Semantics-Guided Diffusion for Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding in Wireless Image Transmission

Joint source-channel coding (JSCC) offers a promising avenue for enhancing transmission efficiency by jointly incorporating source and channel statistics into the system design. A key advancement in this area is the deep joint source and channel coding (DeepJSCC) technique that designs a direct mapping of input signals to channel symbols parameterized by a neural network, which can be trained for arbitrary channel models and semantic quality metrics. This paper advances the DeepJSCC framework toward a semantics-aligned, high-fidelity transmission approach, called semantics-guided diffusion DeepJSCC (SGD-JSCC). Existing schemes that integrate diffusion models (DMs) with JSCC face challenges in transforming random generation into accurate reconstruction and adapting to varying channel conditions. SGD-JSCC incorporates two key innovations: (1) utilizing some inherent information that contributes to the semantics of an image, such as text description or edge map, to guide the diffusion denoising process; and (2) enabling seamless adaptability to varying channel conditions with the help of a semantics-guided DM for channel denoising. The DM is guided by diverse semantic information and integrates seamlessly with DeepJSCC. In a slow fading channel, SGD-JSCC dynamically adapts to the instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) directly estimated from the channel output, thereby eliminating the need for additional pilot transmissions for channel estimation. In a fast fading channel, we introduce a training-free denoising strategy, allowing SGD-JSCC to effectively adjust to fluctuations in channel gains. Numerical results demonstrate that, guided by semantic information and leveraging the powerful DM, our method outperforms existing DeepJSCC schemes, delivering satisfactory reconstruction performance even at extremely poor channel conditions.

DiffCP: Ultra-Low Bit Collaborative Perception via Diffusion Model

Collaborative perception (CP) is emerging as a promising solution to the inherent limitations of stand-alone intelligence. However, current wireless communication systems are unable to support feature-level and raw-level collaborative algorithms due to their enormous bandwidth demands. In this paper, we propose DiffCP, a novel CP paradigm that utilizes a specialized diffusion model to efficiently compress the sensing information of collaborators. By incorporating both geometric and semantic conditions into the generative model, DiffCP enables feature-level collaboration with an ultra-low communication cost, advancing the practical implementation of CP systems. This paradigm can be seamlessly integrated into existing CP algorithms to enhance a wide range of downstream tasks. Through extensive experimentation, we investigate the trade-offs between communication, computation, and performance. Numerical results demonstrate that DiffCP can significantly reduce communication costs by 14.5-fold while maintaining the same performance as the state-of-the-art algorithm.

Uncovering the Secrets of Human-Like Movement: A Fresh Perspective on Motion Planning

This article explores human-like movement from a fresh perspective on motion planning. We analyze the coordinated and compliant movement mechanisms of the human body from the perspective of biomechanics. Based on these mechanisms, we propose an optimal control framework that integrates compliant control dynamics, optimizing robotic arm motion through a response time matrix. This matrix sets the timing parameters for joint movements, turning the system into a time-parameterized optimal control problem. The model focuses on the interaction between active and passive joints under external disturbances, improving adaptability and compliance. This method achieves optimal trajectory generation and balances precision and compliance. Experimental results on both a manipulator and a humanoid robot validate the approach.

An Interactive Multi-modal Query Answering System with Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models

Retrieval-augmented Large Language Models (LLMs) have reshaped traditional query-answering systems, offering unparalleled user experiences. However, existing retrieval techniques often struggle to handle multi-modal query contexts. In this paper, we present an interactive Multi-modal Query Answering (MQA) system, empowered by our newly developed multi-modal retrieval framework and navigation graph index, integrated with cutting-edge LLMs. It comprises five core components: Data Preprocessing, Vector Representation, Index Construction, Query Execution, and Answer Generation, all orchestrated by a dedicated coordinator to ensure smooth data flow from input to answer generation. One notable aspect of MQA is its utilization of contrastive learning to assess the significance of different modalities, facilitating precise measurement of multi-modal information similarity. Furthermore, the system achieves efficient retrieval through our advanced navigation graph index, refined using computational pruning techniques. Another highlight of our system is its pluggable processing framework, allowing seamless integration of embedding models, graph indexes, and LLMs. This flexibility provides users diverse options for gaining insights from their multi-modal knowledge base. A preliminary video introduction of MQA is available at https://youtu.be/xvUuo2ZIqWk.

Pedestrian Attribute Recognition as Label-balanced Multi-label Learning

Rooting in the scarcity of most attributes, realistic pedestrian attribute datasets exhibit unduly skewed data distribution, from which two types of model failures are delivered: (1) label imbalance: model predictions lean greatly towards the side of majority labels; (2) semantics imbalance: model is easily overfitted on the under-represented attributes due to their insufficient semantic diversity. To render perfect label balancing, we propose a novel framework that successfully decouples label-balanced data re-sampling from the curse of attributes co-occurrence, i.e., we equalize the sampling prior of an attribute while not biasing that of the co-occurred others. To diversify the attributes semantics and mitigate the feature noise, we propose a Bayesian feature augmentation method to introduce true in-distribution novelty. Handling both imbalances jointly, our work achieves best accuracy on various popular benchmarks, and importantly, with minimal computational budget.

