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Tony Xiao Han

Publications and source records attributed to Tony Xiao Han.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

A Two-stage Multiband WiFi Sensing Scheme via Stochastic Particle-Based Variational Bayesian Inference

Multiband fusion enhances WiFi sensing by jointly utilizing signals from multiple non-contiguous frequency bands. However, in the multi-band WiFi sensing signal model, there are many local optimums in the associated likelihood function due to the existence of high frequency component and phase distortion factors, posing challenges for high-accuracy parameter estimation. To address this, we propose a two-stage scheme equipped with different signal models derived from the original model, where the first-stage coarse estimation is performed using a weighted root MUSIC algorithm to narrow down the search range for the subsequent stage, and the second-stage refined estimation utilizes a Bayesian approach to avoid convergence to bad suboptimal solutions. Specifically, we apply the block stochastic successive convex approximation (SSCA) approach to derive a novel stochastic particle-based variational Bayesian inference (SPVBI) algorithm in the refined stage. Unlike conventional particle-based VBI (PVBI) that optimizes only particle probability and incurs exponential per-iteration complexity with particle count, our more flexible SPVBI algorithm optimizes both the position and probability of each particle. Additionally, it utilizes block SSCA to significantly improve sampling efficiency by averaging over iterations, making it suitable for high-dimensional problems. Extensive simulations demonstrate the superiority of our proposed algorithm over various baseline methods.

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On the Fundamental Tradeoff of Integrated Sensing and Communications Under Gaussian Channels

ISAC is recognized as a promising technology for the next-generation wireless networks, which provides significant performance gains over individual S&C systems via the shared use of wireless resources. The characterization of the S&C performance tradeoff is at the core of the theoretical foundation of ISAC. In this paper, we consider a point-to-point ISAC model under vector Gaussian channels, and propose to use the CRB-rate region as a basic tool for depicting the fundamental S&C tradeoff. In particular, we consider the scenario where a unified ISAC waveform is emitted from a dual-functional ISAC Tx, which simultaneously performs S&C tasks with a communication Rx and a sensing Rx. In order to perform both S&C tasks, the ISAC waveform is required to be random to convey communication information, with realizations being perfectly known at both the ISAC Tx and the sensing Rx as a reference sensing signal as in typical radar systems. As the main contribution of this paper, we characterize the S&C performance at the two corner points of the CRB-rate region, namely, $P_{SC}$ indicating the max. achievable rate constrained by the min. CRB, and $P_{CS}$ indicating the min. achievable CRB constrained by the max. rate. In particular, we derive the high-SNR capacity at $P_{SC}$, and provide lower and upper bounds for the sensing CRB at $P_{CS}$. We show that these two points can be achieved by the conventional Gaussian signaling and a novel strategy relying on the uniform distribution over the Stiefel manifold, respectively. Based on the above-mentioned analysis, we provide an outer bound and various inner bounds for the achievable CRB-rate regions. Our main results reveal a two-fold tradeoff in ISAC systems, consisting of the subspace tradeoff (ST) and the deterministic-random tradeoff (DRT) that depend on the resource allocation and data modulation schemes employed for S&C, respectively.

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Optimal Transmit Beamforming for Integrated Sensing and Communication

This paper studies the transmit beamforming in a downlink integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, where a base station (BS) equipped with a uniform linear array (ULA) sends combined information-bearing and dedicated radar signals to simultaneously perform downlink multiuser communication and radar target sensing. Under this setup, we maximize the radar sensing performance (in terms of minimizing the beampattern matching errors or maximizing the minimum weighted beampattern gains), subject to the communication users' minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) requirements and the BS's transmit power constraints. In particular, we consider two types of communication receivers, namely Type-I and Type-II receivers, which do not have and do have the capability of cancelling the interference from the {\emph{a-priori}} known dedicated radar signals, respectively. Under both Type-I and Type-II receivers, the beampattern matching and minimum weighted beampattern gain maximization problems are globally optimally solved via applying the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) technique together with the rigorous proof of the tightness of SDR for both Type-I and Type-II receivers under the two design criteria. It is shown that at the optimality, radar signals are not required with Type-I receivers under some specific conditions, while radar signals are always needed to enhance the performance with Type-II receivers. Numerical results show that the minimum weighted beampattern gain maximization leads to significantly higher beampattern gains at the worst-case sensing angles with a much lower computational complexity than the beampattern matching design. We show that by exploiting the capability of canceling the interference caused by the radar signals, the case with Type-II receivers results in better sensing performance than that with Type-I receivers and other conventional designs.

