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Supeng Leng

Publications and source records attributed to Supeng Leng.

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Diverge-Merge Formation and MAC Control in Structured Airspace

The rapid scaling of advanced air mobility (AAM) makes corridor-based structured airspace a promising infrastructure for high-density unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) traffic. Formation flight can improve corridor capacity by suppressing shockwave propagation, but rigid formations become inefficient or unsafe during ramp branching, merging, and congestion. To address this problem, this paper proposes a task-driven diverge-merge control framework for UAV formations in structured airspace. At the beginning, a corridor-ramp branching structured airspace model is established to characterize the traffic dynamics and spatial constraints. Building upon this, a fast task-driven clustering mechanism integrates spatial connectivity, flight intent, and aerial task interactions to enable real-time diverge and merge for ramp branching and traffic reshaping. To make the diverge-merge reconfigurations executable at the media access control (MAC) layer of the formation, a cluster-aware distributed time division multiple access (CAD-TDMA) protocol is further designed. It protects intra-cluster control synchronization while conservatively reusing low-risk inter-cluster slots. Simulation results show that the proposed diverge-merge algorithm maintains near-zero geometrical misclassification under severe physical overlapping and congestion. With the formation diverge-merge traces, CAD-TDMA achieves the best delay--loss--throughput tradeoff over fixed TDMA and WiFi MAC. It shows that the proposed formation control framework can jointly support real-time formation reconfiguration and reliable communication in corridor-ramp structured airspace.

cs.NI

LSAI: A Large Small AI Model Codesign Framework for Agentic Robot Scenarios

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has enabled agentic robots an appealing paradigm for various applications, such as research and rescue in complex environment. In this context, the next wireless communication technology facilitates robot cooperation for efficient environment sensing and exploration. However, traditional AI solutions cannot always provide reasonable resource utilization decisions, which makes it challenging to achieve both accurate and low-latency research and rescue. To address this issue, we propose a, LSAI, a large small AI model codesign framework to achieve highly accurate and real-time robot cooperation with deep interaction between large AI model and small AI model. We first propose an attention-based model aggregation for LAI construction. It can assist agentic robots in accurately sensing physical environments. Next, we design an adaptive model splitting and update algorithm to enable the robots to perform accurate path planning for high-efficiency environment sensing with low energy consumption. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed LSAI framework. The simulation results indicate that our solution achieves sensing accuracy of up to 20.4% while reducing sensing cooperation latency by an average of 17.9% compared to traditional AI solutions.

eess.SY

Information-Optimal Formation Geometry Design for Multimodal UAV Cooperative Perception

The efficacy of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm cooperative perception fundamentally depends on three-dimensional (3D) formation geometry, which governs target observability and sensor complementarity. In the literature, the exploitation of formation geometry and its impact on UAV sensing have rarely been studied, which can significantly degrade multimodal cooperative perception in scenarios where heterogeneous payloads (vision cameras and LiDAR) should be geometrically arranged to exploit their complementary strengths while managing communication interference and hardware budgets. To bridge this critical gap, targeting the active tracking phase where a prior target estimate is available, we propose an information-optimal optimization framework that optimizes the allocation of UAVs and multimodal sensors, configures formation geometries, and executes flight control. The UAV-sensor allocation is optimized by the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) determinant maximization. Under this framework, we introduce an equivalent formation transition strategy that enhances field-of-view (FOV) coverage and reduces dynamic communication interference without compromising perception accuracy. Furthermore, we design a novel Lyapunov-stable flight control scheme with logarithmic potential fields to generate energy-efficient trajectories for formation transitions. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our formation-aware design achieves 25.0\% improvement in FOV coverage, 104.2\% enhancement in communication signal strength, and 84.7\% reduction in energy consumption compared to conventional benchmarks. A high-fidelity Gazebo validation further shows up to 20.2\% gain in perception accuracy over hemispherically sampled formations. These results suggest that task-driven geometric allocation is an important rather than incidental component in next-generation UAV swarm perception systems.

eess.SY

Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces-Aided eVTOL Delay Sensitive Communications

