paper, we consider a 6DMA-aided base station (BS) with only a finite number of possible discrete positions and rotations for the 6DMA surfaces. We aim to maximize the average network capacity for random numbers of users at random locations by jointly optimizing the 3D positions and 3D rotations of multiple 6DMA surfaces at the BS subject to discrete movement constraints. In particular, we consider the practical cases with and without statistical channel knowledge of the users, and propose corresponding offline and online optimization algorithms, by leveraging the Monte Carlo and conditional sample mean (CSM) methods, respectively. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our proposed offline and online algorithms for discrete position/rotation optimization of 6DMA surfaces as compared to various benchmark schemes with fixed-position antennas (FPAs) and 6DMAs with limited movability. It is shown that 6DMA-BS can significantly enhance wireless network capacity, even under discrete position/rotation constraints, by exploiting the spatial distribution characteristics of the users.

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arXiv2024

Radar Rainbow Beams For Wideband mmWave Communication: Beam Training And Tracking

We propose a novel integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system that leverages sensing to assist communication, ensuring fast initial access, seamless user tracking, and uninterrupted communication for millimeter wave (mmWave) wideband systems. True-time-delayers (TTDs) are utilized to generate frequency-dependent radar rainbow beams by controlling the beam squint effect. These beams cover users across the entire angular space simultaneously for fast beam training using just one orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol. Three detection and estimation schemes are proposed based on radar rainbow beams for estimation of the users' angles, distances, and velocities, which are then exploited for communication beamformer design. The first proposed scheme utilizes a single-antenna radar receiver and one set of rainbow beams, but may cause a Doppler ambiguity. To tackle this limitation, two additional schemes are introduced, utilizing two sets of rainbow beams and a multi-antenna receiver, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed detection and estimation schemes are extended to realize user tracking by choosing different subsets of OFDM subcarriers. This approach eliminates the need to switch phase shifters and TTDs, which are typically necessary in existing tracking technologies, thereby reducing the demands on the control circurity. Simulation results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed rainbow beam-based training and tracking methods for mobile users. Notably, the scheme employing a multi-antenna radar receiver can accurately estimate the channel parameters and can support communication rates comparable to those achieved with perfect channel information.

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arXiv2024

Delay Dispersion in IRS-assisted FSO Links

The line-of-sight (LOS) requirement of free-space optical (FSO) systems can be relaxed by employing optical intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs). In this paper, we model the impact of the IRS-induced delay dispersion and derive the channel impulse response (CIR) of IRS-assisted FSO links. The proposed model takes into account the characteristics of the incident and reflected beams' wavefronts, the position of transmitter and receiver, the size of the IRS, and the incident beamwidth on the IRS. Our simulation results reveal that a maximum effective delay spread of 0.7 ns is expected for a square IRS with area 1 $\mathrm{m}^2$, which induces inter-symbol interference for bit rates larger than 10 Gbps. We show that the IRS-induced delay dispersion can be mitigated via equalization at the receiver.

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arXiv2024

Performance Tradeoff Between Overhead and Achievable SNR in RIS Beam Training

Efficient beam training is the key challenge in the codebook-based configuration of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) because the beam training overhead can have a strong impact on the achievable system performance. In this paper, we study the performance tradeoff between overhead and achievable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in RIS beam training while taking into account the size of the targeted coverage area, the RIS response time, and the delay for feedback transmissions. Thereby, we consider three common beam training strategies: full search (FS), hierarchical search (HS), and tracking-based search (TS). Our analysis shows that the codebook-based illumination of a given coverage area can be realized with wide- or narrow-beam designs, which result in two different scaling laws for the achievable SNR. Similarly, there are two regimes for the overhead, where the number of pilot symbols required for reliable beam training is dependent on and independent of the SNR, respectively. Based on these insights, we investigate the impact of the beam training overhead on the effective rate and provide an upper bound on the user velocity for which the overhead is negligible. Moreover, when the overhead is not negligible, we show that TS beam training achieves higher effective rates than HS and FS beam training, while HS beam training may or may not outperform FS beam training, depending on the RIS response time, feedback delay, and codebook size. Finally, we present numerical simulation results that verify our theoretical analysis. In particular, our results confirm the existence of the proposed regimes, reveal that fast RISs can lead to negligible overhead for FS beam training, and show that large feedback delays can significantly reduce the performance for HS beam training.