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Integrated Sensing and Communication from Learning Perspective: An SDP3 Approach

Characterizing the sensing and communication performance tradeoff in integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems is challenging in the applications of learning-based human motion recognition. This is because of the large experimental datasets and the black-box nature of deep neural networks. This paper presents SDP3, a Simulation-Driven Performance Predictor and oPtimizer, which consists of SDP3 data simulator, SDP3 performance predictor and SDP3 performance optimizer. Specifically, the SDP3 data simulator generates vivid wireless sensing datasets in a virtual environment, the SDP3 performance predictor predicts the sensing performance based on the function regression method, and the SDP3 performance optimizer investigates the sensing and communication performance tradeoff analytically. It is shown that the simulated sensing dataset matches the experimental dataset very well in the motion recognition accuracy. By leveraging SDP3, it is found that the achievable region of recognition accuracy and communication throughput consists of a communication saturation zone, a sensing saturation zone, and a communication-sensing adversarial zone, of which the desired balanced performance for ISAC systems lies in the third one.

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Sensing Assisted Communication for the Next Generation mmWave WLAN: System Simulation Perspective

With the proliferating of wireless demands, wireless local area network (WLAN) becomes one of the most important wireless networks. Network intelligence is promising for the next generation wireless networks, captured lots of attentions. Sensing is one efficient enabler to achieve network intelligence since utilizing sensing can obtain diverse and valuable non-communication information. Thus, integrating sensing and communications (ISAC) is a promising technology for future wireless networks. Sensing assisted communication (SAC) is an important branch of ISAC, but there are few related works focusing on the systematical and comprehensive analysis on SAC in WLAN. This article is the first work to systematically analyze SAC in the next generation WLAN from the system simulation perspective. We analyze the scenarios and advantages of SAC. Then, from system simulation perspective, several sources of performance gain brought from SAC are proposed, i.e. beam link failure, protocol overhead, and intra-physical layer protocol data unit (intra-PPDU) performance decrease, while several important influencing factors are described in detail. Performance evaluation is deeply analyzed and the performance gain of the SAC in both living room and street canyon scenarios are verified by system simulation. Finally, we provide our insights on the future directions of SAC for the next generation WLAN.

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Fundamental Limits and Optimization of Multiband Sensing

Multiband sensing is a promising technology that utilizes multiple non-contiguous frequency bands to achieve high-resolution target sensing. In this paper, we investigate the fundamental limits and optimization of multiband sensing, focusing on the fundamental limits associated with time delay. We first derive a Fisher information matrix (FIM) with a compact form using the Dirichlet kernel and then derive a closed-form expression of the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) for the delay separation in a simplified case to reveal useful insights. Then, a metric called the statistical resolution limit (SRL) that provides a resolution limit is employed to investigate the fundamental limits of delay resolution. The fundamental limits of delay estimation are also investigated based on the CRB and Ziv-Zakai bound (ZZB). Based on the above derived fundamental limits, numerical results are presented to analyze the effect of frequency band apertures and phase distortions on the performance limits of the multiband sensing systems. We formulate an optimization problem to find the optimal system configuration in multiband sensing systems with the objective of minimizing the delay SRL. To solve this non-convex constrained problem, we propose an efficient alternating optimization (AO) algorithm which iteratively optimizes the variables using successive convex approximation (SCA) and one-dimensional search. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

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Capacity-CRB Tradeoff in OFDM Integrated Sensing and Communication Systems

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has emerged as a key technology for future communication systems. In this paper, we provide a general framework to reveal the fundamental tradeoff between sensing and communication in OFDM systems, where a unified ISAC waveform is exploited to perform both tasks. In particular, we define the Capacity-Bayesian Cramer Rao Bound (BCRB) region in the asymptotically case when the number of subcarriers is large. Specifically, we show that the asymptotically optimal input distribution that achieves the Pareto boundary point of the Capacity-BCRB region is Gaussian and the entire Pareto boundary can be obtained by solving a convex power allocation problem. Moreover, we characterize the structure of the sensing-optimal power allocation in the asymptotically case. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to verify the theoretical analysis and provide useful insights.