MIMO Channel as a Neural Function: Implicit Neural Representations for Extreme CSI Compression in Massive MIMO Systems

Acquiring and utilizing accurate channel state information (CSI) can significantly improve transmission performance, thereby holding a crucial role in realizing the potential advantages of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology. Current prevailing CSI feedback approaches improve precision by employing advanced deep-learning methods to learn representative CSI features for a subsequent compression process. Diverging from previous works, we treat the CSI compression problem in the context of implicit neural representations. Specifically, each CSI matrix is viewed as a neural function that maps the CSI coordinates (antenna number and subchannel) to the corresponding channel gains. Instead of transmitting the parameters of the implicit neural functions directly, we transmit modulations based on the CSI matrix derived through a meta-learning algorithm. Modulations are then applied to a shared base network to generate the elements of the CSI matrix. Modulations corresponding to the CSI matrix are quantized and entropy-coded to further reduce the communication bandwidth, thus achieving extreme CSI compression ratios. Numerical results show that our proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance and showcases flexibility in feedback strategies.

Process-and-Forward: Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding Over Cooperative Relay Networks

This paper introduces an innovative deep joint source-channel coding (DeepJSCC) approach to image transmission over a cooperative relay channel. The relay either amplifies and forwards a scaled version of its received signal, referred to as DeepJSCC-AF, or leverages neural networks to extract relevant features about the source signal before forwarding it to the destination, which we call DeepJSCC-PF (Process-and-Forward). In the full-duplex scheme, inspired by the block Markov coding (BMC) concept, we introduce a novel block transmission strategy built upon novel vision transformer architecture. In the proposed scheme, the source transmits information in blocks, and the relay updates its knowledge about the input signal after each block and generates its own signal to be conveyed to the destination. To enhance practicality, we introduce an adaptive transmission model, which allows a single trained DeepJSCC model to adapt seamlessly to various channel qualities, making it a versatile solution. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed DeepJSCC compared to the state-of-the-art BPG image compression algorithm, even when operating at the maximum achievable rate of conventional decode-and-forward and compress-and-forward protocols, for both half-duplex and full-duplex relay scenarios.

TDCGL: Two-Level Debiased Contrastive Graph Learning for Recommendation

knowledge graph-based recommendation methods have achieved great success in the field of recommender systems. However, over-reliance on high-quality knowledge graphs is a bottleneck for such methods. Specifically, the long-tailed distribution of entities of KG and noise issues in the real world will make item-entity dependent relations deviate from reflecting true characteristics and significantly harm the performance of modeling user preference. Contrastive learning, as a novel method that is employed for data augmentation and denoising, provides inspiration to fill this research gap. However, the mainstream work only focuses on the long-tail properties of the number of items clicked, while ignoring that the long-tail properties of total number of clicks per user may also affect the performance of the recommendation model. Therefore, to tackle these problems, motivated by the Debiased Contrastive Learning of Unsupervised Sentence Representations (DCLR), we propose Two-Level Debiased Contrastive Graph Learning (TDCGL) model. Specifically, we design the Two-Level Debiased Contrastive Learning (TDCL) and deploy it in the KG, which is conducted not only on User-Item pairs but also on User-User pairs for modeling higher-order relations. Also, to reduce the bias caused by random sampling in contrastive learning, with the exception of the negative samples obtained by random sampling, we add a noise-based generation of negation to ensure spatial uniformity. Considerable experiments on open-source datasets demonstrate that our method has excellent anti-noise capability and significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines. In addition, ablation studies about the necessity for each level of TDCL are conducted.

Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding for Adaptive Image Transmission over MIMO Channels

This paper introduces a vision transformer (ViT)-based deep joint source and channel coding (DeepJSCC) scheme for wireless image transmission over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels, denoted as DeepJSCC-MIMO. We consider DeepJSCC-MIMO for adaptive image transmission in both open-loop and closed-loop MIMO systems. The novel DeepJSCC-MIMO architecture surpasses the classical separation-based benchmarks with robustness to channel estimation errors and showcases remarkable flexibility in adapting to diverse channel conditions and antenna numbers without requiring retraining. Specifically, by harnessing the self-attention mechanism of ViT, DeepJSCC-MIMO intelligently learns feature mapping and power allocation strategies tailored to the unique characteristics of the source image and prevailing channel conditions. Extensive numerical experiments validate the significant improvements in transmission quality achieved by DeepJSCC-MIMO for both open-loop and closed-loop MIMO systems across a wide range of scenarios. Moreover, DeepJSCC-MIMO exhibits robustness to varying channel conditions, channel estimation errors, and different antenna numbers, making it an appealing solution for emerging semantic communication systems.

Transformer-aided Wireless Image Transmission with Channel Feedback

This paper presents a novel wireless image transmission paradigm that can exploit feedback from the receiver, called DeepJSCC-ViT-f. We consider a block feedback channel model, where the transmitter receives noiseless/noisy channel output feedback after each block. The proposed scheme employs a single encoder to facilitate transmission over multiple blocks, refining the receiver's estimation at each block. Specifically, the unified encoder of DeepJSCC-ViT-f can leverage the semantic information from the source image, and acquire channel state information and the decoder's current belief about the source image from the feedback signal to generate coded symbols at each block. Numerical experiments show that our DeepJSCC-ViT-f scheme achieves state-of-the-art transmission performance with robustness to noise in the feedback link. Additionally, DeepJSCC-ViT-f can adapt to the channel condition directly through feedback without the need for separate channel estimation. We further extend the scope of the DeepJSCC-ViT-f approach to include the broadcast channel, which enables the transmitter to generate broadcast codes in accordance with signal semantics and channel feedback from individual receivers.