Search

This paper studies the secure transmission in a multiuser broadcast channel where only the statistical channel state information of the eavesdropper is available. We propose to apply secret dirty-paper coding (S-DPC) in this scenario to support the secure transmission of one user and the normal (unclassified) transmission of the other users. By adopting the S-DPC and encoding the secret message in the first place, all the information-bearing signals of the normal transmission are treated as noise by potential eavesdroppers and thus provide secrecy for the secure transmission. In this way, the proposed approach exploits the intrinsic secrecy of multiuser broadcasting and can serve as an energy-efficient alternative to the traditional artificial noise (AN) scheme. To evaluate the secrecy performance of this approach and compare it with the AN scheme, we propose two S-DPC-based secure transmission schemes for maximizing the secrecy rate under constraints on the secrecy outage probability (SOP) and the normal transmission rates. The first scheme directly optimizes the covariance matrices of the transmit signals, and a novel approximation of the intractable SOP constraint is derived to facilitate the optimization. The second scheme combines zero-forcing dirty-paper coding and AN, and the optimization involves only power allocation. We establish efficient numerical algorithms to solve the optimization problems for both schemes. Theoretical and simulation results confirm that, in addition to supporting the normal transmission, the achievable secrecy rates of the proposed schemes can be close to that of the traditional AN scheme, which supports only the secure transmission of one user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aspects of sum rate and fairness for dirty paper coding (DPC) based MIMO downlink communications are investigated in this paper. We first apply the $\ell _{1}$ -norm fairness measure to formulate the problem of fairness maximization for a given sum rate as an optimization problem. The problem is unfortunately nonconvex and cannot be efficiently solved. To overcome the difficulty, we invoke the uplink-downlink duality to transform the problem back and forth between uplink and downlink communications. An efficient, iterative waterfilling based algorithm is then proposed to yield achievable rates with the best possible fairness values. Simulation results show that the proposed approach offers an enormous gain in the achievable sum rates for a wide range of fairness values, when compared to the popular successive zero-forcing DPC-based and block diagonalization based coding schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive growth of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications such as smart cities and Industry 4.0 have led to drastic increase in demand for wireless bandwidth, hence motivating the rapid development of new techniques for enhancing spectrum utilization needed by new generation wireless communication technologies. Among others, dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is one of the most widely accepted approaches. In this paper, as an enhancement of existing works, we take into consideration of inter-node collaborations in a dynamic spectrum environment. Typically, in such distributed circumstances, intelligent dynamic spectrum access almost invariably relies on self-learning to achieve dynamic spectrum access improvement. Whereas, this paper proposes a DSA scheme based on deep reinforcement learning to enhance spectrum and access efficiency. Unlike traditional Q-learning-based DSA, we introduce the following to enhance the spectrum efficiency in dynamic IoT spectrum environments. First, deep double Q-learning is adopted to perform local self-spectrum-learning for IoT terminals in order to achieve better dynamic access accuracy. Second, to accelerate learning convergence, federated learning (FL) in edge nodes is used to improve the self-learning. Third, multiple secondary users, who do not interfere with each other and have similar operation condition, are clustered for federated learning to enhance the efficiency of deep reinforcement learning. Comparing with the traditional distributed DSA with deep learning, the proposed scheme has faster access convergence speed due to the characteristic of global optimization for federated learning. Based on this, a framework of federated deep reinforcement learning (FDRL) for DSA is proposed. Furthermore, this scheme preserves privacy of IoT users in that FDRL only requires model parameters to be uploaded to edge servers. Simulations are performed to show the effectiveness of theproposed FDRL-based DSA framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the downlink of a cognitive radio (CR) network formed by multiple primary and secondary transmitters, where each multiantenna transmitter serves a preknown set of single-antenna users. This paper assumes that the secondary and primary transmitters can simultaneously transmit their data over the same frequency bands to achieve high system spectrum efficiency. This paper considers the downlink balancing problem of maximizing the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of the secondary transmitters subject to both the total power constraint of the secondary transmitters and the maximum interference constraint at each primary user due to secondary transmissions. This paper proposes solving the problem using the alternating direction method of multipliers, which leads to a distributed implementation through limited information exchange across the coupled secondary transmitters. This paper additionally proposes a solution that guarantees feasibility at each iteration. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution converges to the centralized solution in a reasonable number of iterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In concurrent spectrum sharing scenarios between radars and wireless communication systems, one strict approach to protect the radar from undesired interference is locating the base stations outside a guard (or exclusion) zone of the radar. As a result, users inside that zone experience bad communication coverage. This paper uses Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) to improve the base station coverage of users in the radar exclusion zone. The paper shows, through analysis and simulation, that joint optimization of base station and RIS locations improves the probability of coverage in the exclusion zone over the shared spectrum without disturbing the radar operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) used to be alone at the C-Band spectrum in most countries. Since the deployment of 5G in many countries (i.e., 3.3–3.6 GHz), FSS is not the exclusive system in the C-Band anymore. In order to minimize the detrimental interference for the FSS to allowable levels, regional exclusion zones of maximum radiated power in 5G base stations (BS) are proposed and evaluated. In this paper, a measurement campaign has been carried out, and an analysis of the interference has been studied. A filtering model, namely Filter to Remove Broadband Interference 5G (FIREBRING), is proposed and analyzed concerning the carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N). Moreover, this paper focuses on the evaluation of the 5G interference into the FSS. The proposed solution deployed an Low-Noise Block (LNB) with a band frequency of 3.7 to 4.2 GHz to test the satellite down-conversion signal at the receiver. The paper offered a complete analysis of the 5G signal, taking into account the implications of out-of-band emissions, potentially LNB saturation into FSS receiver, and the repercussions of the deployment of the 5G BS active antenna systems. With the LNB and down-converter in place, it can be found that the signal interference between 1.450 GHz and 1.550 GHz, is nearly 18 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the different per-user bandwidths available for each tier of heterogeneous networks (HetNets) and the corresponding downlink range expansion (RE, a key measure to boost small cell association). Based on the practical case of tier-specific path loss exponents, we derive the local delay of HetNets under the random discontinuous transmission scheme (DTX, employed to manage the interference and reduce energy consumption). Using such a new expression for local delay, we then analyze the corresponding energy efficiency (EE). These delay and EE expressions reveal that there exists an optimal value for both the RE bias factor and for the DTX mute probability. A closed-form optimum solution for the RE bias factor is also derived