Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Zhaohui Yang

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaohui Yang.

At least 217 records · Page 12Linked to original sources

On Differential Privacy for Federated Learning in Wireless Systems with Multiple Base Stations

In this work, we consider a federated learning model in a wireless system with multiple base stations and inter-cell interference. We apply a differential private scheme to transmit information from users to their corresponding base station during the learning phase. We show the convergence behavior of the learning process by deriving an upper bound on its optimality gap. Furthermore, we define an optimization problem to reduce this upper bound and the total privacy leakage. To find the locally optimal solutions of this problem, we first propose an algorithm that schedules the resource blocks and users. We then extend this scheme to reduce the total privacy leakage by optimizing the differential privacy artificial noise. We apply the solutions of these two procedures as parameters of a federated learning system. In this setting, we assume that each user is equipped with a classifier. Moreover, the communication cells are assumed to have mostly fewer resource blocks than numbers of users. The simulation results show that our proposed scheduler improves the average accuracy of the predictions compared with a random scheduler. Furthermore, its extended version with noise optimizer significantly reduces the amount of privacy leakage.

cs.CR↗

Beamforming Design for the Performance Optimization of Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted Multicast MIMO Networks

In this paper, the problem of maximizing the sum of data rates of all users in an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted millimeter wave multicast multiple-input multiple-output communication system is studied. In the considered model, one IRS is deployed to assist the communication from a multiantenna base station (BS) to the multi-antenna users that are clustered into several groups. Our goal is to maximize the sum rate of all users by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming matrices of the BS, the receive beamforming matrices of the users, and the phase shifts of the IRS. To solve this non-convex problem, we first use a block diagonalization method to represent the beamforming matrices of the BS and the users by the phase shifts of the IRS. Then, substituting the expressions of the beamforming matrices of the BS and the users, the original sum-rate maximization problem can be transformed into a problem that only needs to optimize the phase shifts of the IRS. To solve the transformed problem, a manifold method is used. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve up to 28.6% gain in terms of the sum rate of all users compared to the algorithm that optimizes the hybrid beamforming matrices of the BS and the users using our proposed scheme and randomly determines the phase shifts of the IRS.

eess.SP↗

Multiple RISs Assisted Cell-Free Networks With Two-timescale CSI: Performance Analysis and System Design

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) can be employed in a cell-free system to create favorable propagation conditions from base stations (BSs) to users via configurable elements. However, prior works on RIS-aided cell-free system designs mainly rely on the instantaneous channel state information (CSI), which may incur substantial overhead due to extremely high dimensions of estimated channels. To mitigate this issue, a low-complexity algorithm via the two-timescale transmission protocol is proposed in this paper, where the joint beamforming at BSs and RISs is facilitated via alternating optimization framework to maximize the average weighted sum-rate. Specifically, the passive beamformers at RISs are optimized through the statistical CSI, and the transmit beamformers at BSs are based on the instantaneous CSI of effective channels. In this manner, a closed-form expression for the achievable weighted sum-rate is derived, which enables the evaluation of the impact of key parameters on system performance. To gain more insights, a special case without line-of-sight (LoS) components is further investigated, where a power gain on the order of $\mathcal{O}(M)$ is achieved, with $M$ being the BS antennas number. Numerical results validate the tightness of our derived analytical expression and show the fast convergence of the proposed algorithm. Findings illustrate that the performance of the proposed algorithm with two-timescale CSI is comparable to that with instantaneous CSI in low or moderate SNR regime. The impact of key system parameters such as the number of RIS elements, CSI settings and Rician factor is also evaluated. Moreover, the remarkable advantages from the adoption of the cell-free paradigm and the deployment of RISs are demonstrated intuitively.

cs.IT↗

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces Empowered Cooperative Rate Splitting with User Relaying

Cooperative rate splitting (CRS), built upon rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) and opportunistic user relaying, has been recognized as a promising transmission strategy to enhance the user fairness and spectral efficiency in multiantenna broadcast channels. To further boost its performance, the interplay of CRS and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is investigated in this work. Specifically, a novel RIS-aided CRS transmission framework is proposed and the corresponding resource allocation problem to maximize the minimum rate among users is investigated. An alternative optimization algorithm is then proposed to optimize the transmit beamforming, common rate allocation, and RIS phases, iteratively. Numerical results show that the proposed RIS-aided CRS transmission framework significantly improves the spectral efficiency compared with its non-cooperative counterpart and other schemes without RIS.