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An Indoor Environment Sensing and Localization System via mmWave Phased Array

An indoor layout sensing and localization system in 60GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) band, named mmReality, is elaborated in this paper. The mmReality system consists of one transmitter and one mobile receiver, each with a phased array and a single radio frequency (RF) chain. To reconstruct the room layout, the pilot signal is delivered from the transmitter to the receiver via different pairs of transmission and receiving beams, so that the signals at all antenna elements can be resolved. Then, the spatial smoothing and two-dimensional multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm is applied to detect the angle-of-arrival (AoAs) and angle-of-departure (AoDs) of the rays from the transmitter to the receiver. Moreover, the technique of multi-carrier ranging is adopted to measure the distance of each propagation path. Synthesizing the above geometrical parameters, the location of receiver relative to the transmitter can be pinpointed, both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) paths can also be determined. Therefore, the room layout can be reconstructed by moving the receiver and repeating the above measurement in different locations of the room. At the end, we show that the reconstructed room layout can be utilized to locate a mobile device according to its AoA spectrum, even with single access point.

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Deterministic-Random Tradeoff of Integrated Sensing and Communications in Gaussian Channels: A Rate-Distortion Perspective

Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is recognized as a key enabling technology for future wireless networks. To shed light on the fundamental performance limits of ISAC systems, this paper studies the deterministic-random tradeoff between sensing and communications (S&C) from a rate-distortion perspective under vector Gaussian channels. We model the ISAC signal as a random matrix that carries information, whose realization is perfectly known to the sensing receiver, but is unknown to the communication receiver. We characterize the sensing mutual information conditioned on the random ISAC signal, and show that it provides a universal lower bound for distortion metrics of sensing. Furthermore, we prove that the distortion lower bound is minimized if the sample covariance matrix of the ISAC signal is deterministic. We then offer our understanding of the main results by interpreting wireless sensing as non-cooperative source-channel coding, and reveal the deterministic-random tradeoff of S&C for ISAC systems. Finally, we provide sufficient conditions for the achievability of the distortion bound by analyzing a specific example of target response matrix estimation.

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Cramér-Rao Bound Minimization for IRS-Enabled Multiuser Integrated Sensing and Communication with Extended Target

This paper investigates an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enabled multiuser integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, which consists of one multi-antenna base station (BS), one IRS, multiple single-antenna communication users (CUs), and one extended target at the non-line-of-sight (NLoS) region of the BS. The IRS is deployed to not only assist the communication from the BS to the CUs, but also enable the BS's NLoS target sensing based on the echo signals from the BS-IRS-target-IRS-BS link. To provide full degrees of freedom for sensing, we suppose that the BS sends additional dedicated sensing signals combined with the information signals. Accordingly, we consider two types of CU receivers, namely Type-I and Type-II receivers, which do not have and have the capability of cancelling the interference from the sensing signals, respectively. Under this setup, we jointly optimize the transmit beamforming at the BS and the reflective beamforming at the IRS to minimize the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for estimating the target response matrix with respect to the IRS, subject to the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at the CUs and the maximum transmit power constraint at the BS. We present efficient algorithms to solve the highly non-convex SINR-constrained CRB minimization problems, by using the techniques of alternating optimization and semi-definite relaxation. Numerical results show that the proposed design achieves lower estimation CRB than other benchmark schemes, and the sensing signal interference pre-cancellation is beneficial when the number of CUs is greater than one.

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Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enabled Sensing: Cramér-Rao Lower Bound Optimization

This paper investigates intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enabled non-line-of-sight (NLoS) wireless sensing, in which an IRS is deployed to assist an access point (AP) to sense a target in its NLoS region. It is assumed that the AP is equipped with multiple antennas and the IRS is equipped with a uniform linear array. The AP aims to estimate the target's direction-of-arrival (DoA) with respect to the IRS, based on the echo signals from the AP-IRS-target-IRS-AP link. Under this setup, we jointly design the transmit beamforming at the AP and the reflective beamforming at the IRS to minimize the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on estimation error. Towards this end, we first obtain the CRLB expression for estimating the DoA in closed form. Next, we optimize the joint beamforming design to minimize the CRLB, via alternating optimization, semi-definite relaxation, and successive convex approximation. Numerical results show that the proposed design based on CRLB minimization achieves improved sensing performance in terms of mean squared error, as compared to the traditional schemes with signal-to-noise ratio maximization and separate beamforming.