With rapid urbanization and increasing population density, urban traffic congestion has become a critical issue, and traditional ground transportation methods are no longer sufficient to address it effectively. To tackle this challenge, the concept of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) has emerged, aiming to utilize low-altitude airspace to establish a three-dimensional transportation system. Among various components of the AAM system, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft plays a pivotal role due to their flexibility and efficiency. However, the immaturity of Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) technologies poses significant challenges to safety-critical AAM operations. Specifically, existing Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces (SIM)-based eVTOL systems lack rigorous mathematical frameworks to quantify probabilistic delay bounds under dynamic air traffic patterns, a prerequisite for collision avoidance and airspace management. To bridge this gap, we employ network calculus tools to derive the probabilistic upper bound on communication delay in the AAM system for the first time. Furthermore, we formulate a complex non-convex optimization problem that jointly minimizes the probabilistic delay bound and the propagation delay. To solve this problem efficiently, we propose a solution based on the Block Coordinate Descent (BCD) algorithm and Semidefinite Relaxation (SDR) method. In addition, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of how various factors impact regret and transmission rate, and explore the influence of varying load intensity and total delay on the probabilistic delay bound.

cs.NI

Network Slice-based Low-Altitude Intelligent Network for Advanced Air Mobility

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is transforming transportation systems by extending them into near-ground airspace, offering innovative solutions to mobility challenges. In this space, electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) perform a variety of tasks to improve aviation safety and efficiency, such as collaborative computing and perception. However, eVTOLs face constraints such as compacted shape and restricted onboard computing resources. These limitations necessitate task offloading to nearby high-performance base stations (BSs) for timely processing. Unfortunately, the high mobility of eVTOLs, coupled with their restricted flight airlines and heterogeneous resource management creates significant challenges in dynamic task offloading. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel network slice-based Low-Altitude Intelligent Network (LAIN) framework for eVTOL tasks. By leveraging advanced network slicing technologies from 5G/6G, the proposed framework dynamically adjusts communication bandwidth, beam alignment, and computing resources to meet fluctuating task demands. Specifically, the framework includes an access pairing method to pre-schedule optimal eVTOL-BS-slice assignments, a pre-assessment algorithm to avoid resource waste, and a deep reinforcement learning-based slice orchestration mechanism to optimize resource allocation and lifecycle management. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms existing benchmarks in terms of resource allocation efficiency and operational/violation costs across varying eVTOL velocities. This work provides valuable insights into intelligent network slicing for future AAM transportation systems.

cs.NI

Digital Twin-based SIM Communication and Flight Control for Advanced Air Mobility

Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing vehicles (eVTOLs) are driving Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) toward transforming urban transportation by extending travel from congested ground networks to low-altitude airspace. This transition promises to reduce traffic congestion and significantly shorten commute times. To ensure aviation safety, eVTOLs must fly within prescribed flight corridors. These corridors are managed by ground-based Air Traffic Control (ATCo) stations, which oversee air-ground communication and flight scheduling. However, one critical challenge remains: the lack of high rate air-ground communication and safe flight planning within these corridors. The introduction of 6G-oriented Stacked Intelligent Metasurface (SIM) technology presents a high rate communication solution. With advanced phase-shifting capabilities, SIM enables precise wireless signal control and supports beam-tracking communication with eVTOLs. Leveraging this technology, we propose a Composite Potential Field (CPF) approach. This method dynamically integrates target, separation, and communication fields to optimize both SIM communication efficiency and flight safety. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of this DT-based approach. Compared to the potential field flight control benchmark, it improves the transmission rate by 8.3\%. Additionally, it reduces flight distance deviation from the prescribed corridor by 10\% compared to predetermined optimization methods.

cs.NI

Multi-hop RIS-aided Learning Model Sharing for Urban Air Mobility

Urban Air Mobility (UAM), powered by flying cars, is poised to revolutionize urban transportation by expanding vehicle travel from the ground to the air. This advancement promises to alleviate congestion and enable faster commutes. However, the fast travel speeds mean vehicles will encounter vastly different environments during a single journey. As a result, onboard learning systems need access to extensive environmental data, leading to high costs in data collection and training. These demands conflict with the limited in-vehicle computing and battery resources. Fortunately, learning model sharing offers a solution. Well-trained local Deep Learning (DL) models can be shared with other vehicles, reducing the need for redundant data collection and training. However, this sharing process relies heavily on efficient vehicular communications in UAM. To address these challenges, this paper leverages the multi-hop Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) technology to improve DL model sharing between distant flying cars. We also employ knowledge distillation to reduce the size of the shared DL models and enable efficient integration of non-identical models at the receiver. Our approach enhances model sharing and onboard learning performance for cars entering new environments. Simulation results show that our scheme improves the total reward by 85% compared to benchmark methods.