cs.IT↗

Mobile MIMO Channel Prediction with ODE-RNN: a Physics-Inspired Adaptive Approach

Obtaining accurate channel state information (CSI) is crucial and challenging for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. Conventional channel estimation method cannot guarantee the accuracy of mobile CSI while requires high signaling overhead. Through exploring the intrinsic correlation among a set of historical CSI instances randomly obtained in a certain communication environment, channel prediction can significantly increase CSI accuracy and save signaling overhead. In this paper, we propose a novel channel prediction method based on ordinary differential equation (ODE)-recurrent neural network (RNN) for accurate and flexible mobile MIMO channel prediction. Differing from existing works using sequential network structures for exploring the numerical correlation between observed data, our proposed method tries to represent the implicit physics process of path responses changing by specially designed continuous learning network with ODE structure. Due to the targeted design of learning network, our proposed method fits the mathematics feature of CSI data better and enjoy higher network interpretability. Experimental results show that the proposed learning approach outperforms existing methods, especially for long time interval of the CSI sequence and large channel measurement error.

eess.SP↗

STAR-RIS Integrated Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access and Over-the-Air Federated Learning: Framework, Analysis, and Optimization

This paper integrates non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and over-the-air federated learning (AirFL) into a unified framework using one simultaneous transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS). The STAR-RIS plays an important role in adjusting the decoding order of hybrid users for efficient interference mitigation and omni-directional coverage extension. To capture the impact of non-ideal wireless channels on AirFL, a closed-form expression for the optimality gap (a.k.a. convergence upper bound) between the actual loss and the optimal loss is derived. This analysis reveals that the learning performance is significantly affected by the active and passive beamforming schemes as well as wireless noise. Furthermore, when the learning rate diminishes as the training proceeds, the optimality gap is explicitly shown to converge with linear rate. To accelerate convergence while satisfying quality-of-service requirements, a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem is formulated by jointly designing the transmit power at users and the configuration mode of STAR-RIS. Next, a trust region-based successive convex approximation method and a penalty-based semidefinite relaxation approach are proposed to handle the decoupled non-convex subproblems iteratively. An alternating optimization algorithm is then developed to find a suboptimal solution for the original MINLP problem. Extensive simulation results show that i) the proposed framework can efficiently support NOMA and AirFL users via concurrent uplink communications, ii) our algorithms achieve faster convergence rate on IID and non-IID settings compared to existing baselines, and iii) both the spectrum efficiency and learning performance is significantly improved with the aid of the well-tuned STAR-RIS.

cs.IT↗

Joint Channel Estimation and Signal Recovery for RIS-Empowered Multi-User Communications

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have been recently considered as a promising candidate for energy-efficient solutions in future wireless networks. Their dynamic and lowpower configuration enables coverage extension, massive connectivity, and low-latency communications. Due to a large number of unknown variables referring to the RIS unit elements and the transmitted signals, channel estimation and signal recovery in RIS-based systems are the ones of the most critical technical challenges. To address this problem, we focus on the RIS-assisted wireless communication system and present two joint channel estimation and signal recovery schemes based on message passing algorithms in this paper. Specifically, the proposed bidirectional scheme applies the Taylor series expansion and Gaussian approximation to simplify the sum-product procedure in the formulated problem. In addition, the inner iteration that adopts two variants of approximate message passing algorithms is incorporated to ensure robustness and convergence. Two ambiguities removal methods are also discussed in this paper. Our simulation results show that the proposed schemes show the superiority over the state-of-art benchmark method. We also provide insights on the impact of different RIS parameter settings on the proposed schemes.

cs.IT↗

Integrating Over-the-Air Federated Learning and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access: What Role can RIS Play?

With the aim of integrating over-the-air federated learning (AirFL) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) into an on-demand universal framework, this paper proposes a novel reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided hybrid network by leveraging the RIS to flexibly adjust the signal processing order of heterogeneous data. The objective of this work is to maximize the achievable hybrid rate by jointly optimizing the transmit power, controlling the receive scalar, and designing the phase shifts. Since the concurrent transmissions of all computation and communication signals are aided by the discrete phase shifts at the RIS, the considered problem (P0) is a challenging mixed integer programming problem. To tackle this intractable issue, we decompose the original problem (P0) into a non-convex problem (P1) and a combinatorial problem (P2), which are characterized by the continuous and discrete variables, respectively. For the transceiver design problem (P1), the power allocation subproblem is first solved by invoking the difference-of-convex programming, and then the receive control subproblem is addressed by using the successive convex approximation, where the closed-form expressions of simplified cases are derived to obtain deep insights. For the reflection design problem (P2), the relaxation-then-quantization method is adopted to find a suboptimal solution for striking a trade-off between complexity and performance. Afterwards, an alternating optimization algorithm is developed to solve the non-linear and non-convex problem (P0) iteratively. Finally, simulation results reveal that 1) the proposed RIS-aided hybrid network can support the on-demand communication and computation efficiently, 2) the performance gains can be improved by properly selecting the location of the RIS, and 3) the designed algorithms are also applicable to conventional networks with only AirFL or NOMA users.

