arXiv subjects

Wolfgang Gerstacker

Publications and source records attributed to Wolfgang Gerstacker.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Movable-Antenna-Enhanced ISAC: Optimal Antenna Trajectory and Beamforming Design

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is a key enabling technology for next-generation wireless networks. However, most existing ISAC systems rely on fixed-position antennas, which restrict performance when balancing sensing and communication objectives. Movable antenna (MA) technology introduces additional spatial degrees of freedom through antenna mobility, yet existing studies on MA-enabled ISAC schemes mainly consider static antenna repositioning and fail to fully exploit this capability. By leveraging spatio-temporal sampling enabled by antenna motion, optimized MA trajectories can synthesize large virtual aperture arrays, thereby improving angular resolution and reducing sensing ambiguity. To this end, this paper investigates a dynamic MA-enabled ISAC system and studies the joint design of MA trajectories and transmit beamforming. We formulate a joint trajectory and beamforming optimization problem to minimize sensing beampattern mismatch under communication quality-of-service constraints. A branch-and-bound-based algorithm is developed to obtain the globally optimal solution. Numerical results show that the proposed framework significantly outperforms baseline schemes with only one or two antenna repositioning steps, demonstrating its practical feasibility.

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arXiv2025

DiffPace: Diffusion-based Plug-and-play Augmented Channel Estimation in mmWave and Terahertz Ultra-Massive MIMO Systems

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and Terahertz (THz)-band communications hold great promise in meeting the growing data-rate demands of next-generation wireless networks, offering abundant bandwidth. To mitigate the severe path loss inherent to these high frequencies and reduce hardware costs, ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) systems with hybrid beamforming architectures can deliver substantial beamforming gains and enhanced spectral efficiency. However, accurate channel estimation (CE) in mmWave and THz UM-MIMO systems is challenging due to high channel dimensionality and compressed observations from a limited number of RF chains, while the hybrid near- and far-field radiation patterns, arising from large array apertures and high carrier frequencies, further complicate CE. Conventional compressive sensing based frameworks rely on predefined sparsifying matrices, which cannot faithfully capture the hybrid near-field and far-field channel structures, leading to degraded estimation performance. This paper introduces DiffPace, a diffusion-based plug-and-play method for channel estimation. DiffPace uses a diffusion model (DM) to capture the channel distribution based on the hybrid spherical and planar-wave (HPSM) model. By applying the plug-and-play approach, it leverages the DM as prior knowledge, improving CE accuracy. Moreover, DM performs inference by solving an ordinary differential equation, minimizing the number of required inference steps compared with stochastic sampling method. Experimental results show that DiffPace achieves competitive CE performance, attaining -15 dB normalized mean square error (NMSE) at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 10 dB, with 90\% fewer inference steps compared to state-of-the-art schemes, simultaneously providing high estimation precision and enhanced computational efficiency.

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arXiv2025

SwinLSTM Autoencoder for Temporal-Spatial-Frequency Domain CSI Compression in Massive MIMO Systems

This study presents a parameter-light, low-complexity artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) model that enhances channel state information (CSI) feedback in wireless systems by jointly exploiting temporal, spatial, and frequency (TSF) domain correlations. While traditional frameworks use autoencoders for CSI compression at the user equipment (UE) and reconstruction at the network (NW) side in spatial-frequency (SF), massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) systems in low mobility scenarios exhibit strong temporal correlation alongside frequency and spatial correlations. An autoencoder architecture alone is insufficient to exploit the TSF domain correlation in CSI; a recurrent element is also required. To address the vanishing gradients problem, researchers in recent works have proposed state-of-the-art TSF domain CSI compression architectures that combine recurrent networks for temporal correlation exploitation with deep pre-trained autoencoder that handle SF domain CSI compression. However, this approach increases the number of parameters and computational complexity. To jointly utilize correlations across the TSF domain, we propose a novel, parameter-light, low-complexity AI/ML-based recurrent autoencoder architecture to compress CSI at the UE side and reconstruct it on the NW side while minimizing CSI feedback overhead.

