Movable Antenna Enhanced DF and AF Relaying Systems: Performance Analysis and Optimization

Movable antenna (MA) has been deemed as a promising technology to flexibly reconfigure wireless channels by adjusting the antenna positions in a given local region. In this paper, we investigate the application of the MA technology in both decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying systems, where a relay is equipped with multiple MAs to assist in the data transmission between two single-antenna nodes. For the DF relaying system, our objective is to maximize the achievable rate at the destination by jointly optimizing the positions of the MAs in two stages for receiving signals from the source and transmitting signals to the destination, respectively. To drive essential insights, we first derive a closed-form upper bound on the maximum achievable rate of the DF relaying system. Then, a low-complexity algorithm based on projected gradient ascent (PGA) and alternating optimization (AO) is proposed to solve the antenna position optimization problem. For the AF relaying system, our objective is to maximize the achievable rate by jointly optimizing the two-stage MA positions as well as the AF beamforming matrix at the relay, which results in a more challenging optimization problem due to the intricate coupling variables. To tackle this challenge, we first reveal the hidden separability among the antenna position optimization in the two stages and the beamforming optimization. Based on such separability, we derive a closed-form upper bound on the maximum achievable rate of the AF relaying system and propose a low-complexity algorithm to obtain a high-quality suboptimal solution to the considered problem. Simulation results validate the efficacy of our theoretical analysis and demonstrate the superiority of the MA-enhanced relaying systems to the conventional relaying systems with fixed-position antennas (FPAs) and other benchmark schemes.

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).

Movable Antenna Enhanced AF Relaying: Two-Stage Antenna Position Optimization

The movable antenna (MA) technology has attracted increasing attention in wireless communications due to its capability for flexibly adjusting the positions of multiple antennas in a local region to reconfigure channel conditions. In this paper, we investigate its application in an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay system, where a multi-MA AF relay is deployed to assist in the wireless communications from a source to a destination. In particular, we aim to maximize the achievable rate at the destination, by jointly optimizing the AF weight matrix at the relay and its MAs' positions in two stages for receiving the signal from the source and transmitting its amplified version to the destination, respectively. However, compared to the existing one-stage antenna position optimization, the two-stage position optimization is more challenging due to its intricate coupling in the achievable rate at the destination. To tackle this challenge, we decompose the considered problem into several subproblems by invoking the alternating optimization (AO) and solve them by using the semidefinite programming and the gradient ascent. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed system over the conventional relaying system with fixed-position antennas (FPAs) and also drive essential insights.