cs.NI

RIS-aided Trajectory Optimization in Layered Urban Air Mobility

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) relies on developing aerospace industries, where safe aviation and efficient communication are critical features of aircraft. However, it is challenging for aircraft to sustain efficient air-ground communication in urban circumstances. Without continuous air-ground communication, aircraft may experience course deviation and safety accidents. To address these problems, a reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS)-aided trajectory optimization scheme is proposed enabling efficient air-ground communication and safe aviation in UAM with a layered airspace structure. This paper first devises a dual-plane RIS communication scheme for layered airspace. It fully engages the omnidirectional and directional signal attributes to reduce the transmission delay of the air-ground communication. Based on the dual-plane RIS configuration, we jointly develop the intra- and inter-layer trajectory scheme to optimize communication and safe aviation. In the intra-layer trajectory optimization, we propose a dual-time-scale flight scheme to improve communication capacity and horizontal flight safety. Meanwhile, we propose a safe layer-switching method to ensure collision avoidance during vertical flight in the inter-layer trajectory optimization. The communication load of the proposed scheme can be improved 40% and the time of safe separation restoration can be lessened 66% compared with the benchmarks in the layered airspace.

cs.CE

RIS-empowered Topology Control for Distributed Learning in Urban Air Mobility

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) expands vehicles from the ground to the near-ground space, envisioned as a revolution for transportation systems. Comprehensive scene perception is the foundation for autonomous aerial driving. However, UAM encounters the intelligent perception challenge: high perception learning requirements conflict with the limited sensors and computing chips of flying cars. To overcome the challenge, federated learning (FL) and other collaborative learning have been proposed to enable resource-limited devices to conduct onboard deep learning (DL) collaboratively. But traditional collaborative learning like FL relies on a central integrator for DL model aggregation, which is difficult to deploy in dynamic environments. The fully decentralized learning schemes may be the intuitive solution while the convergence of distributed learning cannot be guaranteed. Accordingly, this paper explores reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) empowered distributed learning, taking account of topological attributes to facilitate the learning performance with convergence guarantee. We propose several FL topological criteria for optimizing the transmission delay and convergence rate by exploiting the Laplacian matrix eigenvalues of the communication network. Subsequently, we innovatively leverage the RIS link modification ability to remold the current network according to the proposed topological criteria. This paper rethinks the functions of RIS from the perspective of the network layer. Furthermore, a deep deterministic policy gradient-based RIS phase shift control algorithm is developed to construct or deconstruct the network links simultaneously to reshape the communication network. Simulation experiments are conducted over MobileNet-based multi-view learning to verify the efficiency of the distributed FL framework.

cs.IT

A Digital Twin Empowered Lightweight Model Sharing Scheme for Multi-Robot Systems

Multi-robot system for manufacturing is an Industry Internet of Things (IIoT) paradigm with significant operational cost savings and productivity improvement, where Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are employed to control and implement collaborative productions without human intervention. This mission-critical system relies on 3-Dimension (3-D) scene recognition to improve operation accuracy in the production line and autonomous piloting. However, implementing 3-D point cloud learning, such as Pointnet, is challenging due to limited sensing and computing resources equipped with UAVs. Therefore, we propose a Digital Twin (DT) empowered Knowledge Distillation (KD) method to generate several lightweight learning models and select the optimal model to deploy on UAVs. With a digital replica of the UAVs preserved at the edge server, the DT system controls the model sharing network topology and learning model structure to improve recognition accuracy further. Moreover, we employ network calculus to formulate and solve the model sharing configuration problem toward minimal resource consumption, as well as convergence. Simulation experiments are conducted over a popular point cloud dataset to evaluate the proposed scheme. Experiment results show that the proposed model sharing scheme outperforms the individual model in terms of computing resource consumption and recognition accuracy.

cs.IT

Intelligent Sensing Scheduling for Mobile Target Tracking Wireless Sensor Networks