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arXiv2024

100 Gbps Indoor Access and 4.8 Gbps Outdoor Point-to-Point LiFi Transmission Systems using Laser-based Light Sources

In this paper, we demonstrate the communication capabilities of light-fidelity (LiFi) systems based on highbrightness and high-bandwidth integrated laser-based sources in a surface mount device (SMD) packaging platform. The laserbased source is able to deliver 450 lumens of white light illumination and the resultant light brightness is over 1000 cd mm2. It is demonstrated that a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) LiFi system with ten parallel channels is able to deliver over 100 Gbps data rate with the assistance of Volterra filter-based nonlinear equalisers. In addition, an aggregated transmission data rate of 4.8 Gbps has been achieved over a link distance of 500 m with the same type of SMD light source. This work demonstrates the scalability of LiFi systems that employ laserbased light sources, particularly in their capacity to enable highspeed short range, as well as long-range data transmission.

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arXiv2024

Interference Mitigation for Network-Level ISAC: An Optimization Perspective

Future wireless networks are envisioned to simultaneously provide high data-rate communication and ubiquitous environment-aware services for numerous users. One promising approach to meet this demand is to employ network-level integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) by jointly designing the signal processing and resource allocation over the entire network. However, to unleash the full potential of network-level ISAC, some critical challenges must be tackled. Among them, interference management is one of the most significant ones. In this article, we build up a bridge between interference mitigation techniques and the corresponding optimization methods, which facilitates efficient interference mitigation in network-level ISAC systems. In particular, we first identify several types of interference in network-level ISAC systems, including self-interference, mutual interference, crosstalk, clutter, and multiuser interference. Then, we present several promising techniques that can be utilized to suppress specific types of interference. For each type of interference, we discuss the corresponding problem formulation and identify the associated optimization methods. Moreover, to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed interference mitigation techniques, two concrete network-level ISAC systems, namely coordinated cellular network-based and distributed antenna-based ISAC systems, are investigated from interference management perspective. Experiment results indicate that it is beneficial to collaboratively employ different interference mitigation techniques and leverage the network structure to achieve the full potential of network-level ISAC. Finally, we highlight several promising future research directions for the design of ISAC systems.

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arXiv2024

Design of Downlink Hybrid NOMA Transmission

The aim of this paper is to develop hybrid non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) assisted downlink transmission. First, for the single-input single-output (SISO) scenario, i.e., each node is equipped with a single antenna, a novel hybrid NOMA scheme is introduced, where NOMA is implemented as an add-on of a legacy time division multiple access (TDMA) network. Because of the simplicity of the SISO scenario, analytical results can be developed to reveal important properties of downlink hybrid NOMA. For example, in the case that the users' channel gains are ordered and the durations of their time slots are the same, downlink hybrid NOMA is shown to always outperform TDMA, which is different from the existing conclusion for uplink hybrid NOMA. Second, the proposed downlink SISO hybrid NOMA scheme is extended to the multiple-input single-output (MISO) scenario, i.e., the base station has multiple antennas. For the MISO scenario, near-field communication is considered to illustrate how NOMA can be used as an add-on in legacy networks based on space division multiple access and TDMA. Simulation results verify the developed analytical results and demonstrate the superior performance of downlink hybrid NOMA compared to conventional orthogonal multiple access.

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arXiv2024

Joint Transmit Signal and Beamforming Design for Integrated Sensing and Power Transfer Systems

Integrating different functionalities, conventionally implemented as dedicated systems, into a single platform allows utilising the available resources more efficiently. We consider an integrated sensing and power transfer (ISAPT) system and propose the joint optimisation of the rectangular pulse-shaped transmit signal and the beamforming vector to combine sensing and wireless power transfer (WPT) functionalities efficiently. In contrast to prior works, we adopt an accurate non-linear circuit-based energy harvesting (EH) model. We formulate and solve a non-convex optimisation problem for a general number of EH receivers to maximise a weighted sum of the average harvested powers at the EH receivers while ensuring the received echo signal reflected by a sensing target (ST) has sufficient power for estimating the range to the ST with a prescribed accuracy within the considered coverage region. The average harvested power is shown to monotonically increase with the pulse duration when the average transmit power budget is sufficiently large. We discuss the trade-off between sensing performance and power transfer for the considered ISAPT system. The proposed approach significantly outperforms a heuristic baseline scheme based on a linear EH model, which linearly combines energy beamforming with the beamsteering vector in the direction to the ST as its transmit strategy.

