A Convex and Global Solution for the P$n$P Problem in 2D Forward-Looking Sonar

The perspective-$n$-point (P$n$P) problem is important for robotic pose estimation. It is well studied for optical cameras, but research is lacking for 2D forward-looking sonar (FLS) in underwater scenarios due to the vastly different imaging principles. In this paper, we demonstrate that, despite the nonlinearity inherent in sonar image formation, the P$n$P problem for 2D FLS can still be effectively addressed within a point-to-line (PtL) 3D registration paradigm through orthographic approximation. The registration is then resolved by a duality-based optimal solver, ensuring the global optimality. For coplanar cases, a null space analysis is conducted to retrieve the solutions from the dual formulation, enabling the methods to be applied to more general cases. Extensive simulations have been conducted to systematically evaluate the performance under different settings. Compared to non-reprojection-optimized state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods, the proposed approach achieves significantly higher precision. When both methods are optimized, ours demonstrates comparable or slightly superior precision.

Sequential Task Assignment and Resource Allocation in V2X-Enabled Mobile Edge Computing

Nowadays, the convergence of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and vehicular networks has emerged as a vital facilitator for the ever-increasing intelligent onboard applications. This paper introduces a multi-tier task offloading mechanism for MEC-enabled vehicular networks leveraging vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. The study focuses on applications with sequential subtasks and explores two tiers of collaboration. In the vehicle tier, we design a needing vehicle (NV)-helping vehicle (HV) matching scheme and inter-vehicle collaborative computation is studied, with joint optimization of task offloading decision, communication, and computation resource allocation to minimize energy consumption and meet latency requirements. In the roadside unit (RSU) tier, collaboration among RSUs is investigated to address multi-access issues of bandwidth and computation resources for multiple vehicles. A two-step method is proposed to solve the subchannel allocation problem. Detailed experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and assess the impact of different parameters on system energy consumption.

Rejecting Outliers in 2D-3D Point Correspondences from 2D Forward-Looking Sonar Observations

Rejecting outliers before applying classical robust methods is a common approach to increase the success rate of estimation, particularly when the outlier ratio is extremely high (e.g. 90%). However, this method often relies on sensor- or task-specific characteristics, which may not be easily transferable across different scenarios. In this paper, we focus on the problem of rejecting 2D-3D point correspondence outliers from 2D forward-looking sonar (2D FLS) observations, which is one of the most popular perception device in the underwater field but has a significantly different imaging mechanism compared to widely used perspective cameras and LiDAR. We fully leverage the narrow field of view in the elevation of 2D FLS and develop two compatibility tests for different 3D point configurations: (1) In general cases, we design a pairwise length in-range test to filter out overly long or short edges formed from point sets; (2) In coplanar cases, we design a coplanarity test to check if any four correspondences are compatible under a coplanar setting. Both tests are integrated into outlier rejection pipelines, where they are followed by maximum clique searching to identify the largest consistent measurement set as inliers. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed methods for general and coplanar cases perform effectively under outlier ratios of 80% and 90%, respectively.

WiFo: Wireless Foundation Model for Channel Prediction

Channel prediction permits to acquire channel state information (CSI) without signaling overhead. However, almost all existing channel prediction methods necessitate the deployment of a dedicated model to accommodate a specific configuration. Leveraging the powerful modeling and multi-task learning capabilities of foundation models, we propose the first space-time-frequency (STF) wireless foundation model (WiFo) to address time-frequency channel prediction tasks in a one-for-all manner. Specifically, WiFo is initially pre-trained over massive and extensive diverse CSI datasets. Then, the model will be instantly used for channel prediction under various CSI configurations without any fine-tuning. We propose a masked autoencoder (MAE)-based network structure for WiFo to handle heterogeneous STF CSI data, and design several mask reconstruction tasks for self-supervised pre-training to capture the inherent 3D variations of CSI. To fully unleash its predictive power, we build a large-scale heterogeneous simulated CSI dataset consisting of 160K CSI samples for pre-training. Simulations validate its superior unified learning performance across multiple datasets and demonstrate its state-of-the-art (SOTA) zero-shot generalization performance via comparisons with other full-shot baselines.

Synesthesia of Machines (SoM)-Enhanced ISAC Precoding for Vehicular Networks with Double Dynamics

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technology plays a crucial role in vehicular networks. However, the communication channel within this context exhibits time-varying characteristics, and potential targets may move rapidly, resulting in double dynamics. These presents significant challenges for real-time ISAC precoding design that have not been thoroughly explored. While optimization-based precoding methods have been extensively studied, they are computationally complex and heavily rely on perfect prior information that is rarely available in situations with double dynamics. In this paper, we propose a synesthesia of machine (SoM)-enhanced precoding paradigm, where the base station leverages various modalities such as positioning and channel information to adapt to double dynamics, and effectively utilizes environmental information to stretch ISAC performance boundaries through a deep reinforcement learning framework. Additionally, a parameter-shared actor-critic architecture is tailored to expedite training in complex state and action spaces. Extensive experimental validation has demonstrated the multifaceted superiority of our method over existing approaches.