Edge computing has emerged as a prospective paradigm to meet ever-increasing computation demands in Mobile Target Tracking Wireless Sensor Networks (MTT-WSN). This paradigm can offload time-sensitive tasks to sink nodes to improve computing efficiency. Nevertheless, it is difficult to execute dynamic and critical tasks in the MTT-WSN network. Besides, the network cannot ensure consecutive tracking due to the limited energy. To address the problems, this paper proposes a new hierarchical target tracking structure based on Edge Intelligence (EI) technology. The structure integrates the computing resource of both mobile nodes and edge servers to provide efficient computation capability for real-time target tracking. Based on the proposed structure, we formulate an energy optimization model with the constrains of system execution latency and trajectory prediction accuracy. Moreover, we propose a long-term dynamic resource allocation algorithm to obtain the optimal resource allocation solution for the ac- curate and consecutive tracking. Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm outperforms the deep Q-learning over 14.5% in terms of system energy consumption. It can also obtain a significant enhancement in tracking accuracy compared with the non-cooperative scheme.

cs.NI

Secure and Efficient Blockchain based Knowledge Sharing for Intelligent Connected Vehicles

The emergence of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (ICVs) shows great potential for future intelligent traffic systems, enhancing both traffic safety and road efficiency. However, the ICVs relying on data driven perception and driving models face many challenges, including the lack of comprehensive knowledge to deal with complicated driving context. In this paper, we are motivated to investigate cooperative knowledge sharing for ICVs. We propose a secure and efficient directed acyclic graph (DAG) blockchain based knowledge sharing framework, aiming to cater for the micro-transaction based vehicular networks. The framework can realize both local and cross-regional knowledge sharing. Then, the framework is applied to autonomous driving applications, wherein machine learning based models for autonomous driving control can be shared. A lightweight tip selection algorithm (TSA) is proposed for the DAG based knowledge sharing framework to achieve consensus and identity verification for cross-regional vehicles. To enhance model accuracy as well as minimizing bandwidth consumption, an adaptive asynchronous distributed learning (ADL) based scheme is proposed for model uploading and downloading. Experiment results show that the blockchain based knowledge sharing is secure, and it can resist attacks from malicious users. In addition, the proposed adaptive ADL scheme can enhance driving safety related performance compared to several existing algorithms.

cs.NI

Connecting AI Learning and Blockchain Mining in 6G Systems

The sixth generation (6G) systems are generally recognized to be established on ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger such as blockchain. However, the AI training demands tremendous computing resource, which is limited in most 6G devices. Meanwhile, miners in Proof-of-Work (PoW) based blockchains devote massive computing power to block mining, and are widely criticized for the waste of computation. To address this dilemma, we propose an Evolved-Proof-of-Work (E-PoW) consensus that can integrate the matrix computations, which are widely existed in AI training, into the process of brute-force searches in the block mining. Consequently, E-PoW can connect AI learning and block mining via the multiply used common computing resource. Experimental results show that E-PoW can salvage by up to 80 percent computing power from pure block mining for parallel AI training in 6G systems.

cs.DC

Deep Learning Based Intelligent Inter-Vehicle Distance Control for 6G Enabled Cooperative Autonomous Driving

Research on the sixth generation cellular networks (6G) is gaining huge momentum to achieve ubiquitous wireless connectivity. Connected autonomous driving (CAV) is a critical vertical envisioned for 6G, holding great potentials of improving road safety, road and energy efficiency. However the stringent service requirements of CAV applications on reliability, latency and high speed communications will present big challenges to 6G networks. New channel access algorithms and intelligent control schemes for connected vehicles are needed for 6G supported CAV. In this paper, we investigated 6G supported cooperative driving, which is an advanced driving mode through information sharing and driving coordination. Firstly we quantify the delay upper bounds of 6G vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communications with hybrid communication and channel access technologies. A deep learning neural network is developed and trained for fast computation of the delay bounds in real time operations. Then, an intelligent strategy is designed to control the inter-vehicle distance for cooperative autonomous driving. Furthermore, we propose a Markov Chain based algorithm to predict the parameters of the system states, and also a safe distance mapping method to enable smooth vehicular speed changes. The proposed algorithms are implemented in the AirSim autonomous driving platform. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms are effective and robust with safe and stable cooperative autonomous driving, which greatly improve the road safety, capacity and efficiency.

cs.AI

Edge Intelligence for Autonomous Driving in 6G Wireless System: Design Challenges and Solutions

