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To reap the active and passive beamforming gain in an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided wireless network, a typical way is to first acquire the channel state information (CSI) relying on the pilot signal, and then perform the joint beamforming design. However, it is a great challenge when the receiver can neither send pilot signals nor have complex signal processing capabilities due to its hardware limitation. To tackle this problem, we study in this paper an IRS-aided wireless energy transfer (WET) network and propose two joint beamforming design methods, namely, the channel-estimationbased method and the distributed-beamforming-based method, that require only one-bit feedback from the energy receiver (ER) to the energy transmitter (ET). Specifically, for the channelestimation-based method, according to the feedback information, the ET is able to infer the cascaded ET-IRS-ER channel by continually adjusting its transmit beamformer while applying the analytic center cutting plane method (ACCPM). Then, based on the estimated cascaded CSI, the joint beamforming design can be performed by using the existing optimization techniques. While for the distributed-beamforming-based method, we first apply the distributed beamforming algorithm to optimize the IRS reflection coefficients, which is theoretically proven to converge to a local optimum almost surely. Then, the optimal ET's transmit covariance matrix is obtained based on the effective ET-ER channel learned by applying the ACCPM only once. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed one-bitfeedback-based joint beamforming design schemes while greatly reducing the requirement on the hardware complexity of the ER. In particular, the high accuracy of our IRS-involved cascaded channel estimation method exploiting one-bit feedback is also validated.

Integrating wireless sensing capabilities into base stations (BSs) has become a widespread trend in the future beyond fifth-generation (B5G)/sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. In this paper, we investigate intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enabled wireless localization, in which an IRS is deployed to assist a BS in locating a target in its non-line-of-sight (NLoS) region. In particular, we consider the case where the BS-IRS channel state information (CSI) is unknown. Specifically, we first propose a separate BS-IRS channel estimation scheme in which the BS operates in full-duplex mode (FDM), i.e., a portion of the BS antennas send downlink pilot signals to the IRS, while the remaining BS antennas receive the uplink pilot signals reflected by the IRS. However, we can only obtain an incomplete BS-IRS channel matrix based on our developed iterative coordinate descent-based channel estimation algorithm due to the "sign ambiguity issue". Then, we employ the multiple hypotheses testing framework to perform target localization based on the incomplete estimated channel, in which the probability of each hypothesis is updated using Bayesian inference at each cycle. Moreover, we formulate a joint BS transmit waveform and IRS phase shifts optimization problem to improve the target localization performance by maximizing the weighted sum distance between each two hypotheses. However, the objective function is essentially a quartic function of the IRS phase shift vector, thus motivating us to resort to the penalty-based method to tackle this challenge. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of our proposed target localization scheme and show that the scheme's performance can be further improved by finely designing the BS transmit waveform and IRS phase shifts intending to maximize the weighted sum distance between different hypotheses.

In the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoTs) and Ocean of Things (OoTs), the advent of massive intelligent services has imposed stringent requirements on both communication and localization, particularly emphasizing precise localization and channel information. This paper focuses on the challenge of jointly optimizing localization and communication in IoT networks. Departing from the conventional independent noise model used in localization and channel estimation problems, we consider a more realistic model incorporating distance-dependent noise variance, as revealed in recent theoretical analyses and experimental results. The distance-dependent noise introduces unknown noise power and a complex noise model, resulting in an exceptionally challenging non-convex and nonlinear optimization problem. In this study, we address a joint localization and channel estimation problem encompassing distance-dependent noise, unknown channel parameters, and uncertainties in sensor node locations. To surmount the intractable nonlinear and non-convex objective function inherent in the problem, we introduce a variational Bayesian learning-based framework. This framework enables the joint optimization of localization and channel parameters by leveraging an effective approximation to the true posterior distribution. Furthermore, the proposed joint learning algorithm provides an iterative closed-form solution and exhibits superior performance in terms of computational complexity compared to existing algorithms. Computer simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm approaches the performance of the Bayesian Cramer-Rao bound (BCRB), achieves localization performance comparable to the ML-GMP algorithm, and outperforms the other two comparison algorithms.