cs.IT↗

Environment Sensing Considering the Occlusion Effect: A Multi-View Approach

In this paper, we consider the problem of sensing the environment within a wireless cellular framework. Specifically, multiple user equipments (UEs) send sounding signals to one or multiple base stations (BSs) and then a centralized processor retrieves the environmental information from all the channel information obtained at the BS(s). Taking into account the occlusion effect that is common in the wireless context, we make full use of the different views of the environment from different users and/or BS(s), and propose an effective sensing algorithm called GAMP-MVSVR (generalized-approximate-message-passing-based multi-view sparse vector reconstruction). In the proposed algorithm, a multi-layer factor graph is constructed to iteratively estimate the scattering coefficients of the cloud points and their occlusion relationship. In each iteration, the occlusion relationship between the cloud points of the sparse environment is recalculated according to a simple occlusion detection rule, and in turn, used to estimate the scattering coefficients of the cloud points. Our proposed algorithm can achieve improved sensing performance with multi-BS collaboration in addition to the multi-views from the UEs. The simulation results verify its convergence and effectiveness.

eess.SP↗

Multi-hop RIS-Empowered Terahertz Communications: A DRL-based Hybrid Beamforming Design

Wireless communication in the TeraHertz band (0.1--10 THz) is envisioned as one of the key enabling technologies for the future sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems scaled up beyond massive multiple input multiple output (Massive-MIMO) technology. However, very high propagation attenuations and molecular absorptions of THz frequencies often limit the signal transmission distance and coverage range. Benefited from the recent breakthrough on the reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for realizing smart radio propagation environment, we propose a novel hybrid beamforming scheme for the multi-hop RIS-assisted communication networks to improve the coverage range at THz-band frequencies. Particularly, multiple passive and controllable RISs are deployed to assist the transmissions between the base station (BS) and multiple single-antenna users. We investigate the joint design of digital beamforming matrix at the BS and analog beamforming matrices at the RISs, by leveraging the recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to combat the propagation loss. To improve the convergence of the proposed DRL-based algorithm, two algorithms are then designed to initialize the digital beamforming and the analog beamforming matrices utilizing the alternating optimization technique. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme is able to improve 50\% more coverage range of THz communications compared with the benchmarks. Furthermore, it is also shown that our proposed DRL-based method is a state-of-the-art method to solve the NP-hard beamforming problem, especially when the signals at RIS-assisted THz communication networks experience multiple hops.

eess.SP↗

Edge Learning for B5G Networks with Distributed Signal Processing: Semantic Communication, Edge Computing, and Wireless Sensing

To process and transfer large amounts of data in emerging wireless services, it has become increasingly appealing to exploit distributed data communication and learning. Specifically, edge learning (EL) enables local model training on geographically disperse edge nodes and minimizes the need for frequent data exchange. However, the current design of separating EL deployment and communication optimization does not yet reap the promised benefits of distributed signal processing, and sometimes suffers from excessive signalling overhead, long processing delay, and unstable learning convergence. In this paper, we provide an overview on practical distributed EL techniques and their interplay with advanced communication optimization designs. In particular, typical performance metrics for dual-functional learning and communication networks are discussed. Also, recent achievements of enabling techniques for the dual-functional design are surveyed with exemplifications from the mutual perspectives of "communications for learning" and "learning for communications." The application of EL techniques within a variety of future communication systems are also envisioned for beyond 5G (B5G) wireless networks. For the application in goal-oriented semantic communication, we present a first mathematical model of the goal-oriented source entropy as an optimization problem. In addition, from the viewpoint of information theory, we identify fundamental open problems of characterizing rate regions for communication networks supporting distributed learning-and-computing tasks. We also present technical challenges as well as emerging application opportunities in this field, with the aim of inspiring future research and promoting widespread developments of EL in B5G.

cs.IT↗

Safeguarding NOMA Networks via Reconfigurable Dual-Functional Surface under Imperfect CSI