In a level-5 autonomous driving system, the autonomous driving vehicles (AVs) are expected to sense the surroundings via analyzing a large amount of data captured by a variety of onboard sensors in near-real-time. As a result, enormous computing costs will be introduced to the AVs for processing the tasks with the deployed machine learning (ML) model, while the inference accuracy may not be guaranteed. In this context, the advent of edge intelligence (EI) and sixth-generation (6G) wireless networking are expected to pave the way to more reliable and safer autonomous driving by providing multi-access edge computing (MEC) together with ML to AVs in close proximity. To realize this goal, we propose a two-tier EI-empowered autonomous driving framework. In the autonomous-vehicles tier, the autonomous vehicles are deployed with the shallow layers by splitting the trained deep neural network model. In the edge-intelligence tier, an edge server is implemented with the remaining layers (also deep layers) and an appropriately trained multi-task learning (MTL) model. In particular, obtaining the optimal offloading strategy (including the binary offloading decision and the computational resources allocation) can be formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, which is solved via MTL in near-real-time with high accuracy. On another note, an edge-vehicle joint inference is proposed through neural network segmentation to achieve efficient online inference with data privacy-preserving and less communication delay. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, and open research topics are finally listed.

cs.NI

Intelligent Task Offloading for Heterogeneous V2X Communications

With the rapid development of autonomous driving technologies, it becomes difficult to reconcile the conflict between ever-increasing demands for high process rate in the intelligent automotive tasks and resource-constrained on-board processors. Fortunately, vehicular edge computing (VEC) has been proposed to meet the pressing resource demands. Due to the delay-sensitive traits of automotive tasks, only a heterogeneous vehicular network with multiple access technologies may be able to handle these demanding challenges. In this paper, we propose an intelligent task offloading framework in heterogeneous vehicular networks with three Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication technologies, namely Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), cellular-based V2X (C-V2X) communication, and millimeter wave (mmWave) communication. Based on stochastic network calculus, this paper firstly derives the delay upper bound of different offloading technologies with a certain failure probability. Moreover, we propose a federated Q-learning method that optimally utilizes the available resources to minimize the communication/computing budgets and the offloading failure probabilities. Simulation results indicate that our proposed algorithm can significantly outperform the existing algorithms in terms of offloading failure probability and resource cost.

cs.NI

Communication and Computing Resource Optimization for Connected Autonomous Driving

Transportation system is facing a sharp disruption since the Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) can free people from driving and provide good driving experience with the aid of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications. Although CAVs bring benefits in terms of driving safety, vehicle string stability, and road traffic throughput, most existing work aims at improving only one of these performance metrics. However, these metrics may be mutually competitive, as they share the same communication and computing resource in a road segment. From the perspective of joint optimizing driving safety, vehicle string stability, and road traffic throughput, there is a big research gap to be filled on the resource management for connected autonomous driving. In this paper, we first explore the joint optimization on driving safety, vehicle string stability, and road traffic throughput by leveraging on the consensus Alternating Directions Method of Multipliers algorithm (ADMM). However, the limited communication bandwidth and on-board processing capacity incur the resource competition in CAVs. We next analyze the multiple tasks competition in the contention based medium access to attain the upper bound delay of V2V-related application offloading. An efficient sleeping multi-armed bandit tree-based algorithm is proposed to address the resource assignment problem. A series of simulation experiments are carried out to validate the performance of the proposed algorithms.

cs.IT

Energy-aware Traffic Engineering in Hybrid SDN/IP Backbone Networks

Software Defined Networking (SDN) can effectively improve the performance of traffic engineering and has promising application foreground in backbone networks. Therefore, new energy saving schemes must take SDN into account, which is extremely important considering the rapidly increasing energy consumption from Telecom and ISP networks. At the same time, the introduction of SDN in a current network must be incremental in most cases, for both technical and economic reasons. During this period, operators have to manage hybrid networks, where SDN and traditional protocols coexist. In this paper, we study the energy efficient traffic engineering problem in hybrid SDN/IP networks. We first formulate the mathematic optimization model considering SDN/IP hybrid routing mode. As the problem is NP-hard, we propose the fast heuristic algorithm named HEATE (Hybrid Energy-Aware Traffic Engineering). In our proposed HEATE algorithm, the IP routers perform the shortest path routing using the distribute OSPF link weight optimization. The SDNs perform the multi-path routing with traffic flow splitting by the global SDN controller. The HEATE algorithm finds the optimal setting of OSPF link weight and splitting ratio of SDNs. Thus traffic flow is aggregated onto partial links and the underutilized links can be turned off to save energy. By computer simulation results, we show that our algorithm has a significant improvement in energy efficiency in hybrid SDN/IP networks.

cs.NI