for the low-rate regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heterogeneous fog radio access networks (Fog-RAN), the integration of fog computing, and traditional heterogeneous radio access networks can be implemented through the next-generation wireless communication networks. However, most of the solutions are limited to the spectrum efficiency optimization, and cross-tier interference existing in the fog access points (F-APs) could affect the network performance seriously. In this paper, the user association, resource allocation (including bandwidth and power), and caching deployment are investigated in the heterogeneous Fog-RAN to consider energy efficiency and cross-tier interference mitigation. Specifically, the user association, resource allocation, and caching strategy are formulated as a non-convex optimization problem and then transformed into a convex problem, which can be solved by a proposed algorithm based on the concept of the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Then an ADMM-based algorithm is proposed to enhance the energy efficiency of the Fog-RAN. Compared with the current solutions, simulation results illustrate the proposed algorithm’s convergence and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical nature of vehicular communications requires their extensive testing and evaluation. Analytical models can represent an attractive and cost-effective approach for such evaluation if they can adequately model all underlying effects that impact the performance of vehicular communications. Several analytical models have been proposed to date to model vehicular communications based on the IEEE 802.11p (or DSRC) standard. However, existing models normally model in detail the MAC (Medium Access Control), and generally simplify the propagation and interference effects. This reduces their value as an alternative to evaluate the performance of vehicular communications. This paper addresses this gap, and presents new analytical models that accurately model the performance of vehicle-to-vehicle communications based on the IEEE 802.11p standard. The models jointly account for a detailed modeling of the propagation and interference effects, as well as the impact of the hidden terminal problem. The model quantifies the PDR (Packet Delivery Ratio) as a function of the distance between transmitter and receiver. The paper also presents new analytical models to quantify the probability of the four different types of packet errors in IEEE 802.11p. In addition, the paper presents the first analytical model capable to accurately estimate the Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) metric even under high channel load levels. All the analytical models are validated by means of simulation for a wide range of parameters, including traffic densities, packet transmission frequencies, transmission power levels, data rates and packet sizes. An implementation of the models is provided openly to facilitate their use by the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the $\mathscr{L}_{2}$ string stability analysis and controller synthesis for vehicle platooning under jamming attacks and interferences from other communication channels. Jamming attacks and interferences for vehicle platooning systems are modeled as periodic denial of service attacks. Further, the vehicle platooning with denial of service attacks is modeled as a distributed switching system where an average dwell time approach is adopted for the stability analysis. Under the distributed switching system framework, this paper presents a co-design paradigm for the vehicle platooning. The distributed event-triggered method (ETM) and controllers are presented to guarantee $\mathscr{L}_{2}$ string stability, which can ensure that the output cannot be amplified along the vehicle platooning. Sufficient conditions for $\mathscr{L}_{2}$ string stability are then provided to guide the co-design of the ETM and controllers, which can be efficiently obtained by solving LMIs. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed co-design approach in addressing the denial of service attacks for vehicle platooning systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This correspondence paper studies the impact of nonidentically distributed channel estimation error on performance of a scheduled space-time block coding with mean-value power allocation in cognitive-radio multiple-input multiple-output system. Using the derived probability density function, the exact closed-form expressions of the proposed system for outage probability, ergodic capacity, and symbol-error rate (SER) with both $\rm M$ -ary quadrature amplitude modulation and phase shift keying modulation are derived. Using asymptotic analysis, this paper quantifies the diversity order for both outage probability and SER in the presence of nonidentically distributed error. From the analysis results, this paper shows that the diversity order is enhanced by the multiuser diversity as the number of user terminals increases regardless of outage probability and SER, while the spatial diversity is eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the allocation of shared resources between vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) links in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. In existing algorithms, dynamic vehicular environments and quantization of continuous power become the bottlenecks for providing an effective and timely resource allocation policy. In this paper, we develop two algorithms to deal with these difficulties. First, we propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based resource allocation algorithm to improve the performance of both V2I and V2V links. Specifically, the algorithm uses deep Q-network (DQN) to solve the sub-band assignment and deep deterministic policy-gradient (DDPG) to solve the continuous power allocation problem. Second, we propose a meta-based DRL algorithm to enhance the fast adaptability of the resource allocation policy in the dynamic environment. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed DRL-based algorithm can significantly improve the performance compared to the DQN-based algorithm that quantizes continuous power. In addition, the proposed meta-based DRL algorithm can achieve the required fast adaptation in the new environment with limited experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of user association to small-cell base stations (SBSs) in a heterogeneous and small-cell network (HetSNet). Two optimization problems are investigated, namely, maximizing the set of associated users to the SBSs (the unweighted problem) and maximizing the set of weighted associated users to the SBSs (the weighted problem), under signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio constraints. Both problems are formulated as linear integer programs. The weighted problem is known to be NP-hard, and in this paper, the unweighted problem is proved to be NP-hard as well. Therefore, this paper develops two heuristic polynomial-time algorithms to solve both problems. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithms is evaluated and is shown to be far more efficient than the complexity of the optimal brute-force (BF) algorithm. Moreover, this paper benchmarks the performance of the proposed algorithms against the BF algorithm, the branch-and-bound CPLEX-based algorithm, and state-of-the-art algorithms, through numerical simulations. The results demonstrate the close-to-optimal performance of the proposed algorithms. They also show that the weighted problem can be solved to provide solutions that are fair between users or to balance the load among SBSs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) precoder with a compensated QR decomposition (CQRD) combination for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) downlink transmission. Unlike conventional QR decomposition (QRD) combination, CQRD combination adopts compensated channel matrix orderings. This paper first proposes CQRD combination for CoMP scenarios. The statistics for combined spatial subchannel gains with a CQRD combination of two coordinated base stations (BSs) are derived, and these statistics show that more balanced subchannel gains are generated with a CQRD combination than with a QRD combination. Furthermore, this paper proposes a generalized CQRD combination scheme with a joint sorting strategy that can be applied to scenarios with more than two coordinated BSs. Unlike the unsorted strategy, the joint sorting strategy determines an enhanced compensated combination to further increase spatial subchannel gains; therefore, the performance can be