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arXiv2025

Introducing Resilience to IRS-Assisted Secure Wireless Systems

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are envisioned as a transformative method for enhancing the physical layer security of future communication networks. However, current IRS-assisted secure wireless system designs incur high time cost for the joint optimization of beamforming vectors and IRS phase shifts and are susceptible to unforeseen disruption. Therefore, introducing resilience in IRS-assisted secure systems is essential. In this paper, we first quantify the resilience performance as the combination of the absorption and adaptation performance. In particular, the absorption performance measures the system's robustness when facing failure while the adaptation performance reflects the system's ability to recover from failure. Then, we propose a two-timescale transmission protocol aiming to enhance system resilience while limiting maximum information leakage to eavesdroppers. Specifically, in the initialization phase, the base station (BS) beamforming vectors and IRS phase shifts are optimized iteratively using an alternating optimization (AO) approach to improve the absorption performance of the system, i.e., the worst-case achievable rate, given a predefined maximum tolerable leakage rate, by accounting for the impact of long-term channel variations. When the system detects an outage, a fast system recovery mechanism is activated to restore operation by adjusting only the BS beamforming vectors, which enhances the adaptation performance of the system. Our numerical results reveal that the proposed algorithm significantly improves system resilience, including system robustness and recovery performance. Moreover, the proposed design guarantees outage-free transmission over a long time interval for moderate-size IRSs.

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arXiv2025

Multiple-Satellite Cooperative Information Communication and Location Sensing in LEO Satellite Constellations

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) and ubiquitous connectivity are two usage scenarios of sixth generation (6G) networks. In this context, low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, as an important component of 6G networks, is expected to provide ISAC services across the globe. In this paper, we propose a novel dual-function LEO satellite constellation framework that realizes information communication for multiple user equipments (UEs) and location sensing for interested target simultaneously with the same hardware and spectrum. In order to improve both information transmission rate and location sensing accuracy within limited wireless resources under dynamic environment, we design a multiple-satellite cooperative information communication and location sensing algorithm by jointly optimizing communication beamforming and sensing waveform according to the characteristics of LEO satellite constellation. Finally, extensive simulation results are presented to demonstrate the competitive performance of the proposed algorithms.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Tera-SpaceCom: GNN-based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Joint Resource Allocation and Task Offloading in TeraHertz Band Space Networks

Terahertz (THz) space communications (Tera-SpaceCom) is envisioned as a promising technology to enable various space science and communication applications. Mainly, the realm of Tera-SpaceCom consists of THz sensing for space exploration, data centers in space providing cloud services for space exploration tasks, and a low earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellation relaying these tasks to ground stations (GSs) or data centers via THz links. Moreover, to reduce the computational burden on data centers as well as resource consumption and latency in the relaying process, the LEO mega-constellation provides satellite edge computing (SEC) services to directly compute space exploration tasks without relaying these tasks to data centers. The LEO satellites that receive space exploration tasks offload (i.e., distribute) partial tasks to their neighboring LEO satellites, to further reduce their computational burden. However, efficient joint communication resource allocation and computing task offloading for the Tera-SpaceCom SEC network is an NP-hard mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem (MINLP), due to the discrete nature of space exploration tasks and sub-arrays as well as the continuous nature of transmit power. To tackle this challenge, a graph neural network (GNN)-deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based joint resource allocation and task offloading (GRANT) algorithm is proposed with the target of long-term resource efficiency (RE). Particularly, GNNs learn relationships among different satellites from their connectivity information. Furthermore, multi-agent and multi-task mechanisms cooperatively train task offloading and resource allocation. Compared with benchmark solutions, GRANT not only achieves the highest RE with relatively low latency, but realizes the fewest trainable parameters and the shortest running time.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

Globally Optimal Movable Antenna-Enhanced multiuser Communication: Discrete Antenna Positioning, Motion Power Consumption, and Imperfect CSI

