arXiv subjects

Shaoqian Li

Publications and source records attributed to Shaoqian Li.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Beamforming Technologies for Ultra-Massive MIMO in Terahertz Communications

Terahertz (THz) communications with a frequency band $0.1-10$ THz are envisioned as a promising solution to future high-speed wireless communication. Although with tens of gigahertz available bandwidth, THz signals suffer from severe free-spreading loss and molecular-absorption loss, which limit the wireless transmission distance. To compensate for the propagation loss, the ultra-massive multiple-input-multiple-output (UM-MIMO) can be applied to generate a high-gain directional beam by beamforming technologies. In this paper, a review of beamforming technologies for THz UM-MIMO systems is provided. Specifically, we first present the system model of THz UM-MIMO and identify its channel parameters and architecture types. Then, we illustrate the basic principles of beamforming via UM-MIMO and discuss the far-field and near-field assumptions in THz UM-MIMO. Moreover, an important beamforming strategy in THz band, i.e., beam training, is introduced wherein the beam training protocol and codebook design approaches are summarized. The intelligent-reflecting-surface (IRS)-assisted joint beamforming and multi-user beamforming in THz UM-MIMO systems are studied, respectively. The spatial-wideband effect and frequency-wideband effect in the THz beamforming are analyzed and the corresponding solutions are provided. Further, we present the corresponding fabrication techniques and illuminate the emerging applications benefiting from THz beamforming. Open challenges and future research directions on THz UM-MIMO systems are finally highlighted.

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arXiv2022

An Analytical Range-Angle Dependent Beam Focusing Model for Terahertz Linear Antenna Array

This paper considers a scenario in which the Terahertz (THz) transmitter equipped with a linear antenna array wishes to focus its beam to a desired spatial region in the array near-field. The goal is to compute the achievable spatial region and determine how the system parameters such as the carrier frequency, the array dimension and the user's location affect its beam focusing performance. First, based on a theorem from analytic geometry, we show that the achievable focusing spatial region constitutes a rotated ellipse, with the x and y coordinates denoting the range and angle, respectively. In this way, the determination of the spatial region is reduced to a problem of deriving the coverage of an ellipse. The achievable coverage is then obtained in closed form, and the construction of carrier frequency offsets that can analytically control the beam focusing performance is provided. Numerical results validate the theoretical findings and demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.

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arXiv2021

A Unified 3D Beam Training and Tracking Procedure for Terahertz Communication

Terahertz (THz) communication is considered as an attractive way to overcome the bandwidth bottleneck and satisfy the ever-increasing capacity demand in the future. Due to the high directivity and propagation loss of THz waves, a massive MIMO system using beamforming is envisioned as a promising technology in THz communication to realize high-gain and directional transmission. However, pilots, which are the fundamentals for many beamforming schemes, are challenging to be accurately detected in the THz band owing to the severe propagation loss. In this paper, a unified 3D beam training and tracking procedure is proposed to effectively realize the beamforming in THz communications, by considering the line-of-sight (LoS) propagation. In particular, a novel quadruple-uniform planar array (QUPA) architecture is analyzed to enlarge the signal coverage, increase the beam gain, and reduce the beam squint loss. Then, a new 3D grid-based (GB) beam training is developed with low complexity, including the design of the 3D codebook and training protocol. Finally, a simple yet effective grid-based hybrid (GBH) beam tracking is investigated to support THz beamforming in an efficient manner. The communication framework based on this procedure can dynamically trigger beam training/tracking depending on the real-time quality of service. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the superiority of our proposed beam training and tracking over the benchmark methods.

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arXiv2021

Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted Terahertz Communications toward 6G

Terahertz (THz) communications have emerged as a promising candidate to support the heavy data traffic and exploding network capacity in the future 6G wireless networks. However, THz communications are facing many challenges for practical implementation, such as propagation loss, signal blockage, and hardware cost. In this article, an emerging paradigm of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted THz communications is analyzed, to address the above issues, by leveraging the joint active and passive beamforming to enhance the communication quality and reduce overheads. Aiming at practical implementation, an overview of the currently available approaches of realizing THz active/passive beam steering at transmitter and IRS is presented. Based on these approaches, a beam training strategy for establishing joint beamforming is then investigated in THz communications. Moreover, various emerging and appealing 6G scenarios that integrate IRS into THz communications are envisioned. Open challenges and future research directions for this new paradigm are finally highlighted.