upgraded. Because conventional Tomlinson–Harashima precoding (THP) cannot be used in the CQRD combination, interference presubtraction and vector precoding (VP) is adopted. Theoretical analysis and simulation results are both provided to demonstrate the advantages of balanced spatial subchannel gains and enhanced bit-error-rate (BER) performance in the proposed CQRD-based schemes. Compared with existing QRD-based MIMO precoders in CoMP scenarios, the proposed CQRD-based schemes have substantial signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvements of 2–5 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Carrier sense multiple access with collision notification (CSMA/CN) is a typical representation of physical-layer (PHY)/medium access control (MAC) co-designs, where the MAC control frames are implemented or detected using PHY techniques. With CSMA/CN, the sender detects an unsuccessful transmission, with the aid of a collision notification (CN) from the receiver. In this paper, we first theoretically study the crucial impact of the CN attributes (namely, the detection threshold and the length) on system throughput in a wireless local area network (WLAN). We identify that the false-alarm probability of CN (more generally, the control frames in PHY/MAC co-designs) is a dominating metric that influences system performance. This paper will help developers select optimal CN attributes to balance various factors influencing CN detection performance. Extensive simulation results verify that our performance model is very accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two-path relay networks can be deployed to achieve full-rate transmissions. In this paper, we introduce stable throughput analysis into decode-and-forward (DF) two-path relay networks. We establish the queueing model and take outage probabilities into consideration to characterize the packet-level cooperation and derive the closed-form stable throughput region. Based on the stable throughput region, we also propose a power-allocation scheme between the source node and relays to maximize the achievable packet rate. The maximal achievable packet rate determines the admission control of certain cooperation (i.e., when to cooperate) under a specific interrelay interference (IRI) cancellation technique. The power allocation is utilized to illustrate how to cooperate between the source node and relays. Three IRI responses are considered, and the system behaviors under various circumstances are presented through simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the scenario of the proliferation of smart vehicles, a novel tendency is to exploit the cooperation between vehicles to create vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) using the IEEE 802.11p standard. IEEE 802.11p includes dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) between high-speed vehicles and between the vehicles and the roadside infrastructure in the licensed intelligent transportation system (ITS) band at 5.9 GHz. At such frequencies, fading problems caused by the Doppler effect and/or multipath adversely affect propagation, particularly in dense urban environments. To reduce such propagation impairments, the use of lower frequencies has been proposed in literature, namely the TV white spaces (TVWS) in the ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) band. TVWS is the part of the spectrum licensed to broadcasters that is not occupied at a given time in a given geographical area on a noninterfering/nonprotected basis with regard to primary services. This paper analyses coexistence issues between digital video broadcasting—terrestrial (DVB-T)2 and IEEE 802.11p transmission in the TVWS. The aim of this paper is twofold: to evaluate the protection of DVB-T2 broadcasting services interfered by IEEE 802.11p communications and the impact of adjacent DVB-T2 services on IEEE 802.11p communications in the TVWS. The main outcomes of this paper are the maximum transmission power level and bandwidth configuration of an 802.11p signal in the adjacent channel (i.e., TVWS) of an active DVB-T2 system while protecting the broadcast service, as well as the error rate curves for each allowed mode of IEEE 802.11p in the TVWS to evaluate the performance of VANETs communications coexisting with DVB-T2 regular services in the licensed TV band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With low-cost energy consumption, the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technique is a potential solution to the real-time data processing for intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). In this paper, an intelligent transmissive surface is introduced into the vehicular communications, enabling vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) signals to penetrate the intelligent RIS to access the base station (BS) on the opposite side of the vehicle. Considering that the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication reuses the spectrum spanned for V2I link, we investigate the ergodic capacity optimization problem for the vehicle performing V2I communications with the assistance of RIS, while meeting the low-latency and high-reliability requirements of the V2V link. The RIS transmission coefficients and power allocation of vehicles are jointly optimized, for the management of the desired and undesired vehicular communication links. Moreover, the expression of optimal phase shifts is derived in a closed-form, which reveals that the performance gain brought by RIS is proportional to the number of intelligent elements, while inversely proportional to the distance from vehicle-to-BS, in a quadratic form. Moreover, in the case of discrete phase shifts, an intelligent algorithm is proposed for the beamforming design at RIS. Afterwards, with the objective to maximize the ergodic capacity of the V2I link, the optimal power allocation is also proposed. Simulation results confirm the accuracy of the proposed resource allocation strategy, and that the system performance in terms of the ergodic V2I capacity can be significantly improved by the RIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Third Generation Partnership Project has standardized cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) sidelink Mode 4 to support direct communication between vehicles. In Mode 4, the sensing-based semipersistent scheduling (SPS) scheme enables vehicles to autonomously reserve and select radio resources. In particular, SPS has three processes to realize the resource scheduling, including continuously sensing resources, probabilistically reselecting resources, and periodically reserving resources. However, vehicles randomly select resources from the available resource lists in the resource reselection process, resulting in frequent packet collisions especially when radio resources are insufficient. Unlike the traditional SPS, this paper proposes a multiagent deep reinforcement learning-based SPS (RL-SPS) algorithm to help vehicles select appropriate radio resources with the aim of reducing packet collisions. Furthermore, a multi-head attention mechanism is adopted to improve the training efficiency by helping vehicles selectively pay attention to the observations and actions of neighbouring vehicles. It is worth noting that the RL-SPS algorithm fits the characteristics of Mode 4, which selects resources without requiring any global information. Simulation results show that RL-SPS outperforms other decentralized approaches and demonstrate the scalability and robustness of RL-SPS in a dynamic vehicular network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The air-ground cooperative emergency networks can assist with the rapid reconstruction of communication in the disaster area, where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are deployed as base stations. The trajectory optimization of emergency base stations is of vital importance to the communication performance, which is related to the timeliness and effectiveness of rescue. In this paper, federated multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (F-MADDPG) based trajectory optimization algorithm is proposed to maximize the average spectrum efficiency. Specifically, the property of MADDPG is inherited to jointly control of multiple vehicles and federated averaging (FA) is utilized to eliminate the isolation of data to accelerate the convergence. Distributed F-MADDPG (DF-MADDPG) is further designed to reduce the communication overhead with a distributed architecture. The simulation results indicate that the proposed F-MADDPG and DF-MADDPG based algorithms significantly outperform the existing trajectory optimization