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arXiv2024

TTD Configurations for Near-Field Beamforming: Parallel, Serial, or Hybrid?

True-time delayers (TTDs) are popular components for hybrid beamforming architectures to combat the spatial-wideband effect in wideband near-field communications. In this paper, a serial and a hybrid serial-parallel TTD configuration are investigated for hybrid beamforming architectures. Compared to the conventional parallel configuration, the serial configuration exhibits a cumulative time delay caused by multiple TTDs, which potentially alleviates the maximum delay requirements on the individual TTDs. However, independent control of individual TTDs becomes impossible in the serial configuration. Therefore, a hybrid TTD configuration is proposed as a compromise solution. Furthermore, a power equalization approach is proposed to address the cumulative insertion loss of the serial and hybrid TTD configurations. The wideband near-field beamforming design for different configurations is studied to maximize the spectral efficiency in both single-user and multiple-user systems. 1) For single-user systems, a closed-form solution for the beamforming design is derived. The preferred user locations and the required maximum time delay of each TTD configuration are characterized. 2) For multi-user systems, a penalty-based iterative algorithm is developed to obtain a stationary point of the spectral efficiency maximization problem for the considered TTD configurations. In addition, a hybrid-forward-and-backward (HFB) implementation is proposed to enhance the performance of the serial configuration. Our numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed designs and unveil that i) compared to the conventional parallel configuration, both the serial and hybrid configurations can significantly reduce the maximum time delays required for the individual TTDs and ii) the hybrid configuration excels in single-user systems, while the HFB serial configuration is preferred in multi-user systems.

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arXiv2023

UAV Formation Optimization for Communication-assisted InSAR Sensing

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is an increasingly important remote sensing technique that enables three-dimensional (3D) sensing applications such as the generation of accurate digital elevation models (DEMs). In this paper, we investigate the joint formation and communication resource allocation optimization for a system comprising two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to perform InSAR sensing and to transfer the acquired data to the ground. To this end, we adopt as sensing performance metrics the interferometric coherence, i.e., the local correlation between the two co-registered UAV radar images, and the height of ambiguity (HoA), which together are a measure for the accuracy with which the InSAR system can estimate the height of ground objects. In addition, an analytical expression for the coverage of the considered InSAR sensing system is derived. Our objective is to maximize the InSAR coverage while satisfying all relevant InSAR-specific sensing and communication performance metrics. To tackle the non-convexity of the formulated optimization problem, we employ alternating optimization (AO) techniques combined with successive convex approximation (SCA). Our simulation results reveal that the resulting resource allocation algorithm outperforms two benchmark schemes in terms of InSAR coverage while satisfying all sensing and real-time communication requirements. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of efficient communication resource allocation in facilitating real-time sensing and unveil the trade-off between InSAR height estimation accuracy and coverage.

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arXiv2023

Closed Loop Molecular Communication Testbed: Setup, Interference Analysis, and Experimental Results

In this paper, we present a fluid-based experimental molecular communication (MC) testbed that, similar to the human cardiovascular system, operates in a closed circuit tube system. The proposed system is designed to be biocompatible, resource-efficient, and controllable from outside the tube. As signaling molecule, the testbed employs the green fluorescent protein variant "Dreiklang" (GFPD). GFPDs can be reversibly switched via light of different wavelengths between a bright fluorescent state and a less fluorescent state. Hence, this property allows for writing and erasing information encoded in the state of the GFPDs already present in the fluid via radiation from outside the tube. The concept of modulating the GFPDs existing in the channel at the transmitter for information transmission, instead of releasing new molecules, is a form of media modulation. In our testbed, due to the closed loop setup and the long experiment durations of up to 250 min, we observe new forms of inter-symbol interferences (ISI), which do not occur in short experiments and open loop systems. In particular, up to four different forms of ISI, namely channel ISI, inter-loop ISI, offset ISI, and permanent ISI, occur in the considered system. To mitigate inter-loop ISI and offset ISI, we propose a light based eraser unit. We experimentally demonstrate reliable information transmission in our testbed achieving error-free transmission of 500 bit at a data rate of 6 bit/min based on a sub-optimal low-complexity detection scheme.