This paper investigates the use of the reconfigurable dual-functional surface to guarantee the full-space secure transmission in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks. In the presence of eavesdroppers, the downlink communication from the base station to the legitimate users is safeguarded by the simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS), where three practical operating protocols, namely energy splitting (ES), mode selection (MS), and time splitting (TS), are studied. The joint optimization of power allocation, active and passive beamforming is investigated to maximize the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE), taking into account the imperfect channel state information (CSI) of all channels. For ES, by approximating the semi-infinite constraints with the S-procedure and general sign-definiteness, the problem is solved by an alternating optimization framework. Besides, the proposed algorithm is extended to the MS protocol by solving a mixed-integer non-convex problem. While for TS, a two-layer iterative method is proposed. Simulation results show that: 1) The proposed STAR-RIS assisted NOMA networks are able to provide up to 33.6\% higher SEE than conventional RIS counterparts; 2) TS and ES protocols are generally preferable for low and high power domain, respectively; 3) The accuracy of CSI estimation and the bit resolution power consumption are crucial to reap the SEE benefits offered by STAR-RIS.

eess.SP↗

Aerial Computing: A New Computing Paradigm, Applications, and Challenges

In existing computing systems, such as edge computing and cloud computing, several emerging applications and practical scenarios are mostly unavailable or only partially implemented. To overcome the limitations that restrict such applications, the development of a comprehensive computing paradigm has garnered attention in both academia and industry. However, a gap exists in the literature owing to the scarce research, and a comprehensive computing paradigm is yet to be systematically designed and reviewed. This study introduces a novel concept, called aerial computing, via the amalgamation of aerial radio access networks and edge computing, which attempts to bridge the gap. Specifically, first, we propose a novel comprehensive computing architecture that is composed of low-altitude computing, high-altitude computing, and satellite computing platforms, along with conventional computing systems. We determine that aerial computing offers several desirable attributes: global computing service, better mobility, higher scalability and availability, and simultaneity. Second, we comprehensively discuss key technologies that facilitate aerial computing, including energy refilling, edge computing, network softwarization, frequency spectrum, multi-access techniques, artificial intelligence, and big data. In addition, we discuss vertical domain applications (e.g., smart cities, smart vehicles, smart factories, and smart grids) supported by aerial computing. Finally, we highlight several challenges that need to be addressed and their possible solutions.

cs.NI↗

Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Reliable Communication in THz/VLC Wireless VR Networks

In this paper, the problem of enhancing the quality of virtual reality (VR) services is studied for an indoor terahertz (THz)/visible light communication (VLC) wireless network. In the studied model, small base stations (SBSs) transmit high-quality VR images to VR users over THz bands and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) provide accurate indoor positioning services for them using VLC. Here, VR users move in real time and their movement patterns change over time according to their applications, where both THz and VLC links can be blocked by the bodies of VR users. To control the energy consumption of the studied THz/VLC wireless VR network, VLC access points (VAPs) must be selectively turned on so as to ensure accurate and extensive positioning for VR users. Based on the user positions, each SBS must generate corresponding VR images and establish THz links without body blockage to transmit the VR content. The problem is formulated as an optimization problem whose goal is to maximize the reliability of the VR network by selecting the appropriate VAPs to be turned on and controlling the user association with SBSs. To solve this problem, a policy gradient-based reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that adopts a meta-learning approach is proposed. The proposed meta policy gradient (MPG) algorithm enables the trained policy to quickly adapt to new user movement patterns. In order to solve the problem of maximizing the average number of successfully served users for VR scenarios with a large number of users, a dual method based MPG algorithm (D-MPG) with a low complexity is proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that, compared to the trust region policy optimization algorithm (TRPO), the proposed MPG and D-MPG algorithms yield up to 26.8% and 21.9% improvement in the reliability as well as 81.2% and 87.5% gains in the convergence speed, respectively.

cs.NI↗

A Joint Learning and Communications Framework for Federated Learning over Wireless Networks