Movable antennas (MAs) represent a promising paradigm to enhance the spatial degrees of freedom of conventional multi-antenna systems by dynamically adapting the positions of antenna elements within a designated transmit area. In particular, by employing electro-mechanical MA drivers, the positions of the MA elements can be adjusted to shape a favorable spatial correlation for improving system performance. Although preliminary research has explored beamforming designs for MA systems, the intricacies of the power consumption and the precise positioning of MA elements are not well understood. Moreover, the assumption of perfect CSI adopted in the literature is impractical due to the significant pilot overhead and the extensive time to acquire perfect CSI. To address these challenges, we model the motion of MA elements through discrete steps and quantify the associated power consumption as a function of these movements. Furthermore, by leveraging the properties of the MA channel model, we introduce a novel CSI error model tailored for MA systems that facilitates robust resource allocation design. In particular, we optimize the beamforming and the MA positions at the BS to minimize the total BS power consumption, encompassing both radiated and MA motion power while guaranteeing a minimum required SINR for each user. To this end, novel algorithms exploiting the branch and bound (BnB) method are developed to obtain the optimal solution for perfect and imperfect CSI. Moreover, to support practical implementation, we propose low-complexity algorithms with guaranteed convergence by leveraging successive convex approximation (SCA). Our numerical results validate the optimality of the proposed BnB-based algorithms. Furthermore, we unveil that both proposed SCA-based algorithms approach the optimal performance within a few iterations, thus highlighting their practical advantages.

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arXiv2024

Approximate Partially Decentralized Linear EZF Precoding for Massive MU-MIMO Systems

Massive multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems enable high spatial resolution, high spectral efficiency, and improved link reliability compared to traditional MIMO systems due to the large number of antenna elements deployed at the base station (BS). Nevertheless, conventional massive MU-MIMO BS transceiver designs rely on centralized linear precoding algorithms, which entail high interconnect data rates and a prohibitive complexity at the centralized baseband processing unit. In this paper, we consider an MU-MIMO system, where each user device is served with multiple independent data streams in the downlink. To address the aforementioned challenges, we propose a novel decentralized BS architecture, and develop a novel decentralized precoding algorithm based on eigen-zero-forcing (EZF). Our proposed approach relies on parallelizing the baseband processing tasks across multiple antenna clusters at the BS, while minimizing the interconnection requirements between the clusters, and is shown to closely approach the performance of centralized EZF.

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arXiv2024

Deep Learning-based Joint Channel Prediction and Multibeam Precoding for LEO Satellite Internet of Things

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet of things (IoT) is a promising way achieving global Internet of Everything, and thus has been widely recognized as an important component of sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. Yet, due to high-speed movement of the LEO satellite, it is challenging to acquire timely channel state information (CSI) and design effective multibeam precoding for various IoT applications. To this end, this paper provides a deep learning (DL)-based joint channel prediction and multibeam precoding scheme under adverse environments, e.g., high Doppler shift, long propagation delay, and low satellite payload. {Specifically, this paper first designs a DL-based channel prediction scheme by using convolutional neural networks (CNN) and long short term memory (LSTM), which predicts the CSI of current time slot according to that of previous time slots. With the predicted CSI, this paper designs a DL-based robust multibeam precoding scheme by using a channel augmentation method based on variational auto-encoder (VAE).} Finally, extensive simulation results confirm the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed scheme in LEO satellite IoT.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Globally Optimal Resource Allocation Design for Discrete Phase Shift IRS-Assisted Multiuser Networks with Perfect and Imperfect CSI

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are a promising low-cost solution for achieving high spectral and energy efficiency in future communication systems by enabling the customization of wireless propagation environments. Despite the plethora of research on resource allocation design for IRS-assisted multiuser wireless communication systems, the optimal design and the corresponding performance upper bound are still not fully understood. To bridge this gap in knowledge, in this paper, we investigate the optimal resource allocation design for IRS-assisted multiuser multiple-input single-output systems employing practical discrete IRS phase shifters. In particular, we jointly optimize the beamforming vector at the base station and the discrete IRS phase shifts to minimize the total transmit power for the cases of perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) knowledge. To this end, two novel algorithms based on the generalized Benders decomposition (GBD) method are developed to obtain the globally optimal solution for perfect and imperfect CSI, respectively. Moreover, to facilitate practical implementation, we propose two corresponding low-complexity suboptimal algorithms with guaranteed convergence by capitalizing on successive convex approximation (SCA). In particular, for imperfect CSI, we adopt a bounded error model to characterize the CSI uncertainty and propose a new transformation to convexify the robust quality-of-service constraints. Our numerical results confirm the optimality of the proposed GBD-based algorithms for the considered system for both perfect and imperfect CSI. Furthermore, we unveil that both proposed SCA-based algorithms can attain a locally optimal solution within a few iterations. Moreover, compared with the state-of-the-art solution based on alternating optimization, the proposed low-complexity SCA-based schemes achieve a significant performance gain.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Detection Schemes with Low-Resolution ADCs and Spatial Oversampling for Transmission with Higher-Order Constellations in the Terahertz Band