Synesthesia of Machines (SoM)-Enhanced Wideband Multi-User CSI Learning

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been utilized for optimizing wireless communications due to its ability to detect the environment. This paper explores the use of LiDAR in channel estimation for wideband multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems and introduces a LiDAR-enhanced Channel State Information (CSI) learning network (LE-CLN). By utilizing user positioning information, LE-CLN first calculates user-localized over-complete angular measurements. It then investigates the correlation between LiDAR and CSI, transforming raw LiDAR data into a low-complexity format embedded with signal propagation characteristics. LE-CLN also adapts the use of LiDAR based on channel conditions through attention mechanisms. Thanks to the unique wireless features offered by LiDAR, LE-CLN achieves higher estimation accuracy and spectrum efficiency compared to benchmarks, particularly in latency-sensitive applications where pilot transmissions are expected to be reduced.

Multi-Modal Fusion-Based Multi-Task Semantic Communication System

In recent years, there has been significant progress in semantic communication systems empowered by deep learning techniques. It has greatly improved the efficiency of information transmission. Nevertheless, traditional semantic communication models still face challenges, particularly due to their single-task and single-modal orientation. Many of these models are designed for specific tasks, which may result in limitations when applied to multi-task communication systems. Moreover, these models often overlook the correlations among different modal data in multi-modal tasks. It leads to an incomplete understanding of complex information, causing increased communication overhead and diminished performance. To address these problems, we propose a multi-modal fusion-based multi-task semantic communication (MFMSC) framework. In contrast to traditional semantic communication approaches, MFMSC can effectively handle various tasks across multiple modalities. Furthermore, we design a fusion module based on Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) for multi-modal semantic information fusion. By leveraging the powerful semantic understanding capabilities and self-attention mechanism of BERT, we achieve effective fusion of semantic information from different modalities. We compare our model with multiple benchmarks. Simulation results show that MFMSC outperforms these models in terms of both performance and communication overhead.

LLM4CP: Adapting Large Language Models for Channel Prediction

Channel prediction is an effective approach for reducing the feedback or estimation overhead in massive multi-input multi-output (m-MIMO) systems. However, existing channel prediction methods lack precision due to model mismatch errors or network generalization issues. Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated powerful modeling and generalization abilities, and have been successfully applied to cross-modal tasks, including the time series analysis. Leveraging the expressive power of LLMs, we propose a pre-trained LLM-empowered channel prediction method (LLM4CP) to predict the future downlink channel state information (CSI) sequence based on the historical uplink CSI sequence. We fine-tune the network while freezing most of the parameters of the pre-trained LLM for better cross-modality knowledge transfer. To bridge the gap between the channel data and the feature space of the LLM, preprocessor, embedding, and output modules are specifically tailored by taking into account unique channel characteristics. Simulations validate that the proposed method achieves SOTA prediction performance on full-sample, few-shot, and generalization tests with low training and inference costs.

Beam Pattern Modulation Embedded Hybrid Transceiver Optimization for Integrated Sensing and Communication

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) emerges as a promising technology for B5G/6G, particularly in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band. However, the widely utilized hybrid architecture in mmWave systems compromises multiplexing gain due to the constraints of limited radio frequency chains. Moreover, additional sensing functionalities exacerbate the impairment of spectrum efficiency (SE). In this paper, we present an optimized beam pattern modulation-embedded ISAC (BPM-ISAC) transceiver design, which spares one RF chain for sensing and the others for communication. To compensate for the reduced SE, index modulation across communication beams is applied. We formulate an optimization problem aimed at minimizing the mean squared error (MSE) of the sensing beampattern, subject to a symbol MSE constraint. This problem is then solved by sequentially optimizing the analog and digital parts. Both the multi-aperture structure (MAS) and the multi-beam structure (MBS) are considered for the design of the analog part. We conduct theoretical analysis on the asymptotic pairwise error probability (APEP) and the Cram\'er-Rao bound (CRB) of direction of arrival (DoA) estimation. Numerical simulations validate the overall enhanced ISAC performance over existing alternatives.

Superposed IM-OFDM : An Enhanced OFDM for Integrated Sensing and Communications

Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is a critical enabler for emerging 6G applications, and at its core lies in the dual-functional waveform design. While orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been a popular basic waveform, its primitive version falls short in sensing due to the inherent unregulated auto-correlation properties. Furthermore, the sensitivity to Doppler shift hinders its broader applications in dynamic scenarios. To address these issues, we propose a superposed index-modulated OFDM (S-IM-OFDM). The proposed scheme improves the sensing performance without excess power consumption by translating the energy efficiency of IM-OFDM onto sensing-oriented signals over OFDM. Also, it maintains excellent communication performance in time-varying channels by leveraging the sensed parameters to compensate for Doppler. Compared to conventional OFDM, the proposed S-IM-OFDM waveform exhibits better sensing capabilities and wider applicability in dynamic scenarios. Both theoretical analyses and simulations corroborate its dual benefits.