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arXiv2021

Improving THz Coverage for 6G URLLC Services via Exploiting Mobile Computing

Terahertz (THz) communication (0.1-10 THz) is regarded as a promising technology, which provides rich available bandwidth and high data rate of terahertz bit per second (Tbps). However, THz signals suffer from high path loss, which profoundly decreases the transmission distance. To improve THz coverage, we consider the aid of mobile computing. Specifically, job offloading decision in mobile computing and frequency allocation in communication are co-designed to maximize distance and concurrently support ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) services for the sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication. Further, the above optimization problem is non-convex, then an effective and low-complexity method is proposed via exploiting the special structure of this problem. Finally, numerical results verify the effectiveness of our work.

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arXiv2020

Joint Power Allocation and Passive Beamforming Design for IRS-Assisted Physical-Layer Service Integration

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has emerged as an appealing solution to enhance the wireless communication performance by reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment. In this paper, we propose to apply IRS to the physical-layer service integration (PHY-SI) system, where a single-antenna access point (AP) integrates two sorts of service messages, i.e., multicast message and confidential message, via superposition coding to serve multiple single-antenna users. Our goal is to optimize the power allocation (for transmitting different messages) at the AP and the passive beamforming at the IRS to maximize the achievable secrecy rate region. To this end, we formulate this problem as a bi-objective optimization problem, which is shown equivalent to a secrecy rate maximization problem subject to the constraints on the quality of multicast service. Due to the non-convexity of this problem, we propose two customized algorithms to obtain its high-quality suboptimal solutions, thereby approximately characterizing the secrecy rate region. The resulting performance gap with the globally optimal solution is analyzed. Furthermore, we provide theoretical analysis to unveil the impact of IRS beamforming on the performance of PHY-SI. Numerical results demonstrate the advantages of leveraging IRS in improving the performance of PHY-SI and also validate our theoretical analysis.

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arXiv2020

Modeling, Analysis, and Optimization of Grant-Free NOMA in Massive MTC via Stochastic Geometry

Massive machine-type communications (mMTC) is a crucial scenario to support booming Internet of Things (IoTs) applications. In mMTC, although a large number of devices are registered to an access point (AP), very few of them are active with uplink short packet transmission at the same time, which requires novel design of protocols and receivers to enable efficient data transmission and accurate multi-user detection (MUD). Aiming at this problem, grant-free non-orthogonal multiple access (GF-NOMA) protocol is proposed. In GF-NOMA, active devices can directly transmit their preambles and data symbols altogether within one time frame, without grant from the AP. Compressive sensing (CS)-based receivers are adopted for non-orthogonal preambles (NOP)-based MUD, and successive interference cancellation is exploited to decode the superimposed data signals. In this paper, we model, analyze, and optimize the CS-based GF-MONA mMTC system via stochastic geometry (SG), from an aspect of network deployment. Based on the SG network model, we first analyze the success probability as well as the channel estimation error of the CS-based MUD in the preamble phase and then analyze the average aggregate data rate in the data phase. As IoT applications highly demands low energy consumption, low infrastructure cost, and flexible deployment, we optimize the energy efficiency and AP coverage efficiency of GF-NOMA via numerical methods. The validity of our analysis is verified via Monte Carlo simulations. Simulation results also show that CS-based GF-NOMA with NOP yields better MUD and data rate performances than contention-based GF-NOMA with orthogonal preambles and CS-based grant-free orthogonal multiple access.