algorithms, in terms of the average spectrum efficiency and the speed of convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the feasibility and scope of co-channel coexistence between a low data rate Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) secondary network and a digital television (DTV) broadcast network operating in the same area. Since DTV receivers do not transmit, neither the presence nor the impact of interference from the secondary network on these DTV receivers can be known. Consequently, conventional spectrum sensing techniques cannot be employed effectively. This paper proposes to compensate the lack of feedback by combining the available information about population distribution in the region - ranging from coarse population density estimates to accurate geospatial maps - with better estimation of interference using a data-driven technique called Ordinary Kriging. Radio Environment Maps constructed using the Kriging method from field-reported observations from the secondary nodes are used to obtain better accuracy than the conventional statistical models. The estimates are then used to compute communication parameters for each secondary link in terms of power, number of active subcarriers, and active time slots, while keeping the average interference in the DTV network within threshold bounds. Thus, the viability of such co-channel license-exempt operation of secondary networks in the DTV black and grey spaces for low data rate applications in densely populated urban areas and higher data rate capabilities for sparsely populated rural areas is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of antennas increases, the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system can precisely point to user equipments (UEs) with narrow beams. Accurate and timely channel state information (CSI) feedback is crucial to keep UEs in service. Mobile UEs, however, may suffer from the narrow beam nature of the massive MIMO system since UEs can move out of the beam coverage. When intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is applied to the massive MIMO system, the adjustment of the IRS cannot be frequent as the IRS is controlled remotely by the base station (BS). Limiting the number of CSI feedback and the number of both BS and IRS adjustments significantly reduces the overhead of transmission and computation to the system. In this paper, we consider the UEs’ mobility adaptation problem in an IRS assisted multiuser massive MIMO downlink system with infrequent CSI feedback. We propose a beam control method that adapts to UEs’ mobility. The problem is constructed as a sum rate problem where both the BS and IRS are taken into account to jointly optimize the beamforming matrices. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can converge quickly and provide satisfactory performance for mobile UEs. At the same time, our proposed algorithm reduces the frequency of updating the beamforming matrices effectively both at the BS and at the IRS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has recently started standardizing the “licensed-assisted access using LTE” for small cells, which is referred to as dual-band femtocell (DBF) in this paper, which uses the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) air interface in both the licensed and unlicensed bands based on the LTE carrier aggregation feature. Alternatively, the Small Cell Forum introduced the integrated femto-WiFi (IFW) small cell, which simultaneously accesses both the licensed band (via cellular interface) and the unlicensed band (via WiFi interface). In this paper, a practical algorithm for IFW and DBF to automatically balance their traffic in licensed and unlicensed bands, based on the real-time channel, interference, and traffic conditions of both bands, is described. The algorithm considers the fact that some “smart” devices (sDevices) have both cellular and WiFi radios, while some WiFi-only devices (wDevices) may only have WiFi radio. In addition, the algorithm considers a realistic scenario where a single small-cell user may simultaneously use multiple sDevices and wDevices via either the IFW or the DBF in conjunction with a wireless local area network. The goal is to maximize the total user satisfaction/utility of the small-cell user, while keeping the interference from small cells to macrocells below predefined thresholds. The algorithm can be implemented at the radio link control or the network layer of the IFW and DBF small-cell base stations. Results demonstrate that the proposed traffic-balancing algorithm applied to either IFW or DBF significantly increases the sum utility of all macrocell and small-cell users, compared with the current practices. Finally, various implementation issues of IFW and DBF are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The technical challenges, e.g. the mobility management and the offloading process, hinder the conventional cellular systems to meet the huge data traffic requirements of the next generation mobile communications. The traditional system (e.g dual-connectivity (DC)) has been proposed to improve the mobility management, however, it will inherit the big trade-off in the offloading process between the energy consumption for the small cell (SC) discovery (SCD) process and the efficiency of utilizing the system resources (e.g. frequency and signaling). In this paper, we present a framework to model the potential offloading opportunities as well as the offloading loss when a typical user equipment (UE) performs the inter-frequency (IRF) scan periodically. The proposed framework also studies the impact of the SCD on the energy efficiency. To improve the system performance and reduce the power consumption at the UEs, a new scheme, trio-connectivity (TC), is proposed in this paper to tackle the aforementioned challenges. The TC includes three planes: control-plane (C-plane), user-plane (U-plane) and indication-plane (I-plane). The I-plane works as an indicator to help the UE to identify and discover the SCs in the system prior to offloading. The role of the I-plane is to keep the SCD on one frequency channel regardless of the number of frequency channels in the system. In the proposed offloading mechanism, some of the energy consumption is transferred from the UE to the network. By using the proposed framework, UE energy efficiency and system energy efficiency as well as the total energy consumption are derived as performance metrics to compare between the TC and the DC. The results show that the TC can outperform the DC in dense cellular systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stochastic properties of vehicles’ arrival process and the high-speed mobility of vehicles lead to dynamic changes in the topology of vehicular networks, affecting the data download experience of users, especially for large files. In this paper, a novel elastic-segment-based vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) cooperative strategy (ESCS) is proposed to reduce the impact of the density of vehicles on achievable throughput. The achievable throughput and optimal parameters of the proposed system are analyzed. The strategy takes the impact of the density of vehicles on the data download process as the key element for consideration. The density of vehicles has a great influence on the distance between vehicles, and further affects the transmission data rate. To solve the problem of low transmission data rate induced by the density of vehicles, the sizes of the elastic-segments are optimized according to the distance between the vehicles. Owing to the stochastic process of the distance between vehicles, it is particularly challenging to derive a closed-form expression for the achievable throughput. To tackle this problem, we develop a new V2I/V2V cooperative model to adapt to the general two-way lanes, analyze the distribution and mobility of vehicles, and derive a closed-form expression for the achievable throughput, as a function of V2I effective transmission range, the V2V effective transmission range, and other system parameters. We then optimize V2V effective connection range and the vehicle density to maximize the achievable throughput. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy significantly improves the throughput compared with the existing cooperative strategy, especially in the scenario of high vehicle density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we design receivers for filter bank multicarrier-based (FBMC-based) massive MIMO considering practical aspects such as channel estimation and equalization. In particular, we propose a spectrally efficient pilot structure and a channel estimation technique in the uplink to jointly estimate all the users’ channel impulse responses. We mathematically analyze our proposed channel estimator and find the statistics of the channel estimation errors. These statistics are incorporated into our proposed equalizers to deal with the imperfect channel state information (CSI) effect. We revisit the channel equalization problem for FBMC-based massive MIMO, address the shortcomings of the existing equalizers in the literature, and make them more applicable to practical scenarios. The proposed receiver in this paper consists of two stages. In the first stage, a linear combining of the received signals at the base station (BS) antennas provides a coarse channel equalization and removes any multiuser interference. In the second stage, a per subcarrier fractionally spaced equalizer (FSE) takes care of any residual distortion of the channel for the user of interest. We propose an FSE design based on the equivalent channel at the linear combiner output. This enables the applicability of our proposed technique to small and/or distributed antenna setups such as cell-free massive MIMO. Finally, the efficacy of the proposed techniques is corroborated through numerical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the operation of a user-number threshold-based base station (BS) on/off control, in which the BS turns off when the number of users is less than a specific threshold value. This paper presents a space-based analysis of the BS on/off control system to which a stochastic geometric approach is applied. In particular, we derive the approximated closed-form expression of the coverage probability of a homogeneous network (HomNet) with the user-number threshold-based BS on/off control. Moreover, the optimal user-number threshold for maximizing coverage probability is analytically derived. In addition to HomNet, we also derive the approximated closed-form expression of the coverage probability and the optimal user-number thresholds for a heterogeneous network (HetNet). The results show that HetNet, the analysis of which seems intractable, can be analyzed in the form of a linear combination of HomNets with weighted densities. In addition, the optimal user-number threshold of each tier is obtained independently from other tiers. The modeling and analysis presented in this paper are not only limited to the case of user-number threshold-based on/off control, but also applicable to other novel on/off controls with minor modifications. Finally, by comparing the analytical results with the simulated results, the theoretical contributions of this study are validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based cognitive radio (CR) systems, power optimization algorithms have been evaluated to maximize the achievable data rates of the secondary user (SU). However, unrealistic assumptions are made in the existing work, i.e., a Gaussian input distribution and traditional interference model that assumes a frequency-division multiplexing modulated primary user (PU) with perfect synchronization between the PU and the SU. In this paper, we first derive a practical interference model by assuming OFDM modulated PU with imperfect synchronization. Based on the new interference model, the power optimization problem is proposed for the finite symbol alphabet (FSA) input distribution [i.e., $M$-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM)] , as used in practical systems. The proposed scheme is shown to save transmit power and to achieve higher data rates compared with the Gaussian optimized power allocation and the uniform power loading schemes. Furthermore, a theoretical framework is established in this paper to estimate the power saving by evaluating optimal power allocation for the Gaussian and the FSA input. Our theoretical analysis is verified by simulations and is proven to be accurate. It provides guidance for the system design and gives deeper insights into the choice of parameters affecting power saving and rate improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the throughput maximization of millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) ultradense networks (UDN) using dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) is considered. Most of the existing works only allow temporal-domain access and admit at most one user at each time slot, resulting in significant underutilization of spectrum resource, which will be less attractive to mm-wave UDN applications. A generalized temporal-spatial sharing scheme is proposed in this paper for UDN by exploiting the location information of incumbent devices, where multiple users are allowed to access each channel simultaneously via spatial separations. For distributed applications, the global information exchange among secondary users (SU) tends to be impractical, given the unaffordable signaling overhead and latency. Thus, a noncooperative game with fine-grained two-dimensional reuse is formulated, which leads to a more efficient access strategy. It is then proved to be an ordinary potential game (OPG), which guarantees the existence of the strategy Nash equilibrium (NE). Finally, an improved decentralized reinforcement learning algorithm is designed, with which SUs can learn from wireless environments and adapt toward an NE point, relying on the individual observation and the historical action reward (rather than the global information exchanging). The convergence efficiency of the new scheme is also rigorously proved. Numerical simulations are provided to validate the performances of the proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency aspects in cellular networks can contribute significantly to reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. The base station (BS) sleeping strategy has become a well-known technique to achieve energy savings by switching off redundant BSs mainly for lightly loaded networks. Moreover, introducing renewable energy as an alternative power source has become a real challenge among network operators. In this paper, we formulate an optimization problem that aims to maximize the profit of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) cellular operators and to simultaneously minimize the \CO2 emissions in green wireless cellular networks without affecting the desired quality of service (QoS). The BS sleeping strategy lends itself to an interesting implementation using several heuristic approaches, such as the genetic (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. In this paper, we propose GA-based and PSO-based methods that reduce the energy consumption of BSs by not only shutting down underutilized BSs but by optimizing the amounts of energy procured from different retailers (renewable energy and electricity retailers), as well. A comparison with another previously proposed algorithm is also carried out to evaluate the performance and the computational complexity of the employed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the scaling law of the network throughput of a special type of heterogeneous networks is studied, where a secondary network composed of cognitive users shares the same resources opportunistically with a primary network of licensed users. Some pioneering works in this area showed that this type of heterogeneous networks performs as well as two stand-alone networks under the dense network model. A key assumption behind this conclusion is that the density of the secondary network is higher than that of the primary network in the order sense, which essentially decouples the two overlaid networks as the secondary network dominates asymptotically. In this paper, we endeavor to investigate this problem with a weaker condition that the dimensions of the two overlaid networks are on the same order, under the extended network model. Our analysis shows that, with the ratio of the two network sizes larger than a threshold, this weaker (and arguably more practical) condition does not degrade either network throughput scaling. Our result further reveals the potential of cognitive radio (CR) technology in real applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the increasing demand of spectrum and emergence of mobile devices, a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is a promising technology to improve network capacity and coverage. The key concept of the C-RAN is to separate the radio function unit in remote radio heads (RRHs) from the digital function unit in baseband units (BBUs). This separation facilitates efficient spectrum and infrastructure sharing in the C-RAN. This paper considers the cooperative interference management among RRHs in the C-RAN. The