In this work, we consider Terahertz (THz) communications with low-resolution uniform quantization and spatial oversampling at the receiver side, corresponding to a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) transmission. We fairly compare different analog-to-digital converter (ADC) parametrizations by keeping the ADC power consumption constant. Here, 1-, 2-, and 3-bit quantization is investigated with different oversampling factors. We analytically compute the statistics of the detection variable, and we propose the optimal and several suboptimal detection schemes for arbitrary quantization resolutions. Then, we evaluate the symbol error rate (SER) of the different detectors for 16- and 64-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). The results indicate that there is a noticeable performance degradation of the suboptimal detectors compared to the optimal detector when the constellation size is larger than the number of quantization levels. Furthermore, at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), 1-bit quantization outperforms 2- and 3-bit quantization, respectively, even when employing higher-order constellations. We confirm our analytical results by Monte Carlo simulations. Both a pure line-of-sight (LoS) and a more realistically modeled indoor THz channel are considered. Then, we optimize the input signal constellation with respect to SER for 1- and 2-bit quantization. The results give insights for optimizing higher-order constellations for arbitrary quantization resolutions and show that the minimum SER can be lowered significantly by appropriately placing the constellation points.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2023

Time-based vs. Fingerprinting-based Positioning Using Artificial Neural Networks

High-accuracy positioning has gained significant interest for many use-cases across various domains such as industrial internet of things (IIoT), healthcare and entertainment. Radio frequency (RF) measurements are widely utilized for user localization. However, challenging radio conditions such as non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and multipath propagation can deteriorate the positioning accuracy. Machine learning (ML)-based estimators have been proposed to overcome these challenges. RF measurements can be utilized for positioning in multiple ways resulting in time-based, angle-based and fingerprinting-based methods. Different methods, however, impose different implementation requirements to the system, and may perform differently in terms of accuracy for a given setting. In this paper, we use artificial neural networks (ANNs) to realize time-of-arrival (ToA)-based and channel impulse response (CIR) fingerprinting-based positioning. We compare their performance for different indoor environments based on real-world ultra-wideband (UWB) measurements. We first show that using ML techniques helps to improve the estimation accuracy compared to conventional techniques for time-based positioning. When comparing time-based and fingerprinting schemes using ANNs, we show that the favorable method in terms of positioning accuracy is different for different environments, where the accuracy is affected not only by the radio propagation conditions but also the density and distribution of reference user locations used for fingerprinting.

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arXiv2023

Mulsemedia Communication Research Challenges for Metaverse in 6G Wireless Systems

Although humans have five basic senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, most multimedia systems in current systems only capture two of them, namely, sight and hearing. With the development of the metaverse and related technologies, there is a growing need for a more immersive media format that leverages all human senses. Multisensory media(Mulsemedia) that can stimulate multiple senses will play a critical role in the near future. This paper provides an overview of the history, background, use cases, existing research, devices, and standards of mulsemedia. Emerging mulsemedia technologies such as Extended Reality (XR) and Holographic-Type Communication (HTC) are introduced. Additionally, the challenges in mulsemedia research from the perspective of wireless communication and networking are discussed. The potential of 6G wireless systems to address these challenges is highlighted, and several research directions that can advance mulsemedia communications are identified.

cs.MM↗

arXiv2023

Movable Antenna-Enhanced Multiuser Communication: Optimal Discrete Antenna Positioning and Beamforming