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MIMO Integrated Sensing and Communication: CRB-Rate Tradeoff

This paper studies a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, in which a multi-antenna base station (BS) sends unified wireless signals to estimate one sensing target and communicate with a multi-antenna communication user (CU) simultaneously. We consider both the point and extended target models. For the point target case, the BS estimates the target angle and we adopt the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for angle estimation as the sensing performance metric. For the extended target case, the BS estimates the complete target response matrix, and we consider three different sensing performance metrics including the trace, the maximum eigenvalue, and the determinant of the CRB matrix for target response matrix estimation. For each of the four scenarios with different CRB measures, we investigate the fundamental tradeoff between the CRB for estimation and the data rate for communication, by characterizing the Pareto boundary of the achievable CRB-rate (C-R) region. In particular, we formulate a new MIMO rate maximization problem for each scenario, by optimizing the transmit covariance matrix at the BS, subject to a different form of maximum CRB constraint and its maximum transmit power constraint. For these problems, we obtain their optimal solutions in semi-closed forms by using advanced convex optimization techniques. For the point target case, the optimal solution is obtained by diagonalizing a \emph{composite channel matrix} via singular value decomposition (SVD) together with water-filling-like power allocation over these decomposed subchannels. For the three scenarios in the extended target case, the optimal solutions are obtained by diagonalizing the \emph{communication channel} via SVD, together with proper power allocation over two orthogonal sets of subchannels. Numerical results are conducted to validate the proposed design.

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MIMO Integrated Sensing and Communication with Extended Target: CRB-Rate Tradeoff

This paper studies a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, in which a multi-antenna base station (BS) sends unified wireless signals to estimate an extended target and communicate with a multi-antenna communication user (CU) at the same time. We investigate the fundamental tradeoff between the estimation Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for sensing and the data rate for communication, by characterizing the Pareto boundary of the achievable CRB-rate (C-R) region. Towards this end, we formulate a new MIMO rate maximization problem by optimizing the transmit covariance matrix at the BS, subject to a new form of maximum CRB constraint together with a maximum transmit power constraint. We derive the optimal transmit covariance solution in a semi-closed form, by first implementing the singular-value decomposition (SVD) to diagonalize the communication channel and then properly allocating the transmit power over these subchannels for communication and other orthogonal subchannels (if any) for dedicated sensing. It is shown that the optimal transmit covariance is of full rank, which unifies the conventional rate maximization design with water-filling power allocation and the CRB minimization design with isotropic transmission. Numerical results are provided to validate the performance achieved by our proposed optimal design, in comparison with other benchmark schemes.

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Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enabled Sensing: Cramér-Rao Bound Optimization

This paper investigates intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enabled non-line-of-sight (NLoS) wireless sensing, in which an IRS is dedicatedly deployed to assist an access point (AP) to sense a target at its NLoS region. It is assumed that the AP is equipped with multiple antennas and the IRS is equipped with a uniform linear array. We consider two types of target models, namely the point and extended targets, for which the AP aims to estimate the target's direction-of-arrival (DoA) and the target response matrix with respect to the IRS, respectively, based on the echo signals from the AP-IRS-target-IRS-AP link. Under this setup, we jointly design the transmit beamforming at the AP and the reflective beamforming at the IRS to minimize the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) on the estimation error. Towards this end, we first obtain the CRB expressions for the two target models in closed form. It is shown that in the point target case, the CRB for estimating the DoA depends on both the transmit and reflective beamformers; while in the extended target case, the CRB for estimating the target response matrix only depends on the transmit beamformers. Next, for the point target case, we optimize the joint beamforming design to minimize the CRB, via alternating optimization, semi-definite relaxation, and successive convex approximation. For the extended target case, we obtain the optimal transmit beamforming solution to minimize the CRB in closed form. Finally, numerical results show that for both cases, the proposed designs based on CRB minimization achieve improved sensing performance in terms of mean squared error, as compared to other traditional schemes.

