arXiv subjects

Symeon Chatzinotas

Publications and source records attributed to Symeon Chatzinotas.

At least 325 records · Page 18Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

User Scheduling and Power Allocation for Precoded Multi-Beam High Throughput Satellite Systems with Individual Quality of Service Constraints

For extensive coverage areas, multi-beam high throughput satellite (MB-HTS) communication is a promising technology that plays a crucial role in delivering broadband services to many users with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper focuses on MB-HTS systems where all beams reuse the same spectrum. In particular, we propose a novel user scheduling and power allocation design capable of providing guarantees in terms of the individual QoS requirements while maximizing the system throughput under a limited power budget. Precoding is employed in the forward link to mitigate mutual interference at the users in multiple-access scenarios over different coherence time intervals. The combinatorial optimization structure from user scheduling requires an extremely high cost to obtain the global optimum even when a reduced number of users fit into a time slot. Therefore, we propose a heuristic algorithm yielding good trade-off between performance and computational complexity, applicable to a static operation framework of geostationary (GEO) satellite networks. Although the power allocation optimization is signomial programming, non-convex on a standard form, the solution can be lower bounded by the global optimum of a geometric program with a hidden convex structure. A local solution to the joint user scheduling and power allocation problem is consequently obtained by a successive optimization approach. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms on large-scale systems by providing better QoS satisfaction combined with outstanding overall system throughput.

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arXiv2021

NB-IoT Random Access for Non-Terrestrial Networks

The satellite component is recognized as a promising solution to complement and extend the coverage of future Internet of things (IoT) terrestrial networks (TNs). In this context, a study item to integrate satellites into narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) systems has been approved within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization body. However, as NB-IoT systems were initially conceived for TNs, their basic design principles and operation might require some key modifications when incorporating the satellite component. These changes in NB-IoT systems, therefore, need to be carefully implemented in order to guarantee a seamless integration of both TN and non-terrestrial network (NTN) for a global coverage. This paper addresses this adaptation for the random access (RA) step in NB-IoT systems, which is in fact the most challenging aspect in the NTN context, for it deals with multi-user time-frequency synchronization and timing advance for data scheduling. In particular, we propose an RA technique which is robust to typical satellite channel impairments, including long delays, significant Doppler effects, and wide beams, without requiring any modification to the current NBIoT RA waveform. Performance evaluations demonstrate the proposal's capability of addressing different NTN configurations recently defined by 3GPP for the 5G new radio system.

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arXiv2021

Terahertz-Band Joint Ultra-Massive MIMO Radar-Communications: Model-Based and Model-Free Hybrid Beamforming

Wireless communications and sensing at terahertz (THz) band are increasingly investigated as promising short-range technologies because of the availability of high operational bandwidth at THz. In order to address the extremely high attenuation at THz, ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems have been proposed for THz communications to compensate propagation losses. However, the cost and power associated with fully digital beamformers of these huge antenna arrays are prohibitive. In this paper, we develop wideband hybrid beamformers based on both model-based and model-free techniques for a new group-of-subarrays (GoSA) ultra-massive MIMO structure in low-THz band. Further, driven by the recent developments to save the spectrum, we propose beamformers for a joint ultra-massive MIMO radar-communications system, wherein the base station serves multi-antenna user equipment (RX), and tracks radar targets by generating multiple beams toward both RX and the targets. We formulate the GoSA beamformer design as an optimization problem to provide a trade-off between the unconstrained communications beamformers and the desired radar beamformers. To mitigate the beam split effect at THz band arising from frequency-independent analog beamformers, we propose a phase correction technique to align the beams of multiple subcarriers toward a single physical direction. To further decrease the ultra-massive MIMO computational complexity and enhance robustness, we also implement deep learning solutions to the proposed model-based hybrid beamformers. Numerical experiments demonstrate that both techniques outperform the conventional approaches in terms of spectral efficiency and radar beampatterns, as well as exhibiting less hardware cost and computation time.