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arXiv2023

Energy-Aware Resource Allocation and Trajectory Design for UAV-Enabled ISAC

In this paper, we investigate joint resource allocation and trajectory design for multi-user multi-target unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled integrated sensing and communication (ISAC). To improve sensing accuracy, the UAV is forced to hover during sensing.~In particular, we jointly optimize the two-dimensional trajectory, velocity, downlink information and sensing beamformers, and sensing indicator to minimize the average power consumption of a fixed-altitude UAV, while considering the quality of service of the communication users and the sensing tasks. To tackle the resulting non-convex mixed integer non-linear program (MINLP), we exploit semidefinite relaxation, the big-M method, and successive convex approximation to develop an alternating optimization-based algorithm.~Our simulation results demonstrate the significant power savings enabled by the proposed scheme compared to two baseline schemes employing heuristic trajectories.

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arXiv2023

Analysis of Molecule Harvesting by Heterogeneous Receptors on MC Transmitters

This paper designs a molecule harvesting transmitter (TX) model, where the surface of a spherical TX is covered by heterogeneous receptors with different sizes and arbitrary locations. If molecules hit any receptor, they are absorbed by the TX immediately. Within the TX, molecules are stored in vesicles that are continuously generated and released by the TX via the membrane fusion process. Considering a transparent receiver (RX) and molecular degradation during the propagation from the TX to the RX, we derive the molecule release rate and the fraction of molecules absorbed by the TX as well as the received signal at the RX. Notably, this analytical result is applicable for different numbers, sizes, and locations of receptors, and its accuracy is verified via particle-based simulations. Numerical results show that different vesicle generation rates result in the same number of molecules absorbed by the TX, but different peak received signals at the RX.

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arXiv2023

Performance Analysis and Low-Complexity Design for XL-MIMO with Near-Field Spatial Non-Stationarities

Extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) is capable of supporting extremely high system capacities with large numbers of users. In this work, we build a framework for the analysis and low-complexity design of XL-MIMO in the near field with spatial non-stationarities. Specifically, we first analyze the theoretical performance of discrete-aperture XL-MIMO using an electromagnetic (EM) channel model based on the near-field spherical wavefront. We analytically reveal the impact of the discrete aperture and polarization mismatch on the received power. We also complement the classical Fraunhofer distance based on the considered EM channel model. Our analytical results indicate that a limited part of the XL-array receives the majority of the signal power in the near field, which leads to a notion of visibility region (VR) of a user. Thus, we propose a VR detection algorithm and leverage the acquired VR information to devise a low-complexity symbol detection scheme. Furthermore, we propose a graph theory-based user partition algorithm, relying on the VR overlap ratio between different users. Partial zero-forcing (PZF) is utilized to eliminate only the interference from users allocated to the same group, which further reduces computational complexity in matrix inversion. Numerical results confirm the correctness of the analytical results and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. It reveals that our algorithms approach the performance of conventional whole array (WA)-based designs but with much lower complexity.

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arXiv2023

HoloFed: Environment-Adaptive Positioning via Multi-band Reconfigurable Holographic Surfaces and Federated Learning

Positioning is an essential service for various applications and is expected to be integrated with existing communication infrastructures in 5G and 6G. Though current Wi-Fi and cellular base stations (BSs) can be used to support this integration, the resulting precision is unsatisfactory due to the lack of precise control of the wireless signals. Recently, BSs adopting reconfigurable holographic surfaces (RHSs) have been advocated for positioning as RHSs' large number of antenna elements enable generation of arbitrary and highly-focused signal beam patterns. However, existing designs face two major challenges: i) RHSs only have limited operating bandwidth, and ii) the positioning methods cannot adapt to the diverse environments encountered in practice. To overcome these challenges, we present HoloFed, a system providing high-precision environment-adaptive user positioning services by exploiting multi-band(MB)-RHS and federated learning (FL). For improving the positioning performance, a lower bound on the error variance is obtained and utilized for guiding MB-RHS's digital and analog beamforming design. For better adaptability while preserving privacy, an FL framework is proposed for users to collaboratively train a position estimator, where we exploit the transfer learning technique to handle the lack of position labels of the users. Moreover, a scheduling algorithm for the BS to select which users train the position estimator is designed, jointly considering the convergence and efficiency of FL. Our simulation results confirm that HoloFed achieves a 57% lower positioning error variance compared to a beam-scanning baseline and can effectively adapt to diverse environments.

