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Direction-of-arrival (DOA) information is vital for multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems to complete localization and beamforming tasks. Switched antenna arrays have recently emerged as an effective solution to reduce the cost and power consumption of MIMO systems. Switch-based array architectures connect a limited number of radio frequency chains to a subset of the antenna elements forming a subarray. This paper addresses the problem of antenna selection to optimize DOA estimation performance. We first perform a subarray layout alignment process to remove subarrays with identical beampatterns and create a unique subarray set. By using this set, and based on a DOA threshold region performance approximation, we propose two antenna selection algorithms; a greedy algorithm and a deep-learning-based algorithm. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated numerically. The results show a significant performance improvement over selected benchmark approaches in terms of DOA estimation in the threshold region and computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millimeter-wave vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems with multiple-input multiple-output antenna array have drawn significant attention because it is expected to satisfy the growing bandwidth requirements for the cooperative intelligent transportation systems. However, maintaining high-quality communication links between communicating vehicles without high overhead is a challenging problem due to the high mobility of vehicles. In this paper, we propose a beam management algorithm with spatially distributed antenna subarrays instead of a single co-located antenna array. Unlike existing methods, we use distributed antenna subarrays to exploit the geometric relationship of the beam directions and the relative distance between communicating vehicles. We reduce the beam alignment errors by minimizing the sum of squared errors between the estimated beam direction after the beam training process and the refined beam direction derived from the measured position and velocity data. Additionally, a position data request protocol is devised to reduce the beam refining errors. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed beam management algorithm successfully reduces the beam alignment errors and it is robust to position and velocity measurement errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-numerology transmission is a promising multiple access scheme for flexible communication systems, which can simultaneously support users with different service requirements. To this end, both inter- and intra-numerology interference (inter-NI and intra-NI) should be suppressed, which is not straightforward. This paper proposes a novel zero-forcing (ZF) precoding design, which perfectly eliminates all the interference, for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with multi-numerology. First of all, we express the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of the multi-numerology system with spectrum sharing. From the SINR representation, we identify the channels that precoders must nullify to suppress inter-NI. After that, we propose a ZF precoder suppressing both inter-NI and intra-NI perfectly. The lower bound of ergodic achievable rate with perfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) is analyzed. Based on the lower bound of ergodic achievable rate, we present the feasible rate region. Also, we propose two power allocation schemes: user fairness and the ergodic sum rate maximization. The simulation results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed precoding design and verify our analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is motivated by the fact that localization in millimeter wave(mmWave) Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication becomes a more critical problem because both the terminals of the communication link are in motion. The positional awareness merely based on GPS or local sensors has an error margin of around 10 meters, which can worsen in uncertain real-time conditions such as road topology and highway traffic. The paper analyses the relation between vehicle dynamics, beamforming, and beam alignment for highly directive antennas. When the subsystem models presented in this paper are taken into consideration, the joint vehicle dynamics-beamforming approach will optimize the link connectivity and SNR. The vehicle dynamics model is designed to be more realistic considering the non-linear acceleration based on the throttle-brake jerks due to induced noises. The Unscented Kalman Filter based prediction subsystem predicts the alignment values even during non-linear acceleration and jerks. The feasibility of antenna design for the beamforming strategies is supported by the requirements of phase shifters and the number of elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we investigate hybrid analog–digital beamforming (HBF) architectures for uplink cell-free (CF) millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. We first propose two HBF schemes, namely, decentralized HBF (D-HBF) and semi-centralized HBF (SC-HBF). In the former, both the digital and analog beamformers are generated independently at each AP based on the local channel state information (CSI). In contrast, in the latter, only the digital beamformer is obtained locally at the access point (AP), whereas the analog beamforming matrix is generated at the central processing unit (CPU) based on the global CSI received from all APs. We show that the analog beamformers generated in these two HBF schemes provide approximately the same achievable rates despite the lower complexity of D-HBF and its lack of CSI requirement. Furthermore, to reduce the power consumption, we propose a novel adaptive radio frequency (RF) chain-activation (ARFA) scheme, which dynamically activates/deactivates RF chains and their connected analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and phase shifters (PSs) at the APs based on the CSI. For the activation of RF chains, low-complexity algorithms are proposed, which can achieve significant improvement in energy efficiency (EE) with only a marginal loss in the total achievable rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is considered as a critical technique in 5 G New Radio (NR), due to its capability to significantly improve data rate and link reliability for the radio link. To make it a reality, it is essential to evaluate massive MIMO performance in realistic spatial fading channel conditions. Specifically, dynamic spatial channel emulation is crucial to evaluate the massive MIMO beam operations. Due to the high cost associated with both the traditional conduced testing method and the standardized multi-probe anechoic chamber (MPAC) based Over-the-Air (OTA) testing setup for massive MIMO performance testing, fading channel emulation for massive MIMO testing using a conductive phase matrix setup has been proposed in the literature. However, it is still a challenging problem to emulate dynamic spatial channels in a cost-effective and efficient manner for the conductive phase matrix setup, since traditional algorithms suffer from high computational complexity and system cost. This paper proposes a fast and accurate framework to emulate dynamic spatial channels in the phase matrix setup, where the basic idea is to mimic a virtual MPAC setup. By doing so, we can mimic MPAC setup with flexible probe configurations. Furthermore, a novel successive cancellation strategy and a closed-form algorithm are proposed to determine the probe locations and probe weights, respectively, which can significantly reduce the computational complexity associated with dynamic channel emulation. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is highly accurate and computationally efficient, compared to state-of-art solutions. Further, we apply our developed algorithm to emulate measured non-stationary channels and excellent emulation accuracy can be achieved. The proposed method can be employed for emulating dynamic spatial channels, which is of great importance for massive MIMO performance testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel design approach to a low-profile dual- resonant wideband backfire antenna for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) applications is proposed. The antenna is composed of a semicircular principal radiator, a 152° sectorial reflector and a 112° sectorial director all installed above a metallic planar ground. At first, a 2.0-wavelength prototype magnetic dipole is introduced to lay down the flared angle, radius and the usable resonant TM1,1 and TM3,1 modes of the principal radiator. In these ways, a wideband backfire radiation characteristic can be generated. Then, the multi-point equivalent source model is developed and used to predict the initial values of the sectorial reflector and director, e.g., the flared angles, radii, and the separations between the principal radiator and director/reflector. Prototype antennas are in final designed and fabricated to experimentally validate the dual-resonant wideband property on the 2 mm-thick air substrate, thereby exhibiting an impedance bandwidth of 27.6%. As also numerically and experimentally validated, the backfire gain can be further enhanced to 4.2 dBi. It is evidently validated that the proposed approach can be employed to effectively enhance the backfire radiation of low-profile, vehicular antennas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In massive MIMO systems, the high complexity of signal detection comes mainly from computing a Gram matrix and its inversion. In this correspondence, we propose a low-complexity MIMO detection method based on the Neumann series (NS), which does not require explicitly computing the Gram matrix and its inversion. The proposed method leverages the statistical information of the Gram matrix to compute an initialization matrix, which guarantees the convergence of NS expansion. The signal detection is conducted implicitly by transforming matrix inversion and product operations into matrix-vector multiplication operations. By doing so, it reduces the computational complexity of MIMO signal detection from $\mathcal {O}(BU^{2}+U^{3})$ to $\mathcal {O}(BUN)$ , where $B$ , $U$ , and $N$ are the numbers of antennas at the base station, at the user equipment, and NS terms, respectively. Simulation results show that, compared with existing approaches, the proposed method can significantly reduce the signal detection complexity while achieving similar performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We focus on the