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arXiv2021

RIS and Cell-Free Massive MIMO: A Marriage For Harsh Propagation Environments

This paper considers Cell-Free Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems with the assistance of an RIS for enhancing the system performance. Distributed maximum-ratio combining (MRC) is considered at the access points (APs). We introduce an aggregated channel estimation method that provides sufficient information for data processing. The considered system is studied by using asymptotic analysis which lets the number of APs and/or the number of RIS elements grow large. A lower bound for the channel capacity is obtained for a finite number of APs and engineered scattering elements of the RIS, and closed-form expression for the uplink ergodic net throughput is formulated. In addition, a simple scheme for controlling the configuration of the RIS scattering elements is proposed. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed system design and the benefits of using RISs in Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems are quantified.

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arXiv2021

Uplink Power Control in Massive MIMO with Double Scattering Channels

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key technology for improving the spectral and energy efficiency in 5G-and-beyond wireless networks. For a tractable analysis, most of the previous works on Massive MIMO have been focused on the system performance with complex Gaussian channel impulse responses under rich-scattering environments. In contrast, this paper investigates the uplink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) of each user under the double scattering channel model. We derive a closed-form expression of the uplink ergodic SE by exploiting the maximum ratio (MR) combining technique based on imperfect channel state information. We further study the asymptotic SE behaviors as a function of the number of antennas at each base station (BS) and the number of scatterers available at each radio channel. We then formulate and solve a total energy optimization problem for the uplink data transmission that aims at simultaneously satisfying the required SEs from all the users with limited data power resource. Notably, our proposed algorithms can cope with the congestion issue appearing when at least one user is served by lower SE than requested. Numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of the closed-form ergodic SE over Monte-Carlo simulations. Besides, the system can still provide the required SEs to many users even under congestion.

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arXiv2021

Successive Decode-and-Forward Relaying with Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

The key advantage of successive relaying (SR) networks is their ability to mimic the full-duplex (FD) operation with half-duplex (HD) relays. However, the main challenge that comes with such schemes is the associated inter-relay interference (IRI). In this work, we propose a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-enhanced SR network, where one RIS is deployed near each of the two relay nodes to provide spatial suppression of IRI, and to maximize the gain of desired signals. The resultant max-min optimization problem with joint phase-shift design for both RISs is first tackled via the semidefinite programming (SDP) approach. Then, a lower-complexity solution suitable for real-time implementation is proposed based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). Numerical results demonstrate that even relatively small RISs can provide significant gains in achievable rates of SR networks, and the proposed PSO scheme can achieve a near optimal performance.

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arXiv2021

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Assisted Massive MIMO: Favorable Propagation, Channel Hardening, and Rank Deficiency

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are two promising technologies for 5G-and-beyond wireless networks, capable of providing large array gain and multiuser spatial multiplexing. Without requiring additional frequency bands, those technologies offer significant improvements in both spectral and energy efficiency by simultaneously serving many users. The performance analysis of an RIS-assisted Massive MIMO system as a function of the channel statistics relies heavily on fundamental properties including favorable propagation, channel hardening, and rank deficiency. The coexistence of both direct and indirect links results in aggregated channels, whose properties are the main concerns of this lecture note. For practical systems with a finite number of antennas and scattering elements of the RIS, we evaluate the corresponding deterministic metrics with Rayleigh fading channels as a typical example.

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arXiv2021

Intelligent Reflecting Surface-assisted MU-MISO Systems with Imperfect Hardware: Channel Estimation, Beamforming Design