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arXiv2018

Decentralized Caching Schemes and Performance Limits in Two-layer Networks

We study the decentralized caching scheme in a two-layer network, which includes a sever, multiple helpers, and multiple users. Basically, the proposed caching scheme consists of two phases, i.e, placement phase and delivery phase. In the placement phase, each helper/user randomly and independently selects contents from the server and stores them into its memory. In the delivery phase, the users request contents from the server, and the server satisfies each user through a helper. Different from the existing caching scheme, the proposed caching scheme takes into account the pre-stored contents at both helpers and users in the placement phase to design the delivery phase. Meanwhile, the proposed caching scheme exploits index coding in the delivery phase and leverages multicast opportunities, even when different users request distinct contents. Besides, we analytically characterize the performance limit of the proposed caching scheme, and show that the achievable rate region of the proposed caching scheme lies within constant margins to the information-theoretic optimum. In particular, the multiplicative and additive factors are carefully sharpened to be $\frac{1}{48}$ and $4$ respectively, both of which are better than the state of arts. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed caching scheme compared with the state of arts.

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arXiv2018

Resource Allocation for Cooperative D2D-Enabled Wireless Caching Networks

In this paper, we study the resource allocation problem for a cooperative device-to-device (D2D)-enabled wireless caching network, where each user randomly caches popular contents to its memory and shares the contents with nearby users through D2D links. To enhance the throughput of spectrum sharing D2D links, which may be severely limited by the interference among D2D links, we enable the cooperation among some of the D2D links to eliminate the interference among them. We formulate a joint link scheduling and power allocation problem to maximize the overall throughput of cooperative D2D links (CDLs) and non-cooperative D2D links (NDLs), which is NP-hard. To solve the problem, we decompose it into two subproblems that maximize the sum rates of the CDLs and the NDLs, respectively. For CDL optimization, we propose a semi-orthogonal-based algorithm for joint user scheduling and power allocation. For NDL optimization, we propose a novel low-complexity algorithm to perform link scheduling and develop a Difference of Convex functions (D.C.) programming method to solve the non-convex power allocation problem. Simulation results show that the cooperative transmission can significantly increase both the number of served users and the overall system throughput.

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arXiv2018

Joint Power and Trajectory Design for Physical-Layer Secrecy in the UAV-Aided Mobile Relaying System

Mobile relaying is emerged as a promising technique to assist wireless communication, driven by the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this paper, we study secure transmission in a four-node (source, destination, mobile relay, and eavesdropper) system, wherein we focus on maximizing the secrecy rate via jointly optimizing the relay trajectory and the source/relay transmit power. Nevertheless, due to the coupling of the trajectory designing and the power allocating, the secrecy rate maximization (SRM) problem is intractable to solve. Accordingly, we propose an alternating optimization (AO) approach, wherein the trajectory designing and the power allocating are tackled in an alternating manner. Unfortunately, the trajectory designing is a nonconvex problem, and thus is still hard to solve. To circumvent the nonconvexity, we exploit sequential convex programming (SCP) to derive an iterative algorithm, which is proven to converge to a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) point of the trajectory design problem. The simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the joint power and trajectory design in improving the secrecy throughput.

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arXiv2018

Physical Layer Service Integration in 5G: Potentials and Challenges

High transmission rate and secure communication have been identified as the key targets that need to be effectively addressed by fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. In this context, the concept of physical-layer security becomes attractive, as it can establish perfect security using only the characteristics of wireless medium. Nonetheless, to further increase the spectral efficiency, an emerging concept, termed physical-layer service integration (PHY-SI), has been recognized as an effective means. Its basic idea is to combine multiple coexisting services, i.e., multicast/broadcast service and confidential service, into one integral service for one-time transmission at the transmitter side. This article first provides a tutorial on typical PHY-SI models. Furthermore, we propose some state-of-the-art solutions to improve the overall performance of PHY-SI in certain important communication scenarios. In particular, we highlight the extension of several concepts borrowed from conventional single-service communications, such as artificial noise (AN), eigenmode transmission etc., to the scenario of PHY-SI. These techniques are shown to be effective in the design of reliable and robust PHY-SI schemes. Finally, several potential research directions are identified for future work.