RRHs can form coalitions to mitigate intra-interference and jointly serve their subscribers. To characterize RRH performance under the coalition, this paper develops two signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR)-based downlink throughput models of RRH, where one adopts tools from stochastic geometry to capture the interference from vehicular users (VUs) belonging to noncooperative RRHs, and another ignores the VU interference. In this paper, a coalition formation game is formulated to model the situation in which RRHs of C-RAN can make an individual decision to cooperatively serve their VUs if the throughput of the RRH can be improved. To obtain the solution of the proposed game, we develop a distributed coalition formation algorithm and analyze the stability of the coalition structure using a Markov chain model. Simulation results show that, as compared with the noncoalition and grand coalition, our distributed coalition formation can improve the C-RAN throughput by at least 20% and 80%, respectively. Furthermore, according to extensive simulation, we can define the conditions needed for RRHs to form a coalition and obtain higher throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes the ratio of transmit antennas to receive antennas at the base station (BS) in full-duplex multiuser multiple-input–multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems with large-array BS and half-duplex multiantenna users. We consider a full-duplex BS with a block diagonalization (BD) precoder for downlink transmission and a BD receive filter for uplink reception. We derive the approximated downlink sum-rate considering the inter-user interference, and the uplink sum-rate considering the self-interference (SI), for large numbers of BS antennas. Based on the analysis, we formulate an optimization problem in terms of the ratio of transmit antennas to receive antennas to maximize the sum-rate. The analysis shows that the antenna ratio for maximizing the sum rate converges to the ratio of downlink streams to uplink streams as the number of total BS antennas goes to infinity. Simulation results confirm the analysis and show that the BS using the derived antenna ratio in the full-duplex MU-MIMO system can achieve about a 10∼20 b/s/Hz performance gain compared with the BS using an equal number of transmit and receive antennas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (ESPAR) antenna as a solution for beam pattern switching to implement blind interference alignment (BIA). The ESPAR antenna uses a single radio-frequency (RF) chain, and its beamforming is achieved by simply tuning the reactance loads of parasitic elements. Furthermore, ESPAR's beam pattern can be designed to enhance the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), thereby improving the performance of BIA. The focus of this work is the design of the ESPAR beam pattern to realize and improve BIA. In the first approach, each receiver ESPAR antenna dynamically selects the proper beam patterns from among the sector beam patterns, which are pre-designed to access different angular sectors with constant optimal antenna efficiency. We also propose a singular value decomposition (SVD) beamforming method, by means of the available channel state information at the receiver and a dynamic matching network for a high antenna efficiency. The simulation results illustrate the improvement of BIA with proposed methods, especially in the low and moderate SNR region, due to ESPAR's beamforming capability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates low-complexity joint interference avoidance and desired link improvement for single-channel allocation in multiuser multiantenna access points (APs) for open-access small cells. It is considered that an active user is equipped with an antenna array that can be used to suppress interference sources but not to provide spatial diversity. On the other hand, the operation of APs can be coordinated to meet design requirements, where each of which can unconditionally utilize assigned physical channels. Moreover, each AP is equipped with uncorrelated antennas that can be reused simultaneously to serve many active users. The analysis provides new approaches to exploit physical channels, transmit antennas, and APs to mitigate interference, while providing the best possible link gain to an active user through the most suitable interference-free channel. The event of concurrent service requests placed by active users on a specific interference-free channel is discussed for either interference avoidance through identifying unshared channels or desired link improvement via multiuser scheduling. The applicability of the approaches to balance downlink loads is explained, and practical scenarios due to imperfect identification of interference-free channels and/or the scheduled user are thoroughly investigated. The developed results are applicable for any statistical and geometric models of the allocated channel to an active user, as well as channel conditions of interference users. They can be used to study various performance measures. Numerical and simulation results are presented to explain some outcomes of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates collaborative spectrum sharing (CSS) for which a cognitive secondary transmitter acts as a decode-and-forward (DF) relay for two primary users (PUs) occupying an interfering multiple-access channel. PUs are assumed to send their signals simultaneously; hence, interference between the primary signals exists due to the multiple-access nature. The secondary user (SU) selects and forwards one of the PU's signals to a desired destination, and at the same time, the SU also transmits its own signal only if it is not harmful to PUs. The selection of a primary signal to relay is investigated, depending on SU's knowledge of two primary source–destination channels, for which closed-form outage probabilities for PUs and SU are provided accordingly. With the help of the closed-form PU's outage probability, an optimal selection strategy between the primary signals and an optimal power allocation between the primary and secondary signals are also obtained in closed form, which minimizes SU's outage probability while keeping the PU's outage performance at an SU-free level. Numerical investigation is used to verify and illustrate the analysis given in this paper. Numerical results also show that the SU's performance can vary significantly according to the amount of channel knowledge that the SU can have. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a comprehensive cognitive management framework for spectrum selection in cognitive radio (CR) networks. The framework uses a belief vector concept as a means to predict the interference affecting the different spectrum blocks (SBs) and relies on a smart analysis of the scenario dynamicity to properly determine an adequate observation strategy to balance the tradeoff between achievable performance and measurement requirements. In this respect, the paper shows that the interference dynamics in a given SB can be properly characterized through the second highest eigenvalue of the interference state transition matrix. Therefore, this indicator is retained in the proposed framework as a relevant parameter to drive the selection of both the observation strategy and spectrum selection decision-making criterion. This paper evaluates the proposed framework to illustrate the capability to properly choose among a set of possible observation strategies under different scenario conditions. Furthermore, a comparison against other state-of-the-art solutions is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider the intercell interference coordination (ICIC) problem in heterogeneous cellular networks with randomly deployed small-cell base stations (BSs). Current research on ICIC mainly focuses on optimizing the spectrum and power allocations at BSs, whereas the user–BS association is treated as a separate issue. Nevertheless, the user–BS association problem is an important issue in ICIC and should be jointly optimized with resource allocations to achieve global optimality. In this paper, with the objective of maximizing the system sum rate in a distributed manner, we propose a novel belief propagation (BP) algorithm to jointly optimize user association, subchannel assignment, and power allocation. We first develop a factor graph model to decompose the network-wide objective and constraints into multiple local utilities. Then, we transform the maximization of local utilities into the estimations of marginal distributions and propose a distributed BP algorithm to solve the