Most works in IRS-assisted systems have ignored the impact of the inevitable residual hardware impairments (HWIs) at both the transceiver hardware and the IRS while any relevant works have addressed only simple scenarios, e.g., with single-antenna network nodes and/or without taking the randomness of phase noise at the IRS into account. In this work, we aim at filling up this gap by considering a general IRS-assisted multi-user (MU) multiple-input single-output (MISO) system with imperfect CSI and correlated Rayleigh fading. In parallel, we present a general computationally efficient methodology for IRS reflect beamforming (RB) optimization. Specifically, we introduce an advantageous channel estimation (CE) method for such systems accounting for the HWIs. Moreover, we derive the uplink achievable spectral efficiency (SE) with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receiver, displaying three significant advantages being: 1) its closed-form expression, 2) its dependence only on large-scale statistics, and 3) its low training overhead. Notably, by exploiting the first two benefits, we achieve to perform optimization with respect to the reflect beamforming matrix (RBM) that can take place only at every several coherence intervals, and thus, reduces significantly the computational cost compared to other methods which require frequent phase optimization. Among the insightful observations, we highlight that uncorrelated Rayleigh fading does not allow optimization of the SE, which makes the application of an IRS ineffective. Also, in the case that the phase drifts, describing the distortion of the phases in the RBM, are uniformly distributed, the presence of an IRS provides no advantage. The analytical results outperform previous works and are verified by Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations.

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arXiv2021

Simultaneous Control Information and Power Transmission for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are planar structures with attached electronic circuitry that enable a partially programmable communication environment. RIS operation can be regarded as nearly passive since it acts by simply reflecting the impinging traveling waves towards desired directions, thus requiring energy only for the reconfiguration of its reflective elements (REs). This paper tackles the problem of wirelessly powering RIS circuitry via control signaling. Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is considered by taking into account two basic principles: that signal quality of the control signals is sufficient for information detection, and that there is enough harvested energy for the reconfiguration. Some of the most common SWIPT receivers (time sharing, power splitting, dynamic power splitting, and antenna selection) are studied and the corresponding proposed optimization problems implementing the aforementioned principles are formulated and solved in closed form. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed methods in the presence of received power fluctuations.

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arXiv2021

Scalable Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems: Impact of Hardware Impairments

Standard cell-free (CF) multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) systems is a promising technology to cover the demands for higher data rates in fifth-generation (5G) networks and beyond. These systems assume a large number of distributed access points (APs) using joint coherent transmission to communicate with the users. However, CF mMIMO systems present an increasing computational complexity as the number of users increases. Scalable cell-free CF (SCF) systems have been proposed to face this challenge. Given that the cost-efficient deployment of such large networks requires low-cost transceivers, which are prone to unavoidable hardware imperfections, realistic evaluations of SCF mMIMO systems should take them into account before implementation. Hence, in this work, we focus on the impact of hardware impairments (HWIs) on the SCF mMIMO systems through a general model accounting for both additive and multiplicative impairments. Notably, there is no other work in the literature studying the impact of phase noise (PN) in the local oscillators (LOs) of CF mMIMO systems or in general the impact of any HWIs in SCF mMIMO systems. In particular, we derive upper and lower bounds on the uplink capacity accounting for HWIs. Moreover, we obtain the optimal hardware-aware (HA) partial minimum mean-squared error (PMMSE) combiner. Especially, the lower bound is derived in closed-form using the theory of deterministic equivalents (DEs). Among the interesting findings, we observe that separate LOs (SLOs) outperform a common LO (CLO), and the additive transmit distortion degrades more the performance than the additive receive distortion.

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arXiv2021

Toward Autonomous Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces Through Wireless Energy Harvesting

In this work, we examine the potential of autonomous operation of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) using wireless energy harvesting from information signals. To this end, we first identify the main RIS power-consuming components and introduce a suitable power-consumption model. Subsequently, we introduce a novel RIS power-splitting architecture that enables simultaneous energy harvesting and beamsteering. Specifically, a subset of the RIS unit cells (UCs) is used for beamsteering while the remaining ones absorb energy. For the subset allocation, we propose policies obtained as solutions to two optimization problems. The first problem aims at maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver without violating the RIS's energy harvesting demands. Additionally, the objective of the second problem is to maximize the RIS harvested power, while ensuring an acceptable SNR at the receiver. We prove that under particular propagation conditions, some of the proposed policies deliver the optimal solution of the two problems. Furthermore, we report numerical results that reveal the efficiency of the policies with respect to the optimal and very high-complexity brute-force design approach. Finally, through a case study of user tracking, we showcase that the RIS power-consumption demands can be secured by harvesting energy from information signals.