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arXiv2017

Artificial Noise-Aided Biobjective Transmitter Optimization for Service Integration in Multi-User MIMO Gaussian Broadcast Channel

This paper considers an artificial noise (AN)-aided transmit design for multi-user MIMO systems with integrated services. Specifically, two sorts of service messages are combined and served simultaneously: one multicast message intended for all receivers and one confidential message intended for only one receiver and required to be perfectly secure from other unauthorized receivers. Our interest lies in the joint design of input covariances of the multicast message, confidential message and artificial noise (AN), such that the achievable secrecy rate and multicast rate are simultaneously maximized. This problem is identified as a secrecy rate region maximization (SRRM) problem in the context of physical-layer service integration. Since this bi-objective optimization problem is inherently complex to solve, we put forward two different scalarization methods to convert it into a scalar optimization problem. First, we propose to prefix the multicast rate as a constant, and accordingly, the primal biobjective problem is converted into a secrecy rate maximization (SRM) problem with quality of multicast service (QoMS) constraint. By varying the constant, we can obtain different Pareto optimal points. The resulting SRM problem can be iteratively solved via a provably convergent difference-of-concave (DC) algorithm. In the second method, we aim to maximize the weighted sum of the secrecy rate and the multicast rate. Through varying the weighted vector, one can also obtain different Pareto optimal points. We show that this weighted sum rate maximization (WSRM) problem can be recast into a primal decomposable form, which is amenable to alternating optimization (AO). Then we compare these two scalarization methods in terms of their overall performance and computational complexity via theoretical analysis as well as numerical simulation, based on which new insights can be drawn.

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arXiv2017

Throughput Maximization for Decode-and-Forward Relay Channels with Non-Ideal Circuit Power

This paper studies the throughput maximization problem for a three-node relay channel with non-ideal circuit power. In particular, the relay operates in a half-duplex manner, and the decode-and-forward (DF) relaying scheme is adopted. Considering the extra power consumption by the circuits, the optimal power allocation to maximize the throughput of the considered system over an infinite time horizon is investigated. First, two special scenarios, i.e., the direct link transmission (only use the direct link to transmit) and the relay assisted transmission (the source and the relay transmit with equal probability), are studied, and the corresponding optimal power allocations are obtained. By transforming two non-convex problems into quasiconcave ones, the closed-form solutions show that the source and the relay transmit with certain probability, which is determined by the average power budgets, circuit power consumptions, and channel gains. Next, based on the above results, the optimal power allocation for both the cases with and without direct link is derived, which is shown to be a mixed transmission scheme between the direct link transmission and the relay assisted transmission.

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arXiv2017

Quantization Design and Channel Estimation for Massive MIMO Systems with One-Bit ADCs

We consider the problem of channel estimation for uplink multiuser massive MIMO systems, where, in order to significantly reduce the hardware cost and power consumption, one-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are used at the base station (BS) to quantize the received signal. Channel estimation for one-bit massive MIMO systems is challenging due to the severe distortion caused by the coarse quantization. It was shown in previous studies that an extremely long training sequence is required to attain an acceptable performance. In this paper, we study the problem of optimal one-bit quantization design for channel estimation in one-bit massive MIMO systems. Our analysis reveals that, if the quantization thresholds are optimally devised, using one-bit ADCs can achieve an estimation error close to (with an increase by a factor of $π/2$) that of an ideal estimator which has access to the unquantized data. The optimal quantization thresholds, however, are dependent on the unknown channel parameters. To cope with this difficulty, we propose an adaptive quantization (AQ) approach in which the thresholds are adaptively adjusted in a way such that the thresholds converge to the optimal thresholds, and a random quantization (RQ) scheme which randomly generate a set of nonidentical thresholds based on some statistical prior knowledge of the channel. Simulation results show that, our proposed AQ and RQ schemes, owing to their wisely devised thresholds, present a significant performance improvement over the conventional fixed quantization scheme that uses a fixed (typically zero) threshold, and meanwhile achieve a substantial training overhead reduction for channel estimation. In particular, even with a moderate number of pilot symbols (about 5 times the number of users), the AQ scheme can provide an achievable rate close to that of the perfect channel state information (CSI) case.