estimations. Simulations show that our distributed BP algorithm dramatically improves the performance compared with the benchmark scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a heterogeneous cellular network (HCN) topology, where multiple sub-6 GHz bands are available for access and device-to-device (D2D) links with the full-duplex (FD) mode, and an integrated millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band is added to the D2D links’ sub-channel resource options. D2D links share spectrum resources of cellular users or dedicated mm-wave sub-channel. Densely deployed small cells scenario provides an ideal platform to implement mm-wave, FD and D2D communications. With large bandwidths available, mm-wave has the potential to meet the expected extreme data rate demands. Leveraging highly directional beamforming, severe transmission loss and the blockage phenomenon of mm-wave can be alleviated. Theoretically, FD communications can double the spectral efficiency due to bi-directional communications with the same spectral and temporal resources. However, such benefit comes at the cost of residual self-interference (RSI). Multi-user interference (MUI) and RSI among network uplink, downlink and D2D links are the main challenges. In the paper, we formulate an optimization problem for FD access and D2D links sub-channel allocation underlaying HCNs combining sub-6 GHz and mm-wave bands to make the system transmission rate maximized. Then, a scheme based on the coalition formation game is proposed to deal with this challenging NP-complete optimization. Finally, performance evaluation investigates the suitable conditions for FD and HD operations. Under different network parameter settings, we quantify associated performance of proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) gradually becomes the future direction of ocean. Many devices, which are called the sources, are deployed in the sea to fulfill scientific, civilian, and military needs. If the locations of these sources are leaked, it will cause a serious economic and military crisis. Thus, in this context, the source location privacy protection becomes critical. In this paper, we focus on the source location privacy protection of underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs), where a multi-channel interference based source location privacy protection scheme (MCISLP) is proposed. The MCISLP mainly contains four steps. First, to enhance the sense of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) for nodes, a noise reduction method is proposed. Then, based on the previous step, an AUV movement prediction method for nodes is presented to ensure the success of packet transmission. After that, for the information exchange among nodes, given the interference of multiple underwater channels, this interference is then utilized to protect the source location privacy. Further, to reduce the channel interference on the source packet, the time slot control is added to weaken the influence. Last, the ant colony algorithm is adopted for the data collection of AUV. The simulation results show that the MCISLP can increase the network safety time by up to 57 $\%$ (compared with data collection algorithms), and balance the energy consumption of nodes (for about 20 $\%$ energy saving), with a minor compromise of energy consumption of AUV and delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the scarcity in the wireless spectrum and limited energy resources especially in mobile applications, efficient resource allocation strategies are critical in wireless networks. Motivated by the recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (DRL), we address multi-agent DRL-based joint dynamic channel access and power control in a wireless interference network. We first propose a multi-agent DRL algorithm with centralized training (DRL-CT) to tackle the joint resource allocation problem. In this case, the training is performed at the central unit (CU) and after training, the users make autonomous decisions on their transmission strategies with only local information. We demonstrate that with limited information exchange and faster convergence, DRL-CT algorithm can achieve 90% of the performance achieved by the combination of weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) algorithm for power control and exhaustive search for dynamic channel access. In the second part of this paper, we consider distributed multi-agent DRL scenario in which each user conducts its own training and makes its decisions individually, acting as a DRL agent. Finally, as a compromise between centralized and fully distributed scenarios, we consider federated DRL (FDRL) to approach the performance of DRL-CT with the use of a central unit in training while limiting the information exchange and preserving privacy of the users in the wireless system. Via simulation results, we show that proposed learning frameworks lead to efficient adaptive channel access and power control policies in dynamic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate joint retrospective interference alignment (RIA) and caching schemes for multiple-input single-output (MISO) broadcast channels (BC) with delayed channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). By exploiting the cached content, we propose one sophisticated cache-aided RIA scheme to cancel the interference. Importantly, our scheme takes the number of symbols in a packet into account, as different number of symbols in a packet result in different system configuration, which may have significant impact on the design of the transmission scheme and achievable degrees of freedom (DoF). Furthermore, we present two theorems to quantify the achievable sum DoF of the proposed cached-aided RIA scheme for different system configuration. Moreover, the system configuration of the existing cache-aided RIA scheme with mixed CSIT can be treated as a special case in our paper. And also our scheme can simultaneously support more users than the existing cache-aided RIA scheme with mixed CSIT to invoke zero forcing (ZF) precoding, which limits the number of users simultaneously supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the three-dimensional (3D) path planning problem for cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) taking into account the impact of 3D antenna radiation patterns. The cellular-connected UAV has a mission to travel from an initial location to a destination. In this process, there is a trade-off between the flight time and the expected communication outages duration, which requires planning a suitable route to avoid the weak coverage region. However, as the existing cellular networks are primarily designed for ground coverage, the communication coverage in the sky tends to be intermittent and irregular due to the potential for severe interference and obstructions (such by buildings), which brings great challenges to 3D path planning. To address this challenge, we first construct a 3D coverage map that stores the expected outage probability over each locations. We then propose a multi-step dueling DDQN (multi-step D3QN) based algorithm to design the local optimal UAV path by leveraging the constructed coverage map. In this algorithm, the UAV acts as the agent to learn the appropriate action to complete the flight mission. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for connectivity-aware UAV path planning and the superiority of 3D path design over its 2D counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study an uplink network configuration in a two-tier macro–femto heterogeneous system with hybrid access control. We consider a system where one macro base station (MBS) and a cluster of adjacent femto base stations (FBSs) together serve a number of mobile users. In this system, base stations and users make decisions in various network configuration processes with different optimization objectives. Such decision-making processesz are usually correlated, and an efficient mechanism is needed to coordinate the decision makers. In this paper, we propose a five-stage network configuration mechanism where access control, resource allocation, and power management are sequentially performed at the base stations and users, respectively. We show that this mechanism provides incentive for the FBSs to operate at the hybrid access mode. We model the configuration mechanism as a multistage decision-making process and formulate a multilevel optimization problem. We analyze the problem in a bottom-up manner and propose efficient algorithms to solve the optimization problem in each level sequentially. Simulation results show that the proposed network