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arXiv2021

UAV Relay-Assisted Emergency Communications in IoT Networks: Resource Allocation and Trajectory Optimization

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication has emerged as a prominent technology for emergency communications (e.g., natural disaster) in the Internet of Things (IoT) networks to enhance the ability of disaster prediction, damage assessment, and rescue operations promptly. A UAV can be deployed as a flying base station (BS) to collect data from time-constrained IoT devices and then transfer it to a ground gateway (GW). In general, the latency constraint at IoT devices and UAV's limited storage capacity highly hinder practical applications of UAV-assisted IoT networks. In this paper, {full-duplex (FD) radio} is adopted at the UAV to overcome these challenges. In addition, half-duplex (HD) scheme for UAV-based relaying is also considered to provide a comparative study between two modes (viz., FD and HD). {Herein, a device is considered to be successfully served iff its data is collected by the UAV and conveyed to GW timely during flight time}. In this context, we aim to maximize the number of served IoT devices by jointly optimizing bandwidth, power allocation, and the UAV trajectory while satisfying each device's requirement and the UAV's limited storage capacity. The formulated optimization problem is troublesome to solve due to its non-convexity and combinatorial nature. {Towards appealing applications, we first relax binary variables into continuous ones and transform the original problem into a more computationally tractable form.} By leveraging inner approximation framework, we derive newly approximated functions for non-convex parts and then develop a simple yet efficient iterative algorithm for its solutions. Next, we attempt to maximize the total throughput subject to the number of served IoT devices. Finally, numerical results show that the proposed algorithms significantly outperform benchmark approaches in terms of the number of served IoT devices and system throughput.

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arXiv2021

Federated Learning for Physical Layer Design

Model-free techniques, such as machine learning (ML), have recently attracted much interest towards the physical layer design, e.g., symbol detection, channel estimation, and beamforming. Most of these ML techniques employ centralized learning (CL) schemes and assume the availability of datasets at a parameter server (PS), demanding the transmission of data from edge devices, such as mobile phones, to the PS. Exploiting the data generated at the edge, federated learning (FL) has been proposed recently as a distributed learning scheme, in which each device computes the model parameters and sends them to the PS for model aggregation while the datasets are kept intact at the edge. Thus, FL is more communication-efficient and privacy-preserving than CL and applicable to the wireless communication scenarios, wherein the data are generated at the edge devices. This article presents the recent advances in FL-based training for physical layer design problems. Compared to CL, the effectiveness of FL is presented in terms of communication overhead with a slight performance loss in the learning accuracy. The design challenges, such as model, data, and hardware complexity, are also discussed in detail along with possible solutions.

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arXiv2021

Double-RIS Communication with DF Relaying for Coverage Extension: Is One Relay Enough?

In this work, we investigate the decode-and-forward (DF) relay-aided double reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted networks, where the signal is subject to reflections from two RISs before reaching the destination. Different relay-aided network architectures are considered for maximum achievable rate under a total power constraint. Phase optimization for the double-RIS channels is tackled via the alternating optimization and majorization-minimization (MM) schemes. Moreover, closed-form solutions are obtained for each case. Numerical results indicate that the deployment of two relays, one near each RIS, achieves higher rates at low and medium signal-to noise ratios (SNRs) compared to placing a single relay between the two RISs; while at high SNRs, the latter approach achieves higher rates only if the inter-relay interference for the former case is considerably high.