rate-optimal design of Wireless Powered Relay Networks (WPRNs) and propose a new cooperative communication scheme. Our scheme employs multiple wireless powered Amplify and Forward (AF) relays and relay selection and combines Time Splitting (TS), with Antenna Switching (AS) and Self Energy Recycling (SER). It consists of an initial Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) subframe, followed by a cooperative transmission subframe, during which one antenna is used for Energy Harvesting (EH) and SER and the remaining ones are used for data reception and data forwarding. For this scheme, we present solutions to the problems of 1) rate-optimal beamforming (BF) design, 2) rate-optimal, joint Harvesting Antenna Selection (HAS), BF design, and WPT subframe duration determination. Our solutions build on a generic piecewise linear EH model, which allows us to closely approximate the characteristics of different non linear EH measurements and models, by selecting the number of piecewise linear components and their parameters. In addition, we consider a realistic power consumption model at the relays that accounts for both transmit and circuit power consumption. Moreover, our BF solution is optimal and requires solving a set of simple optimization problems, where the solution of each one of them can be found in a simple closed form. Thus, it is characterized by low implementation complexity, and avoids sophisticated iterative optimization methods. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first one to introduce a scheme, which combines TS, AS, and SER principles and exploits realistic EH and power consumption models at the relays. Finally, we assess the performance of our scheme over fading channels and find that it outperforms existing solutions that use the same hardware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing seamless connectivity to unmanned aerial vehicle user equipment (UAV-UE) is very challenging due to the encountered line-of-sight interference and reduced gains of down-tilted base station (BS) antennas. For instance, as the altitude of UAV-UEs increases, their cell association and handover procedure become driven by the side-lobes of the BS antennas. In this paper, the performance of cellular-connected UAV-UEs is studied under 3D practical antenna configurations. Two scenarios are studied: scenarios with static, hovering UAV-UEs and scenarios with mobile UAV-UEs. For both scenarios, the UAV-UE coverage probability is characterized as a function of the system parameters. The effects of the number of antenna elements on the UAV-UE coverage probability and handover rate are then investigated. Moreover, a lower bound on the handover probability is derived as a function of the number of antenna elements and the UAV-UE mobility speed. Results reveal that the UAV-UE coverage probability under a practical antenna pattern is lower than that under a simple antenna model. Moreover, vertically-mobile UAV-UEs are susceptible to altitude handover due to consecutive crossings of the nulls and peaks of the antenna side-lobes. The effect of altitude handover is also shown to be effectively mitigated by serving UAV-UEs cooperatively from multiple ground BSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Channel predictions are important to achieve high spectral efficiency for high-mobility vehicles. Channel extrapolation, used by many prediction methods, suffers from a limited prediction horizon in difficult radio environments. The predictor antenna (PA) concept provides the prediction horizons required for efficient transmission to fast-moving vehicles by measuring the channel ahead of time with an extra antenna placed on the vehicle. This paper presents a general framework that addresses the practical signal processing challenges of the PA concept. It is adaptable to a vast variety of vehicular deployment, mobility, and communication scenarios. A new theoretical prediction normalized mean-squared error (NMSE) expression is derived based on the presented framework. The framework is demonstrated by applying it to extensive channel measurements and comparing the PA predictions to Kalman-based channel predictions and outdated channel estimates. By studying the impact of vehicular velocity and radio environment on the prediction performance, it is shown that PA prediction is weaker at low velocities, where Kalman prediction methods are sufficient, but is uncontested at high velocities in environments without a dominating path. At high velocities in dominating path environments, the Kalman predictor provides usable predictions, but it is still outperformed by the PA predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictor antenna channel measurements from a 64-antenna base station are used to investigate the effects of channel aging on the precoder design for high-mobility users in a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) massive multiple-input multiple-output (M-MIMO) environment. The effects are evaluated in terms of received downlink (DL) signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) and the corresponding ergodic capacity bound. A simulated velocity of 150 km/h is used with a carrier frequency of 2.18 GHz. Maximum ratio (MR) and a codebook-based precoders are used to evaluate single-user transmission; and zero-forcing (ZF), regularized zero-forcing (RZF), and minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) precoders are used to evaluate multi-user transmission with up to nine active users in a cell. Furthermore, predictor antenna predictions are evaluated as a mean of combating channel aging. It is also investigated how the predictor antenna can be used during data reception. Simulations show that outdated channel estimates significantly reduce the SINR and consequently the capacity for all investigated transmission techniques. Basic predictor antenna predictions outperform the use of outdated channel estimates for delays larger than 0.6 ms. In single-user transmission, channel prediction can improve the capacity by 6–14%. The gain from multi-user transmission typically disappears when using outdated channel estimates older than 1 ms. In contrast, the use of predictor antennas enables MIMO for these high-mobility users, which is demonstrated to increase the capacity bound by 100% compared to 1 ms old channel estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we study different scheduling problems in the downlink of a Frequency Division Duplex multiuser wireless system that employs a hybrid precoding antenna architecture for massive Multiple Input Multiple Output. In this context, we propose a scheduling framework using Reinforcement Learning (RL) tools, namely Contextual Multi-Armed Bandits (CMAB), that can dynamically adapt themselves to solve three scheduling problems, which are: i) Maximum Throughput (MT); ii) Maximum Throughput with Fairness Guarantees (MTFG), and; iii) Maximum Throughput with QoS Guarantees (MTQG), which are well-known relevant problems. Before performing scheduling itself, we exploit statistical Channel State Information (CSI) to create clusters of spatially compatible User Equipmentss (UEss). This structure, combined with the usage of Zero-Forcing precoding, allows us to reduce the scheduler complexity by considering each cluster as an independent virtual RL scheduling agent. Next, we apply a new learning-based scheduler aiming to optimize the desired system performance metric. Moreover, only scheduled UEss need to feed back instantaneous equivalent CSI, which also reduces the signaling overhead of the proposal. The superiority of the proposed framework is demonstrated through numerical simulations in comparison with reference solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We design a centralized and a decentralized variational Bayesian learning (C- and D-VBL) algorithms for the base station (BS) of a frequency division duplex massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) cellular system, wherein users send compressed information for it to estimate their downlink channels. The BS in the decentralized algorithm consists of multiple processing units (PUs), and each PU separately estimates the channels of a group of users, by employing the proposed D-VBL algorithm. To reduce channel estimation error, the PUs exploit the structured sparsity inherent in multi-user mMIMO channels by exchanging information among themselves. We investigate the proposed C-VBL and low-complexity D-VBL algorithms and show that i) they substantially outperform the state-of-the-art centralized and decentralized algorithms in terms of the normalized mean squared error and the bit error rate. This is because they beneficially exploit the inherent channel sparsity, while the existing state-of-the-art solutions fail to do so. The proposed D-VBL is also robust to PU failures, and provides a similar performance as its centralized counterpart (C-VBL), but with a much reduced complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a dual circularly-polarized (CP) multi-beam antenna is proposed for future vehicular radar applications. The antenna is composed of two pillbox reflector beamforming networks (BFNs) and a series-fed microstrip line based dual CP leaky-wave antenna (LWA) array, which has a symmetrical structure and can obtain both left hand circular polarization (LHCP) and right hand circular polarization (RHCP) by switching the exciting current direction of the microstrip line. Besides, a shorted stub is loaded in the LWA to suppress the open-stop band (OSB), and thus achieve the broadside radiation and good impedance matching of the LWA. To realize the dual-polarized radiation characteristic with low-cost passive beam scanning capability, two pillbox BFNs are connected at both sides of the LWA to share the LWA aperture. The two different BFNs can excite different CP radiation patterns. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated in the frequency band 23.5–24.5 GHz, and the measured results approve that the proposed antenna can realize ±36° beam scanning range with −4.0 dB crossover level, and the gain is higher than 17.7 dBi in the operating band. The advantages of the proposed antenna, including low-profile, low-cost, passive beam scanning ability, and dual circular polarization, make it an attractive choice for low-cost millimeter-wave radar applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cellular communication systems, it is conventional to assume the absence of a line of sight (LoS) path between the users and theirassociated access points (APs). This assumption however becomes questionable in the context of recent developments in the direction of cell-free (CF) massive MIMO systems. In the CF