configuration mechanism achieves a higher system utility than configuration mechanisms with topology-based hybrid access or closed access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the performance of two traditional schedulers, namely, proportional fair (PF) and round robin (RR), in the context of relay-enhanced Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) networks. These two schedulers are natural candidates for implementation in relay nodes (RNs), and following the results obtained in single-hop networks, mobile operators could be tempted to adopt PF because of the good tradeoff it offers between cell capacity and fairness. Based on a statistical throughput evaluation model, we show that this is not necessarily the right option. The number of RNs, their locations in the cell, and backhaul link quality have a decisive influence on scheduler choice. In some scenarios, it is even not desirable to deploy relays as they degrade the network performance compared with the no-relay case. For the purpose of performance evaluation, we develop a realistic and computationally tractable statistical network model that takes into account fast fading, multiple interferers, cell range expansion bias, backhaul link quality, and traffic load. We also propose optimization of the radio frame structure and a suboptimal RN placement scheme to fairly compare RR and PF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The downlink power allocation in a two-tier cellular network that consists of a macrocell network underlaid by multiple femtocell networks is addressed in this paper. This paper aims to maximize the transmission capacity of the femtocell networks while guaranteeing that the interference experienced at the macro base station does not exceed an interference constraint. We formulate a Bayesian Stackelberg game to model and analyze behaviors of macrocell and femtocell base stations (MBS and FBSs, respectively). In this game, the MBS is the leader, whereas the FBSs are the followers. The channel information between an FBS and its associated femtocell user is private information and is considered the type of the follower. The leader issues the price of interference charged to the followers first to maximize its own profit. Based on the price, the followers decide the strategies to maximize their payoffs defined as the difference between the transmission capacity and the cost of interference (CoI) paid to the leader. Using backward induction, we first analyze the follower game. The existence and uniqueness of the Bayesian Nash equilibrium (BNE) are examined, and the methods to obtain the BNE for a symmetric case are provided. Then, the leader game is analyzed. Finally, the numerical analysis is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the uplink of multicell multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. To tackle the effect of pilot contamination that is generally viewed as a bottleneck in previous work, this paper presents a superimposed pilot (SP)-aided uplink channel estimation scheme and mathematically characterizes the impact that an SP has on the performance of such a very large MIMO system. It is shown that there are two types of interference components that do not vanish, even when the number of antennas $M$ grows to infinity. The first type, which is referred to as cross-contamination, is due to the correlation between the SP and data among different cells. The second type, which is referred to as self-contamination, is due to the dependence between channel estimation and estimation error. Cross-contamination is, in principle, similar to pilot contamination in a conventional pilot-based multicell MIMO system, whereas self-contamination is unique for the SP-aided scheme. Both theoretical and simulation results demonstrate that the SP-aided scheme can effectively reduce the estimation contamination by increasing the data frame size and, in turn, achieve a significant improvement over the spectral efficiency, in comparison with conventional pilot-based methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio spectrum sensing (SS) has been an active topic of research over the past years due to its importance to cognitive radio (CR) systems. However, in CR networks (CRNs) with multiple primary users (PUs), the secondary users (SUs) can often detect PUs that are located outside the sensing range, due to the level of the aggregated interference caused by the PUs. This effect, known as spatial false alarm (SFA), degrades the performance of CRNs because it decreases the SUs' medium access probability. This paper characterizes the SFA effect in a CRN, identifying possible actions to attenuate it. Adopting energy-based sensing (EBS) in each SU, this paper starts to characterize the interference caused by multiple PUs located outside a desired sensing region. The interference formulation is then used to write the probabilities of detection and false alarm, and closed-form expressions are presented and validated through simulation. The first remark to be made is that the SFA can be neglected, depending on the path-loss factor and the number of samples collected by the energy detector to decide the spectrum's occupancy state. However, it is shown that by increasing the number of samples needed to increase the sensing accuracy, the SUs may degrade their throughput, namely, if SUs are equipped with a single radio that is sequentially used for sensing and transmission (split-phase operation). Assuming this scenario, this paper ends by providing a bound for the maximum throughput achieved in a CRN with multiple active PUs and for a given level of PUs' detection inside the SUs' sensing region. The results presented in this paper show the impact of path loss and EBS parameterization on SUs' throughput and are particularly useful to guide the design and parameterization of multihop CRNs, including future ad hoc CRNs considering multiple PUs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a cognitive radio network (CRN), in which a multiple-input single-output (MISO) secondary transmitter (SU-Tx) aims to send confidential messages to its receiver (SU-Rx) in the presence of unknown eavesdroppers, while having to control its generated interference to the primary users (PUs) under a given threshold. Because the eavesdroppers are unknown, this paper considers the artificial noise (AN) approach or masked beamforming to provide the information secrecy. The objective of this paper is to maximize the power of AN in order to degrade the eavesdroppers, subject to the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraint at the SU-Rx, as well as the interference temperature limits (ITLs) for the PUs. In the case of perfect channel state information (CSI), we reveal that the optimal strategy for the information-bearing signal is beamforming. Imperfect CSI cases of bounded and stochastic uncertainties are investigated. In the case of ellipsoid-bounded errors, we derive the equivalent forms for the SINR and ITL constraints and then transform the optimization problem into a form of semidefinite programming (SDP). For the case of probabilistic CSI uncertainties, we propose an outage-constrained robust formulation where the CSI errors are Gaussian distributed. With the aid of two kinds of Bernstein-type inequalities, we reexpress the probabilistic constraints into deterministic forms, which results in a safe approximate solution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose an ergodic interference alignment (IA) method for interference elimination in spectrum sharing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar and multi-user MIMO communication systems. In existing ergodic IA methods, the channel state information (CSI) is generally assumed to be constant, but time-varying channels should be considered in practice. Differently, our proposed ergodic IA allows to time-varying and/or frequency selective channels for spectrum sharing radar-communication systems. The essence is equivalent to design a simple transmit beamforming, which helps to find a pair of desired complementary channels easily without long-time system delay, therefore, the interferences can be effectively cancelled. The proposed method is evaluated by generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) and signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) for the radar functionality, while the communication functionality is examined by bit error rate (BER) performance. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results validate that the effectiveness of the ergodic IA method for spectrum sharing radar-communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]