Extremely large-scale multiple-input-multiple-output (XL-MIMO) is a promising technique to achieve ultra-high spectral efficiency for future 6G communications. The mixed line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) XL-MIMO near-field channel model is adopted to describe the XL-MIMO near-field channel accurately. In this paper, a generative adversarial network (GAN) variant based channel estimation method is proposed for XL-MIMO systems. Specifically, the GAN variant is developed to simultaneously estimate the LoS and NLoS path components of the XL-MIMO channel. The initially estimated channels instead of the received signals are input into the GAN variant as the conditional input to generate the XL-MIMO channels more efficiently. The GAN variant not only learns the mapping from the initially estimated channels to the XL-MIMO channels but also learns an adversarial loss. Moreover, we combine the adversarial loss with a conventional loss function to ensure the correct direction of training the generator. To further enhance the estimation performance, we investigate the impact of the hyper-parameter of the loss function on the performance of our method. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing channel estimation approaches in the adopted channel model. In addition, the proposed method surpasses the Cram$\acute{\mathbf{e}}$r-Rao lower bound (CRLB) under low pilot overhead., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, accepted by IEEE TGCN

Ultra-dense networks are widely regarded as a promising solution to explosively growing applications of Internet-of-Things (IoT) mobile devices (IMDs). However, complicated and severe interferences need to be tackled properly in such networks. To this end, both orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are utilized at first. Then, in order to attain a goal of green and secure computation offloading, under the proportional allocation of computational resources and the constraints of latency and security cost, joint device association, channel selection, security service assignment, power control and computation offloading are done for minimizing the overall energy consumed by all IMDs. It is noteworthy that multi-step computation offloading is concentrated to balance the network loads and utilize computing resources fully. Since the finally formulated problem is in a nonlinear mixed-integer form, it may be very difficult to find its closed-form solution. To solve it, an improved whale optimization algorithm (IWOA) is designed. As for this algorithm, the convergence, computational complexity and parallel implementation are analyzed in detail. Simulation results show that the designed algorithm may achieve lower energy consumption than other existing algorithms under the constraints of latency and security cost.

Massive arrays deployed in millimeter-wave systems enable high angular resolution performance, which in turn facilitates sub-meter localization services. Albeit suboptimal, up to now the most popular localization approach has been based on a so-called two-step procedure, where triangulation is applied upon aggregation of the angle-of-arrival (AoA) measurements from the collaborative base stations. This is mainly due to the prohibitive computational cost of the existing direct localization approaches in large-scale systems. To address this issue, we propose a deep unfolding based fast direct localization solver. First, the direct localization is formulated as a joint $l_1$-$l_{2,1}$ norm sparse recovery problem, which is then solved by using alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Next, we develop a deep ADMM unfolding network (DAUN) to learn the ADMM parameter settings from the training data and a position refinement algorithm is proposed for DAUN. Finally, simulation results showcase the superiority of the proposed DAUN over the baseline solvers in terms of better localization accuracy, faster convergence and significantly lower computational complexity., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters

To meet the need of computation-sensitive (CS) and high-rate (HR) communications, the framework of mobile edge computing and caching has been widely regarded as a promising solution. When such a framework is implemented in small-cell IoT (Internet of Tings) networks, it is a key and open topic how to assign mobile edge computing and caching servers to mobile devices (MDs) with CS and HR communications. Since these servers are integrated into small base stations (BSs), the assignment of them refers to not only the BS selection (i.e., MD association), but also the selection of computing and caching modes. To mitigate the network interference and thus enhance the system performance, some highly-effective resource partitioning mechanisms are introduced for access and backhaul links firstly. After that a problem with minimizing the sum of MDs' weighted delays is formulated to attain a goal of joint MD association and resource allocation under limited resources. Considering that the MD association and resource allocation parameters are coupling in such a formulated problem, we develop an alternating optimization algorithm according to the coalitional game and convex optimization theorems. To ensure that the designed algorithm begins from a feasible initial solution, we develop an initiation algorithm according to the conventional best channel association, which is used for comparison and the input of coalition game in the simulation. Simulation results show that the algorithm designed for minimizing the sum of MDs' weighted delays may achieve a better performance than the initiation (best channel association) algorithm in general.

With the emergence of more and more applications of Internet-of-Things (IoT) mobile devices (IMDs), a contradiction between mobile energy demand and limited battery capacity becomes increasingly prominent. In addition, in ultra-dense IoT networks, the ultra-densely deployed small base stations (SBSs) will consume a large amount of energy. To reduce the network-wide energy consumption and extend the standby time of IMDs and SBSs, under the proportional computation resource allocation and devices' latency constraints, we jointly perform the device association, computation offloading and resource allocation to minimize the network-wide energy consumption for ultra-dense multi-device and multi-task IoT networks. To further balance the network loads and fully utilize the computation resources, we take account of multi-step computation offloading. Considering that the finally formulated problem is in a nonlinear and mixed-integer form, we utilize the hierarchical adaptive search (HAS) algorithm to find its solution. Then, we give the convergence, computation complexity and parallel implementation analyses for such an algorithm. By comparing with other algorithms, we can easily find that such an algorithm can greatly reduce the network-wide energy consumption under devices' latency constraints.