massive MIMO, the AP density is assumed to be comparable with the user density, which increases probability of existence of an LoS path between the users and their associated APs. In this paper, we analyze the performance of an uplink CF massive MIMO system, with a probabilistic LoS channel model. Here, we first derive the effective statistics of this channel model, and argue that their behaviour is fundamentally different from that of the conventional rich scattering channels. Utilizing these statistics, we next compare the rates achievable by CF massive MIMO systems, under both stream-wise and joint decoding at the central processing unit. Following this, we also discuss the centralized MMSE based data detection to obtain a complexity/ performance trade-off. Finally, using detailed Monte-Carlo simulations, we validate our analytical results, and evaluate the performance of the three data detection schemes. [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]

Techniques for reducing the coupling between antenna elements in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are important for achieving the full potential of MIMO. In this article, a general and systematic method is developed to design a wideband decoupling and matching network (DMN) for MIMO antenna arrays. The DMN is formed by grid-like transmission lines interconnected by lumped components, whose reactances can be obtained from an N-ary optimization algorithm. Four design benchmarks are performed for validating decoupling methodology, elaborating on design/implementation procedure, and demonstrating superiority of the proposed method. Results show that the DMN achieves broad isolation bandwidth while occupying a small footprint area. Besides, the DMN is applicable for symmetric, asymmetric, and multi-element MIMO antenna arrays. In comparison to prior works, the proposed DMN offers a wider isolation bandwidth, higher efficiency, and comparable size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) aided millimeter wave (mmWave) communication system using hybrid precoding of subarray-connected structure at the base station. To maximize the received signal power of the user, we jointly optimize the active beamforming at the BS and passive beamforming at the IRS, respectively. Exploiting the rank-one property of mmWave channels, we transform the original problem into an approximate optimization problem and give the closed-form solution of the approximated problem. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can effectively improve the received signal quality of the user with a high energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming for 5G-NR vehicular applications, this paper proposes two miniaturized wideband pattern reconfigurable antennas with different pattern steering capabilities. They are inspired by an end-fire structure that could be easily mounted on cars. This newly proposed planar pattern reconfigurable end-fire structure is firstly presented and studied by current distribution and equivalent circuit analysis. By turning the ON / OFF state of the PIN diodes on the passive dipole, a planar reconfigurable antenna with one omnidirectional and two end-fire beams is implemented. Additionally, a low-profile pattern diversity antenna with a compact size of 0.311 λ0 × 0.244 λ0 × 0.106 λ0 is implemented by loading a reactive metasurface, its main lobe can be steered in the broadside direction (35°, 0°, and −35°). Both antennas achieve a wideband response over 3.30 to 4.20 GHz (24.0%) range and good radiation efficiency of 84.0%. They feature the advantages of a miniaturized size (low-profile), structurally simple and fabrication friendly design, wideband, good radiation efficiency (low-loss), and flexible multi-beam switching capability, which are well suited for the coming sub 6 GHz vehicular applications in different scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose two novel antenna selection (AS) and discrete phase-shifts design (PSD) schemes for use in intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) networks. The first AS and PSD method aims at maximizing the gain of the channels; while the second method is an iterative sum-rate maximization (ISM) scheme that aims at maximizing the total achievable rate. For the AS part, we demonstrate that the ISM method achieves near optimal performance with much lower complexity compared to benchmark AS schemes, and can be utilized with any precoder at the mMIMO base station. For the PSD, our proposed successive-refinement optimization methods are not only efficient, but their complexities scale linearly with the number of elements at the IRS, making them highly attractive when dealing with large surfaces. A thorough complexity analysis for the proposed methods is carried out in terms of the number of floating point operations required for their implementations. Finally, extensive numerical results are provided and some key points are highlighted on the performance of the proposed schemes with both conjugate beamforming and zero-forcing precoders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A single-fed dual-band dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with orthogonal circular polarizations (CPs) in K- and Ka-bands is proposed for satellite communications on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The antenna overcomes the