RSRP Measurement Based Channel Autocorrelation Estimation for IRS-Aided Wideband Communication

The passive and frequency-flat reflection of IRS, as well as the high-dimensional IRS-reflected channels, have posed significant challenges for efficient IRS channel estimation, especially in wideband communication systems with significant multi-path channel delay spread. To address these challenges, we propose a novel neural network (NN)-empowered framework for IRS channel autocorrelation matrix estimation in wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. This framework relies only on the easily accessible reference signal received power (RSRP) measurements at users in existing wideband communication systems, without requiring additional pilot transmission. Based on the estimates of channel autocorrelation matrix, the passive reflection of IRS is optimized to maximize the average user received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over all subcarriers in the OFDM system. Numerical results verify that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms existing powermeasurement-based IRS reflection designs in wideband channels.

Multi-IRS Enhanced Wireless Coverage: Deployment Optimization Based on Large-Scale Channel Knowledge

In this paper, we study the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) deployment problem where a number of IRSs are optimally placed in a target area to improve its signal coverage with the serving base station (BS). To achieve this, we assume that there is a given set of candidate sites in the target area for deploying IRSs and divide the area into multiple grids of identical size. Then, we derive the average channel power gains from the BS to IRS in each candidate site and from this IRS to any grid in the target area in terms of IRS deployment parameters, including its size, position, height, and orientation. Thus, we are able to approximate the average cascaded channel power gain from the BS to each grid via any IRS, assuming an effective IRS reflection gain based on the large-scale channel knowledge only. Next, we formulate a multi-IRS deployment optimization problem to minimize the total deployment cost by selecting a subset of candidate sites for deploying IRSs and jointly optimizing their heights, orientations, and numbers of reflecting elements while satisfying a given coverage rate performance requirement over all grids in the target area. To solve this challenging combinatorial optimization problem, we first reformulate it as an integer linear programming problem and solve it optimally using the branch-and-bound (BB) algorithm. In addition, we propose an efficient successive refinement algorithm to further reduce computational complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed lower-complexity successive refinement algorithm achieves near-optimal performance but with significantly reduced running time compared to the proposed optimal BB algorithm, as well as superior performance-cost trade-off than other baseline IRS deployment strategies.

Codebook Design and Performance Analysis for Wideband Beamforming in Terahertz Communications

The codebook-based analog beamforming is appealing for future terahertz (THz) communications since it can generate high-gain directional beams with low-cost phase shifters via low-complexity beam training. However, conventional beamforming codebook design based on array response vectors for narrowband communications may suffer from severe performance loss in wideband systems due to the ``beam squint" effect over frequency. To tackle this issue, we propose in this paper a new codebook design method for analog beamforming in wideband THz systems. In particular, to characterize the analog beamforming performance in wideband systems, we propose a new metric termed wideband beam gain, which is given by the minimum beamforming gain over the entire frequency band given a target angle. Based on this metric, a wideband analog beamforming codebook design problem is formulated for optimally balancing the beamforming gains in both the spatial and frequency domains, and the performance loss of conventional narrowband beamforming in wideband systems is analyzed. To solve the new wideband beamforming codebook design problem, we divide the spatial domain into orthogonal angular zones each associated with one beam, thereby decoupling the codebook design into a zone division sub-problem and a set of beamforming optimization sub-problems each for one zone. For the zone division sub-problem, we propose a bisection method to obtain the optimal boundaries for separating adjacent zones. While for each of the per-zone-based beamforming optimization sub-problems, we further propose an efficient augmented Lagrange method (ALM) to solve it. Numerical results demonstrate the performance superiority of our proposed codebook design for wideband analog beamforming to the narrowband beamforming codebook and also validate our performance analysis.