Movable antennas (MAs) are a promising paradigm to enhance the spatial degrees of freedom of conventional multi-antenna systems by flexibly adapting the positions of the antenna elements within a given transmit area. In this paper, we model the motion of the MA elements as discrete movements and study the corresponding resource allocation problem for MA-enabled multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) communication systems. Specifically, we jointly optimize the beamforming and the MA positions at the base station (BS) for the minimization of the total transmit power while guaranteeing the minimum required signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of each individual user. To obtain the globally optimal solution to the formulated resource allocation problem, we develop an iterative algorithm capitalizing on the generalized Bender's decomposition with guaranteed convergence. Our numerical results demonstrate that the proposed MA-enabled communication system can significantly reduce the BS transmit power and the number of antenna elements needed to achieve a desired performance compared to state-of-the-art techniques, such as antenna selection. Furthermore, we observe that refining the step size of the MA motion driver improves performance at the expense of a higher computational complexity.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2023

Globally Optimal Resource Allocation Design for IRS-Assisted Multiuser Networks with Discrete Phase Shifts

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are envisioned as a low-cost solution to achieve high spectral and energy efficiency in future communication systems due to their ability to customize wireless propagation environments. Although resource allocation design for IRS-assisted multiuser wireless communication systems has been exhaustively investigated in the literature, the optimal design and performance of such systems are still not well understood. To fill this gap, in this paper, we study optimal resource allocation for IRS-assisted multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems. In particular, we jointly optimize the beamforming at the base station (BS) and the discrete IRS phase shifts to minimize the total transmit power. For attaining the globally optimal solution of the formulated non-convex combinatorial optimization problem, we develop a resource allocation algorithm with guaranteed convergence based on Schur's complement and the generalized Bender's decomposition. Our numerical results reveal that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the BS transmit power compared to the state-of-the-art suboptimal alternating optimization-based approach, especially for moderate-to-large numbers of IRS elements.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2023

Time of Arrival Error Estimation for Positioning Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Wireless high-accuracy positioning has recently attracted growing research interest due to diversified nature of applications such as industrial asset tracking, autonomous driving, process automation, and many more. However, obtaining a highly accurate location information is hampered by challenges due to the radio environment. A major source of error for time-based positioning methods is inaccurate time-of-arrival (ToA) or range estimation. Existing machine learning-based solutions to mitigate such errors rely on propagation environment classification hindered by a low number of classes, employ a set of features representing channel measurements only to a limited extent, or account for only device-specific proprietary methods of ToA estimation. In this paper, we propose convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to estimate and mitigate the errors of a variety of ToA estimation methods utilizing channel impulse responses (CIRs). Based on real-world measurements from two independent campaigns, the proposed method yields significant improvements in ranging accuracy (up to 37%) of the state-of-the-art ToA estimators, often eliminating the need of optimizing the underlying conventional methods.

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arXiv2022

Matching Pursuit Based Scheduling for Over-the-Air Federated Learning

This paper develops a class of low-complexity device scheduling algorithms for over-the-air federated learning via the method of matching pursuit. The proposed scheme tracks closely the close-to-optimal performance achieved by difference-of-convex programming, and outperforms significantly the well-known benchmark algorithms based on convex relaxation. Compared to the state-of-the-art, the proposed scheme poses a drastically lower computational load on the system: For $K$ devices and $N$ antennas at the parameter server, the benchmark complexity scales with $\left(N^2+K\right)^3 + N^6$ while the complexity of the proposed scheme scales with $K^p N^q$ for some $0 < p,q \leq 2$. The efficiency of the proposed scheme is confirmed via numerical experiments on the CIFAR-10 dataset.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2017

Max-Min Multi-Cell Aware Precoding and Power Allocation for Downlink Massive MIMO Systems

We propose a max-min multi-cell aware regularized zero-forcing (Max-Min MCA-RZF) precoding and power allocation scheme for downlink multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. A general correlated channel model is considered, and the adopted channel state information (CSI) acquisition model includes the effects of estimation errors and pilot contamination. We use results from random matrix theory to derive deterministic equivalents for the proposed Max-Min power allocation in the large system limit which solely depend on statistical CSI, but not on individual channel realizations. Our numerical results show that the proposed Max-Min MCA-RZF precoder achieves a substantially higher network-wide minimum rate than the MCA-RZF and the conventional RZF precoders with uniform power allocation, respectively, as well as the conventional RZF precoder with Max-Min power allocation.

cs.IT↗