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arXiv2023

Area Rate Efficiency in Multi-Link Molecular Communications

We consider a multi-link diffusion-based molecular communication (MC) system where multiple spatially distributed transmitter (TX)-receiver (RX) pairs establish point-to-point communication links employing the same type of signaling molecules. To exploit the full potential of such a system, an in-depth understanding of the interplay between the spatial link density and inter-link interference (ILI) and its impact on system performance is needed. In this paper, we consider a three-dimensional unbounded domain with multiple spatially distributed point-to-point non-cooperative transmission links, where both the TXs and RXs are positioned on a regular fixed grid. For this setup, we first derive an analytical expression for the channel impulse responses (CIRs) between the TXs and RXs in the system. Then, we derive the maximum likelihood (ML) detector for the RXs and show that it reduces to a threshold-based detector. Moreover, we derive an analytical expression for the corresponding detection threshold which depends on the statistics of the desired signal from the dedicated TX, the statistics of the MC channel, and the statistics of the ILI. Finally, we propose two new performance metrics, namely area rate efficiency (ARE) and area and time rate efficiency (ARTE), suitable for holistically evaluating spatially distributed multi-link MC systems. In particular, ARE and ARTE capture the tradeoff between transmission link density and achievable rate per link and the tradeoff between transmission link density, achievable rate per link, and inter-symbol interference (ISI), respectively. Hence, ARE and ARTE can be exploited to determine the optimal transmission link density for maximizing the throughput of the entire system.

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arXiv2023

NOMA-Based Coexistence of Near-Field and Far-Field Massive MIMO Communications

This letter considers a legacy massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, in which spatial beams have been preconfigured for near-field users, and proposes to use the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) principle to serve additional far-field users by exploiting the spatial beams preconfigured for the legacy near-field users. Our results reveal that the coexistence between near-field and far-field communications can be effectively supported via NOMA, and that the performance of NOMA-assisted massive MIMO can be efficiently improved by increasing the number of antennas at the base station.

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arXiv2023

Accurate EH Modelling and Achievable Information Rate for SLIPT Systems with Multi-Junction Photovoltaic Receivers

In this paper, we study optical simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) systems employing photovoltaic optical receivers (RXs). To be able to efficiently harvest energy from broadband light, we propose to employ multi-junction photovoltaic cells at the optical RX. We consider the case, where the optical RX is illuminated by ambient light, an intensity-modulated information free space optical (FSO) signal, and since the ambient light may not be always present, a dedicated energy-providing broadband optical signal. Based on the analysis of the equivalent electrical circuit of the multi-junction photovoltaic RX, we model the current flow through the photovoltaic cell and derive a novel accurate and two novel approximate energy harvesting (EH) models for the two cases, where the optical RX is equipped with a single and multiple p-n junctions, respectively. We derive the optimal distribution of the transmit information signal that maximizes the achievable information rate. We validate the proposed EH models by circuit simulations and show that the photovoltaic RXs saturate for high received signal powers. For single-junction RXs, we compare the proposed EH model with two well-known baseline models and demonstrate that, in contrast to the proposed EH model, they are not able to fully capture the RX non-linearity. Since multi-junction RXs allow a more efficient allocation of the optical power, they are more robust against saturation, and thus, are able to harvest significantly more power and achieve higher data rates than RXs employing a single p-n junction. Finally, we highlight a tradeoff between the information rate and harvested power in SLIPT systems and demonstrate that the proposed optimal distribution yields significantly higher achievable information rates compared to uniformly distributed transmit signals, which are optimal for linear optical information RXs.

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