Movable-Antenna Aided Secure Transmission for RIS-ISAC Systems

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems have the issue of secrecy leakage when using the ISAC waveforms for sensing, thus posing a potential risk for eavesdropping. To address this problem, we propose to employ movable antennas (MAs) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to enhance the physical layer security (PLS) performance of ISAC systems, where an eavesdropping target potentially wiretaps the signals transmitted by the base station (BS). To evaluate the synergistic performance gain provided by MAs and RIS, we formulate an optimization problem for maximizing the sum-rate of the users by jointly optimizing the transmit/receive beamformers of the BS, the reflection coefficients of the RIS, and the positions of MAs at communication users, subject to a minimum communication rate requirement for each user, a minimum radar sensing requirement, and a maximum secrecy leakage to the eavesdropping target. To solve this non-convex problem with highly coupled variables, a two-layer penalty-based algorithm is developed by updating the penalty parameter in the outer-layer iterations to achieve a trade-off between the optimality and feasibility of the solution. In the inner-layer iterations, the auxiliary variables are first obtained with semi-closed-form solutions using Lagrange duality. Then, the receive beamformer filter at the BS is optimized by solving a Rayleigh-quotient subproblem. Subsequently, the transmit beamformer matrix is obtained by solving a convex subproblem. Finally, the majorization-minimization (MM) algorithm is employed to optimize the RIS reflection coefficients and the positions of MAs. Extensive simulation results validate the considerable benefits of the proposed MAs-aided RIS-ISAC systems in enhancing security performance compared to traditional fixed position antenna (FPA)-based systems.

Movable Antenna Enabled Near-Field Communications: Channel Modeling and Performance Optimization

Movable antenna (MA) technology offers promising potential to enhance wireless communication by allowing flexible antenna movement. To maximize spatial degrees of freedom (DoFs), larger movable regions are required, which may render the conventional far-field assumption for channels between transceivers invalid. In light of it, we investigate in this paper MA-enabled near-field communications, where a base station (BS) with multiple movable subarrays serves multiple users, each equipped with a fixed-position antenna (FPA). First, we extend the field response channel model for MA systems to the near-field propagation scenario. Next, we examine MA-aided multiuser communication systems under both digital and analog beamforming architectures. For digital beamforming, spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is utilized, where an upper bound on the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) across users is derived in closed form. A low-complexity algorithm based on zero-forcing (ZF) is then proposed to jointly optimize the antenna position vector (APV) and digital beamforming matrix (DBFM) to approach this bound. For analog beamforming, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) is employed, and an upper bound on the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) among users is derived. An alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is proposed to iteratively optimize the APV, analog beamforming vector (ABFV), and power allocation until convergence. For both architectures, we further explore MA design strategies based on statistical channel state information (CSI), with the APV updated less frequently to reduce the antenna movement overhead. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms achieve performance close to the derived bounds and also outperform the benchmark schemes using dense or sparse arrays with FPAs.

Channel Estimation for Movable Antenna Aided Wideband Communication Systems

Movable antenna (MA) is an emerging technology that can significantly improve communication performance via the continuous adjustment of the antenna positions. To unleash the potential of MAs in wideband communication systems, acquiring accurate channel state information (CSI), i.e., the channel frequency responses (CFRs) between any position pair within the transmit (Tx) region and the receive (Rx) region across all subcarriers, is a crucial issue. In this paper, we study the channel estimation problem for wideband MA systems. To start with, we express the CFRs as a combination of the field-response vectors (FRVs), delay-response vector (DRV), and path-response tensor (PRT), which exhibit sparse characteristics and can be recovered by using a limited number of channel measurements at selected position pairs of Tx and Rx MAs over a few subcarriers. Specifically, we first formulate the recovery of the FRVs and DRV as a problem with multiple measurement vectors in compressed sensing (MMV-CS), which can be solved via a simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit (SOMP) algorithm. Next, we estimate the PRT using the least-square (LS) method. Moreover, we also devise an alternating refinement approach to further improve the accuracy of the estimated FRVs, DRV, and PRT. This is achieved by minimizing the discrepancy between the received pilots and those constructed by the estimated CSI, which can be efficiently carried out by using the gradient descent algorithm. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that both the SOMP-based channel estimation method and alternating refinement method can reconstruct the complete wideband CSI with high accuracy, where the alternating refinement method performs better despite a higher complexity.