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arXiv2021

Frequency-packed Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling via Symbol-level Precoding for Multi-user MISO Redundant Transmissions

This work addresses the issue of interference generated by co-channel users in downlink multi-antenna multicarrier systems with frequency-packed faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling. The resulting interference stems from an aggressive strategy for enhancing the throughput via frequency reuse across different users and the squeezing of signals in the time-frequency plane beyond the Nyquist limit. The error-free spectral efficiency is proved to be increasing with the frequency packing and FTN acceleration factors. The lower bound for the FTN sampling period that guarantees information losslesness is derived as a function of the transmitting-filter roll-off factor, the frequency-packing factor, and the number of subcarriers. Space-time-frequency symbol-level precoders (SLPs) that trade off constructive and destructive interblock interference (IBI) at the single-antenna user terminals are proposed. Redundant elements are added as guard interval to cope with vestigial destructive IBI effects. The proposals can handle channels with delay spread longer than the multicarrier-symbol duration. The receiver architecture is simple, for it does not require digital multicarrier demodulation. Simulations indicate that the proposed SLP outperforms zero-forcing precoding and achieves a target balance between spectral and energy efficiencies by controlling the amount of added redundancy from zero (full IBI) to half (destructive IBI-free) the group delay of the equivalent channel.

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arXiv2021

Asymptotic Analysis of Max-Min Weighted SINR for IRS-Assisted MISO Systems with Hardware Impairments

We focus on the realistic maximization of the uplink minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of a general multiple-input single-output (MISO) system assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in the large system limit accounting for HIs. In particular, we introduce the HIs at both the IRS (IRS-HIs) and the transceiver HIs (AT-HIs), usually neglected despite their inevitable impact. Specifically, the deterministic equivalent analysis enables the derivation of the asymptotic weighted maximum-minimum SINR with HIs by jointly optimizing the HIs-aware receiver, the transmit power, and the reflect beamforming matrix (RBM). Notably, we obtain the optimal power allocation and reflect beamforming matrix with low overhead instead of their frequent necessary computation in conventional MIMO systems based on the instantaneous channel information. Monte Carlo simulations verify the analytical results which show the insightful interplay among the key parameters and the degradation of the performance due to HIs.

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arXiv2021

User Scheduling for Precoded Satellite Systems with Individual Quality of Service Constraints

Multibeam high throughput satellite (MB-HTS) systems will play a key role in delivering broadband services to a large number of users with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. This paper focuses on MB-HTS where the same spectrum is re-used by all user links and, in particular, we propose a novel user scheduling design capable to provide guarantees in terms of individual QoS requirements while maximizing the system throughput. This is achieved by precoding to mitigate mutual interference. The combinatorial optimization structure requires an extremely high cost to obtain the global optimum even with a reduced number of users. We, therefore, propose a heuristic algorithm yielding a good local solution and tolerable computational complexity, applicable for large-scale networks. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm on scheduling many users with better sum throughput than the other benchmarks. Besides, the QoS requirements for all scheduled users are guaranteed.

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arXiv2021

Hybrid Relay-Reflecting Intelligent Surface-Aided Wireless Communications: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have emerged as a cost- and energy-efficient technology that can customize and program the physical propagation environment by reflecting radio waves in preferred directions. However, the purely passive reflection of RISs not only limits the end-to-end channel beamforming gains, but also hinders the acquisition of accurate channel state information for the phase control at RISs. In this paper, we provide an overview of a hybrid relay-reflecting intelligent surface (HR-RIS) architecture, in which only a few elements are active and connected to power amplifiers and radio frequency chains. The introduction of a small number of active elements enables a remarkable system performance improvement which can also compensate for losses due to hardware impairments such as the deployment of limited-resolution phase shifters. Particularly, the active processing facilitates efficient channel estimation and localization at HR-RISs. We present two practical architectures for HR-RISs, namely, fixed and dynamic HR-RISs, and discuss their applications to beamforming, channel estimation, and localization. The benefits, key challenges, and future research directions for HR-RIS-aided communications are also highlighted. Numerical results for an exemplary deployment scenario show that HR-RISs with only four active elements can attain up to 42.8 percent and 41.8 percent improvement in spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, respectively, compared with conventional RISs.

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