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arXiv2017

When mmWave Communications Meet Network Densification: A Scalable Interference Coordination Perspective

The millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is envisioned to provide orders of magnitude capacity improvement. However, it is challenging to realize a sufficient link margin due to high path loss and blockages. To address this difficulty, in this paper, we explore the potential gain of ultra-densification for enhancing mmWave communications from a network-level perspective. By deploying the mmWave base stations (BSs) in an extremely dense and amorphous fashion, the access distance is reduced and the choice of serving BSs is enriched for each user, which are intuitively effective for mitigating the propagation loss and blockages. Nevertheless, co-channel interference under this model will become a performance-limiting factor. To solve this problem, we propose a large-scale channel state information (CSI) based interference coordination approach. Note that the large-scale CSI is highly location-dependent, and can be obtained with a quite low cost. Thus, the scalability of the proposed coordination framework can be guaranteed. Particularly, using only the large-scale CSI of interference links, a coordinated frequency resource block allocation problem is formulated for maximizing the minimum achievable rate of the users, which is uncovered to be a NP-hard integer programming problem. To circumvent this difficulty, a greedy scheme with polynomial-time complexity is proposed by adopting the bisection method and linear integer programming tools. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed coordination scheme based on large-scale CSI only can still offer substantial gains over the existing methods. Moreover, although the proposed scheme is only guaranteed to converge to a local optimum, it performs well in terms of both user fairness and system efficiency.

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arXiv2017

On Artificial-Noise Aided Transmit Design for Multi-User MISO Systems with Integrated Services

This paper considers artificial noise (AN)-aided transmit designs for multi-user MISO systems in the eyes of service integration. Specifically, we combine two sorts of services, and serve them simultaneously: one multicast message intended for all receivers and one confidential message intended for only one receiver. The confidential message is kept perfectly secure from all the unauthorized receivers. Our goal is to jointly design the optimal input covariances for the multicast message, confidential message and AN, such that the achievable secrecy rate region is maximized subject to the sum power constraint. This secrecy rate region maximization (SRRM) problem is a nonconvex vector maximization problem. To handle it, we reformulate the SRRM problem into a provably equivalent scalar optimization problem and propose a searching method to find all of its Pareto optimal points. The equivalent scalar optimization problem is identified as a secrecy rate maximization (SRM) problem with the quality of multicast service (QoMS) constraints. Further, we show that this equivalent QoMS-constrained SRM problem, albeit nonconvex, can be efficiently handled based on a two-stage optimization approach, including solving a sequence of semidefinite programs. Moreover, we also extend the SRRM problem to an imperfect channel state information (CSI) case where a worst-case robust formulation is considered. In particular, while transmit beamforming is generally a suboptimal technique to the SRRM problem, we prove that it is optimal for the confidential message transmission whether in the perfect CSI scenario or in the imperfect CSI scenario. Finally, numerical results demonstrate that the AN-aided transmit designs are effective in expanding the achievable secrecy rate regions.

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arXiv2017

Compressive Channel Estimation and Multi-user Detection in C-RAN

This paper considers the channel estimation (CE) and multi-user detection (MUD) problems in cloud radio access network (C-RAN). Assuming that active users are sparse in the network, we solve CE and MUD problems with compressed sensing (CS) technology to greatly reduce the long identification pilot overhead. A mixed L{2,1}-regularization functional for extended sparse group-sparsity recovery is proposed to exploit the inherently sparse property existing both in user activities and remote radio heads (RRHs) that active users are attached to. Empirical and theoretical guidelines are provided to help choosing tuning parameters which have critical effect on the performance of the penalty functional. To speed up the processing procedure, based on alternating direction method of multipliers and variable splitting strategy, an efficient algorithm is formulated which is guaranteed to be convergent. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed functional and efficient algorithm.

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arXiv2016

Performance and Compensation of I/Q Imbalance in Differential STBC-OFDM

Differential space time block coding (STBC) achieves full spatial diversity and avoids channel estimation overhead. Over highly frequency-selective channels, STBC is integrated with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to achieve high performance. However, low-cost implementation of differential STBC-OFDM using direct-conversion transceivers is sensitive to In-phase/Quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI). In this paper, we quantify the performance impact of IQI at the receiver front-end on differential STBC-OFDM systems and propose a compensation algorithm to mitigate its effect. The proposed receiver IQI compensation works in an adaptive decision-directed manner without using known pilots or training sequences, which reduces the rate loss due to training overhead. Our numerical results show that our proposed compensation algorithm can effectively mitigate receive IQI in differential STBC-OFDM.

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