Over-the-Air Computation via 2D Movable Antenna Array

Movable antenna (MA) has emerged as a promising technology for improving the performance of wireless communication systems, which enables local movement of the antennas to create more favorable channel conditions. In this letter, we advance its application for over-the-air computation (AirComp) network, where an access point is equipped with a two-dimensional (2D) MA array to aggregate wireless data from massive users. We aim to minimize the computation mean square error (CMSE) by jointly optimizing the antenna position vector (APV), the receive combining vector at the access point and the transmit coefficients from all users. To tackle this highly non-convex problem, we propose a two-loop iterative algorithm, where the particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach is leveraged to obtain a suboptimal APV in the outer loop while the receive combining vector and transmit coefficients are alternately optimized in the inner loop. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed MA-enhanced AirComp network outperforms the conventional network with fixed-position antennas (FPAs).

Near-Field Multiuser Communications Aided by Movable Antennas

This letter investigates movable antenna (MA)-aided downlink (DL) multiuser communication systems under the near-field channel condition, in which both the base station (BS) and the users are equipped with MAs to fully exploit the degrees of freedom (DoFs) in antenna position optimization by leveraging the wireless channel variation in spatial regions of large size. The objective is to minimize the transmit power by jointly optimizing the beamformers and the MA positions while satisfying the minimum-achievable-rate requirement for each user. We propose a two-loop dynamic neighborhood pruning particle swarm optimization (DNPPSO) algorithm that significantly reduces computational complexity while effectively maintaining the performance of the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Simulation results validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed scheme in power-saving for multiuser communications.

Power Measurement Enabled Channel Autocorrelation Matrix Estimation for IRS-Assisted Wireless Communication

By reconfiguring wireless channels via passive signal reflection, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) can bring significant performance enhancement for wireless communication systems. However, such performance improvement generally relies on the knowledge of channel state information (CSI) for IRS-involved links. Prior works on IRS CSI acquisition mainly estimate IRS-cascaded channels based on the extra pilot signals received at the users/base station (BS) with time-varying IRS reflections, which, however, needs to modify the existing channel training/estimation protocols of wireless systems. To address this issue, we propose in this paper a new channel estimation scheme for IRS-assisted communication systems based on the received signal power measured at the user terminal, which is practically attainable without the need of changing the current protocol. Due to the lack of signal phase information in measured power, the autocorrelation matrix of the BS-IRS-user cascaded channel is estimated by solving an equivalent rank-minimization problem. To this end, a low-rank-approaching (LRA) algorithm is proposed by employing the fractional programming and alternating optimization techniques. To reduce computational complexity, an approximate LRA (ALRA) algorithm is also developed. Furthermore, these two algorithms are extended to be robust against the receiver noise and quantization error in power measurement. Simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed channel estimation algorithms as well as the IRS passive reflection design based on the estimated channel autocorrelation matrix.

Power Measurement Based Channel Estimation for IRS-Enhanced Wireless Coverage

In this paper, we study an IRS-assisted coverage enhancement problem for a given region, aiming to optimize the passive reflection of the IRS for improving the average communication performance in the region by accounting for both deterministic and random channels in the environment. To this end, we first derive the closed-form expression of the average received signal power in terms of the deterministic base station (BS)-IRS-user cascaded channels over all user locations, and propose an IRS-aided coverage enhancement framework to facilitate the estimation of such deterministic channels for IRS passive reflection design. Specifically, to avoid the exorbitant overhead of estimating the cascaded channels at all possible user locations, a location selection method is first proposed to select only a set of typical user locations for channel estimation by exploiting the channel spatial correlation in the region. To estimate the deterministic cascaded channels at the selected user locations, conventional IRS channel estimation methods require additional pilot signals, which not only results in high system training overhead but also may not be compatible with the existing communication protocols. To overcome this issue, we further propose a single-layer neural network (NN)-enabled IRS channel estimation method in this paper, based on only the average received signal power measurements at each selected location corresponding to different IRS random training reflections, which can be offline implemented in current wireless systems. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed scheme can significantly improve the coverage performance of the target region and outperform the existing power-measurement-based IRS reflection designs.