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An Overview on IEEE 802.11bf: WLAN Sensing

With recent advancements, the wireless local area network (WLAN) or wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology has been successfully utilized to realize sensing functionalities such as detection, localization, and recognition. However, the WLANs standards are developed mainly for the purpose of communication, and thus may not be able to meet the stringent sensing requirements in emerging applications. To resolve this issue, a new Task Group (TG), namely IEEE 802.11bf, has been established by the IEEE 802.11 working group, with the objective of creating a new amendment to the WLAN standard to provide advanced sensing requirements while minimizing the effect on communications. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on the up-to-date efforts in the IEEE 802.11bf TG. First, we introduce the definition of the 802.11bf amendment and its standardization timeline. Then, we discuss the WLAN sensing procedure and framework used for measurement acquisition, by considering both conventional sensing at sub-7 GHz and directional multi-gigabit (DMG) sensing at 60 GHz, respectively. Next, we present various candidate technical features for IEEE 802.11bf, including waveform/sequence design, feedback types, quantization, as well as security and privacy. Finally, we describe the methodologies used by the IEEE 802.11bf TG to evaluate the alternative performance. It is desired that this overview paper provide useful insights on IEEE 802.11 WLAN sensing to people with great interests and promote the IEEE 802.11bf standard to be widely deployed.

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Information-Theoretic Limits of Integrated Sensing and Communication with Correlated Sensing and Channel States for Vehicular Networks

In connected vehicular networks, it is vital to have vehicular nodes that are capable of sensing about surrounding environments and exchanging messages with each other for automating and coordinating purpose. Towards this end, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), combining both sensing and communication systems to jointly utilize their resources and to pursue mutual benefits, emerges as a new cost-effective solution. In ISAC, the hardware and spectrum co-sharing leads to a fundamental tradeoff between sensing and communication performance, which is not well understood except for very simple cases with the same sensing and channel states, and perfect channel state information at the receiver (CSIR). In this paper, a general point-to-point ISAC model is proposed to account for the scenarios that the sensing state is different from but correlated with the channel state, and the CSIR is not necessarily perfect. For the model considered, the optimal tradeoff is characterized by a capacity-distortion function that quantifies the best communication rate for a given sensing distortion constraint requirement. An iterative algorithm is proposed to compute such tradeoff, and a few non-trivial examples are constructed to demonstrate the benefits of ISAC as compared to the separation-based approach.

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Joint transmit and reflective beamforming for IRS-assisted integrated sensing and communication

This paper studies an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, in which one IRS is deployed to not only assist the wireless communication from a multi-antenna base station (BS) to a single-antenna communication user (CU), but also create virtual line-of-sight (LoS) links for sensing targets at areas with LoS links blocked. We consider that the BS transmits combined information and sensing signals for ISAC. Under this setup, we jointly optimize the transmit information and sensing beamforming at the BS and the reflective beamforming at the IRS, to maximize the IRS's minimum beampattern gain towards the desired sensing angles, subject to the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement at the CU and the maximum transmit power constraint at the BS. Although the formulated SNR-constrained beampattern gain maximization problem is non-convex and difficult to solve, we present an efficient algorithm to obtain a high-quality solution using alternating optimization and semi-definite relaxation (SDR). Numerical results show that the proposed joint beamforming design achieves improved sensing performance while ensuring the communication requirement as compared to benchmarks without such joint optimization. It is also shown that the use of dedicated sensing beams is beneficial in enhancing the performance for IRS-assisted ISAC.

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Joint Pilot Optimization, Target Detection and Channel Estimation for Integrated Sensing and Communication Systems

Radar sensing will be integrated into the 6G communication system to support various applications. In this integrated sensing and communication system, a radar target may also be a communication channel scatterer. In this case, the radar and communication channels exhibit certain joint burst sparsity. We propose a two-stage joint pilot optimization, target detection and channel estimation scheme to exploit such joint burst sparsity and pilot beamforming gain to enhance detection/estimation performance. In Stage 1, the base station (BS) sends downlink pilots (DP) for initial target search, and the user sends uplink pilots (UP) for channel estimation. Then the BS performs joint target detection and channel estimation based on the reflected DP and received UP signals. In Stage 2, the BS exploits the prior information obtained in Stage 1 to optimize the DP signal to achieve beamforming gain and further refine the performance. A Turbo Sparse Bayesian inference algorithm is proposed for joint target detection and channel estimation in both stages. The pilot optimization problem in Stage 2 is a semi-definite programming with rank-1 constraints. By replacing the rank-1 constraint with a tight and smooth approximation, we propose an efficient pilot optimization algorithm based on the majorization-minimization method. Simulations verify the advantages of the proposed scheme.

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