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are powerful models that have achieved excellent performance on difficult computer vision tasks. Although CNNs perform well whenever large labeled training samples are available, they work badly on video frame synthesis due to objects deforming and moving, scene lighting changes, and cameras moving in video sequence. In this paper, we present a novel and general end-to-end architecture, called convolutional Transformer or ConvTransformer, for video frame sequence learning and video frame synthesis. The core ingredient of ConvTransformer is the proposed attention layer, i.e., multi-head convolutional self-attention layer, that learns the sequential dependence of video sequence. ConvTransformer uses an encoder, built upon multi-head convolutional self-attention layer, to encode the sequential dependence between the input frames, and then a decoder decodes the long-term dependence between the target synthesized frames and the input frames. Experiments on video future frame extrapolation task show ConvTransformer to be superior in quality while being more parallelizable to recent approaches built upon convolutional LSTM (ConvLSTM). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that ConvTransformer architecture is proposed and applied to video frame synthesis.

This paper investigates a symbiotic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) radio system, where the UAV is leveraged to help the IRS reflect its own signals to the base station, and meanwhile enhance the UAV transmission by passive beamforming at the IRS. First, we consider the weighted sum bit error rate (BER) minimization problem among all IRSs by jointly optimizing the UAV trajectory, IRS phase shift matrix, and IRS scheduling, subject to the minimum primary rate requirements. To tackle this complicated problem, a relaxation-based algorithm is proposed. We prove that the converged relaxation scheduling variables are binary, which means that no reconstruct strategy is needed, and thus the UAV rate constraints are automatically satisfied. Second, we consider the fairness BER optimization problem. We find that the relaxation-based method cannot solve this fairness BER problem since the minimum primary rate requirements may not be satisfied by the binary reconstruction operation. To address this issue, we first transform the binary constraints into a series of equivalent equality constraints. Then, a penalty-based algorithm is proposed to obtain a suboptimal solution. Numerical results are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed designs under different setups, as compared with benchmarks., Comment: This paper a preprinted version, which has been submitted to IEEE journal

This paper investigates unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided backscatter communication (BackCom) networks, where the UAV is leveraged to help the backscatter device (BD) forward signals to the receiver. Based on the presence or absence of a direct link between BD and receiver, two protocols, namely transmit-backscatter (TB) protocol and transmit-backscatter-relay (TBR) protocol, are proposed to utilize the UAV to assist the BD. In particular, we formulate the system throughput maximization problems for the two protocols by jointly optimizing the time allocation, reflection coefficient and UAV trajectory. Different static/dynamic circuit power consumption models for the two protocols are analyzed. The resulting optimization problems are shown to be non-convex, which are challenging to solve. We first consider the dynamic circuit power consumption model, and decompose the original problems into three sub-problems, namely time allocation optimization with fixed UAV trajectory and reflection coefficient, reflection coefficient optimization with fixed UAV trajectory and time allocation, and UAV trajectory optimization with fixed reflection coefficient and time allocation. Then, an efficient iterative algorithm is proposed for both protocols by leveraging the block coordinate descent method and successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques. In addition, for the static circuit power consumption model, we obtain the optimal time allocation with a given reflection coefficient and UAV trajectory and the optimal reflection coefficient with low computational complexity by using the Lagrangian dual method. Simulation results show that the proposed protocols are able to achieve significant throughput gains over the compared benchmarks.

In this paper, a cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) mobile edge computing system is studied in which the multiple UAVs are served by terrestrial base station (TBS) for computation task offloading. Our goal is to minimize the total UAVs energy consumption, including propulsion energy, computation energy and communication energy, while ensuring that the total number of bits of UAVs are completely computed. For tackling the large amount of bits for computation, we propose a resource partitioning strategy where one portion of tasks is migrated to TBS for computation and the other portion of tasks is locally computed at UAV. For deeply comprehending the impacts of access manners on the system performance, we consider four access schemes in the uplink transmission, i.e., time division multiple access (TDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), One-by-One access and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). The problem of jointly optimizing bit allocation, power allocation, resource partitioning as well as UAV trajectory under TBS's energy budget is formulated and tackled by means of successive convex approximation (SCA) technique. The numerical results show that the proposed schemes save much energy compared with benchmark schemes.

A decentralized coded caching scheme has been proposed by Maddah-Ali and Niesen, and has been shown to alleviate the load of networks. Recently, placement delivery array (PDA) was proposed to characterize the coded caching scheme. In this paper, a neural architecture is first proposed to learn the construction of PDAs. Our model solves the problem of variable size PDAs using mechanism of neural attention and reinforcement learning. It differs from the previous attempts in that, instead of using combined optimization algorithms to get PDAs, it uses sequence-to-sequence model to learn construct PDAs. Numerical results are given to demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively implement coded caching. We also show that the complexity of our method to construct PDAs is low.