In this paper, the problem of training federated learning (FL) algorithms over a realistic wireless network is studied. In particular, in the considered model, wireless users execute an FL algorithm while training their local FL models using their own data and transmitting the trained local FL models to a base station (BS) that will generate a global FL model and send it back to the users. Since all training parameters are transmitted over wireless links, the quality of the training will be affected by wireless factors such as packet errors and the availability of wireless resources. Meanwhile, due to the limited wireless bandwidth, the BS must select an appropriate subset of users to execute the FL algorithm so as to build a global FL model accurately. This joint learning, wireless resource allocation, and user selection problem is formulated as an optimization problem whose goal is to minimize an FL loss function that captures the performance of the FL algorithm. To address this problem, a closed-form expression for the expected convergence rate of the FL algorithm is first derived to quantify the impact of wireless factors on FL. Then, based on the expected convergence rate of the FL algorithm, the optimal transmit power for each user is derived, under a given user selection and uplink resource block (RB) allocation scheme. Finally, the user selection and uplink RB allocation is optimized so as to minimize the FL loss function. Simulation results show that the proposed joint federated learning and communication framework can reduce the FL loss function value by up to 10% and 16%, respectively, compared to: 1) An optimal user selection algorithm with random resource allocation and 2) a standard FL algorithm with random user selection and resource allocation.

cs.NI↗

Learning from Images: Proactive Caching with Parallel Convolutional Neural Networks

With the continuous trend of data explosion, delivering packets from data servers to end users causes increased stress on both the fronthaul and backhaul traffic of mobile networks. To mitigate this problem, caching popular content closer to the end-users has emerged as an effective method for reducing network congestion and improving user experience. To find the optimal locations for content caching, many conventional approaches construct various mixed integer linear programming (MILP) models. However, such methods may fail to support online decision making due to the inherent curse of dimensionality. In this paper, a novel framework for proactive caching is proposed. This framework merges model-based optimization with data-driven techniques by transforming an optimization problem into a grayscale image. For parallel training and simple design purposes, the proposed MILP model is first decomposed into a number of sub-problems and, then, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are trained to predict content caching locations of these sub-problems. Furthermore, since the MILP model decomposition neglects the internal effects among sub-problems, the CNNs' outputs have the risk to be infeasible solutions. Therefore, two algorithms are provided: the first uses predictions from CNNs as an extra constraint to reduce the number of decision variables; the second employs CNNs' outputs to accelerate local search. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can reduce 71.6% computation time with only 0.8% additional performance cost compared to the MILP solution, which provides high quality decision making in real-time.

cs.NI↗

Robust Semi-supervised Federated Learning for Images Automatic Recognition in Internet of Drones

Air access networks have been recognized as a significant driver of various Internet of Things (IoT) services and applications. In particular, the aerial computing network infrastructure centered on the Internet of Drones has set off a new revolution in automatic image recognition. This emerging technology relies on sharing ground truth labeled data between Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms to train a high-quality automatic image recognition model. However, such an approach will bring data privacy and data availability challenges. To address these issues, we first present a Semi-supervised Federated Learning (SSFL) framework for privacy-preserving UAV image recognition. Specifically, we propose model parameters mixing strategy to improve the naive combination of FL and semi-supervised learning methods under two realistic scenarios (labels-at-client and labels-at-server), which is referred to as Federated Mixing (FedMix). Furthermore, there are significant differences in the number, features, and distribution of local data collected by UAVs using different camera modules in different environments, i.e., statistical heterogeneity. To alleviate the statistical heterogeneity problem, we propose an aggregation rule based on the frequency of the client's participation in training, namely the FedFreq aggregation rule, which can adjust the weight of the corresponding local model according to its frequency. Numerical results demonstrate that the performance of our proposed method is significantly better than those of the current baseline and is robust to different non-IID levels of client data.

cs.LG↗

Unsourced Random Massive Access with Beam-Space Tree Decoding

The core requirement of massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC) is to support reliable and fast access for an enormous number of machine-type devices (MTDs). In many practical applications, the base station (BS) only concerns the list of received messages instead of the source information, introducing the emerging concept of unsourced random access (URA). Although some massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) URA schemes have been proposed recently, the unique propagation properties of millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive MIMO systems are not fully exploited in conventional URA schemes. In grant-free random access, the BS cannot perform receive beamforming independently as the identities of active users are unknown to the BS. Therefore, only the intrinsic beam division property can be exploited to improve the decoding performance. In this paper, a URA scheme based on beam-space tree decoding is proposed for mmWave massive MIMO system. Specifically, two beam-space tree decoders are designed based on hard decision and soft decision, respectively, to utilize the beam division property. They both leverage the beam division property to assist in discriminating the sub-blocks transmitted from different users. Besides, the first decoder can reduce the searching space, enjoying a low complexity. The second decoder exploits the advantage of list decoding to recover the miss-detected packets. Simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed URA schemes compared to the conventional URA schemes in terms of error probability.

cs.IT↗