challenges of dual-band dual-CP operation, narrow axial-ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of single-fed antennas, and limited payload and space of UAVs. A shared-aperture merged-structure technique of DRA and slot-dipole antenna is proposed for dual-band dual-CP radiation, thus enabling full-duplex operation with compact size for high isolation systems. The orthogonal CPs in two frequency bands can be controlled independently by a phase compensation method. Besides, broadened ARBW and enhanced gain are attained from the stacked DR, from which high capacity and reliability communication can be achieved. A prototype operating at right-handed CP (RHCP) in the lower band, whereas left-handed CP (LHCP) in the upper band has been designed and measured. It features 10-dB impedance bandwidths of 6.4% and 12.8%, and 3-dB ARBW of 5.2% and 4.1% in the lower and upper bands, respectively. The antenna provides a low cost solution for high isolation, high throughput, and small payload full-duplex UAV satellite systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional (3-D)-printed dual-fed dual-frequency dielectric antenna is investigated for vehicular communications. It combines a dielectric resonator (DR) antenna (DRA) and a dielectric lens antenna (DLA) for the low and high frequency bands, respectively. Both of the antenna parts share the same dielectric body that has three different effective dielectric constants. The DRA is excited by a vertical conducting adhesive strip on its sidewall, whereas the DLA is fed by a separate embedded slot-coupled cylindrical DRA. To verify the idea, a dual-frequency dielectric antenna operating at S- and X-bands is designed and fabricated with a 3-D printer. The S-parameters, radiation patterns, antenna gains, and antenna efficiencies of the two antenna parts are measured, and reasonable agreement between the measured and simulated results is found. The prototype has wide measured S- and X-band 10-dB impedance bandwidths of 40.2% and 19.5%, respectively. Also, its measured isolation between the two ports is desirably over 40 dB across the two bands. The measured peak antenna gains are given by 5.8 and 12.0 dBi in S- and X-bands, which are suitable for short-distance vehicle-to-basestation and long-distance vehicle-to-satellite communications, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An m-shapedspoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) structure as well as its application into end fire antenna with vertical polarization, low profile and compact size are proposed to be conformal with vehicle shell. Beside the primary odd SSPPs mode in the center, extra even mode at the top horizontal arms and odd mode at the end of the arms are introduced through folded arms. Consequently, the end-fire pattern can be adjusted by varying the aperture size. The multiple modes of SSPPs structure enable the antenna to operate in dual bands. The 1st mode operates from 447 to 515 MHz while the 2nd mode works from 0.97 GHz to 1.81 GHz simultaneously in simulation. The profile of the manufactured prototype antenna is merely 0.1 ${{\rm{\lambda }}_0}$ (@ 487 MHz). It achieves a measured gain peak of 8.4 dBi with HPBW 111.9 $^\circ $ in the 1st mode around 500 MHz and gain peak of 9.2 dBi at 1.6 GHz in the 2nd mode. It can be a very promising candidate for conformal antenna being embedded into the thin shell to high load bearing application on the high-speed vehicles for mobile communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in millimeter-wave (mmWave) networks has the potential to significantly enhance the spectral efficiency. In this paper, we propose an opportunistic beam-splitting NOMA scheme to fully exploit the antenna array gain in downlink mmWave networks, where single- and double-beam NOMA transmissions are dynamically enabled according to the spatial angle difference between the paired NOMA users, thereby enhancing the flexibility of applying NOMA in mmWave networks. The base station with a single radio frequency chain implements the double-beam NOMA transmission by adopting the beam-splitting technique. We develop a unified theoretical performance analysis framework for the proposed scheme, while taking into account the spatially random users, link blockage model, and general distance-based user pairing strategy. By using tools from stochastic geometry, we derive the exact expressions of the coverage probability and the sum rate of the proposed scheme under both the LoS exponential and ball models. We further derive the corresponding upper bound to simplify the analytical expressions. Simulations validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the performance gains of the proposed scheme in terms of the coverage probability and sum rate over the conventional single-beam NOMA and orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes. [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 paper, a 3D geometry-based double-spherical terahertz (THz) channel model is proposed for ultra massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications. To reflect real THz ultra massive MIMO communications, the characteristic of nano-material array antenna and the high loss of THz bands are considered in channel modeling. Based on the proposed geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM), power delay profile (PDP), space-time-frequency correlation function, and the Doppler power spectral density are derived and analyzed. Furthermore, the proposed model is validated by comparing the simulated results with the measurement reference. Influences of channel parameters, namely, antenna element spacing, carrier frequency, number and location of clusters, on the correlation functions are investigated. The results indicate that antenna element spacing and number of clusters have significant impacts on channel correlation, and the decreasing of correlation function becomes slower when antenna element spacing decreases. Moreover, location of clusters also affects the drop rate of correlation function. The influences of the number of clusters and concentration of intra-cluster multipath components (MPCs) on the Doppler power spectral density are analyzed. It is found that a larger number of clusters and a more concentrated distribution of intra-cluster MPCs increase the degree of Doppler spectrum variation. The proposed channel model and the corresponding statistical properties are insightful for designing and realizing THz ultra massive MIMO systems for 6G and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supporting reliable and seamless wireless connectivity for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has recently become a critical requirement to enable various different use cases of UAVs. Due to their widespread deployment footprint, cellular networks can support beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) communications for UAVs. In this paper, we consider cellular connected UAVs (C-UAVs) that are served by massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) links to extend coverage range, while also improving physical layer security and authentication. We consider Rician channel and propose a novel linear precoder design for transmitting data and artificial noise (AN). We derive the closed-form expression of the ergodic secrecy rate of C-UAVs for both conventional and proposed precoder designs. In addition, we obtain the optimal power splitting factor that divides the power between data and AN by asymptotic analysis. Then, we apply the proposed precoder design in the fingerprint embedding authentication framework, where the goal is to minimize the probability of detection of the authentication tag at an eavesdropper. In simulation results, we show the superiority of the proposed precoder in both secrecy rate and the authentication probability considering moderate and large number of antenna massive MIMO scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the unprecedented demand for higher data rates while coping with the constraints from physical size (i.e., windward area), it is profitable to deploy compact planar arrays (CPAs) on the base stations (BSs). But massively densified antenna deployment not only leads to antenna mutual coupling (MC), but also consumes additional energy due to the equipment of more radio frequency (RF) chains. This paper studies energy efficiency (EE) optimization for massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wireless systems with a CPA in the presence of MC. In comprehensive consideration of the spectral efficiency (SE) and power consumption, a joint optimization problem of beamforming and antenna subset (AS) is proposed. Our motivation is to relieve the effects of MC and reduce the relevant energy consumption by constructing irregular AS. Particularly, considering the nonconvexity of the objective and the discrete 0-1 constraints, an available iterative algorithm, named the energy-efficient beamforming and AS (EE-BF&AS) algorithm, is developed. Numerical results illustrate that when MC is modeled, the proposed EE-BF&AS algorithm outperforms conventional related approaches in EE. By using the AS switching strategy, the irregular AS can be constructed to make MC less serious and let the relevant energy consumption decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional (3D) printed Luneburg lens with nearly isotropic properties is presented. The cubical-lattice-type and the rod-type gradient-index materials are employed together to construct the novel printable spherical lens geometry, whose nearly isotropic properties improve the antenna radiation characteristics significantly. The dual-polarized radiation beam generated by the lens antenna can steer in a wide angular range with stable performance throughout a wide operating band. A prototype with an equivalent radius of 16.8 mm is printed and measured in the Ka-band. An impedance bandwidth of more than 40% for |S11| of less than −17.5 dB, a gain of up to 21.3 dBi, and promising radiation patterns with the dual polarization scanning in an angular range of ±60° are obtained experimentally. With the advantages of satisfying operating performance and ease of realization, the lens investigated in this paper would be an attractive candidate for the wireless applications in millimeter-wave vehicular networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel ultra-wideband (UWB) reflectarray antenna for the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is introduced in this paper. By simply connecting the neighboring reflectarray elements, the proposed reflectarray antenna achieves a remarkable radiation pattern bandwidth of 20 GHz, ranging from 10 GHz to 30 GHz. To explain the operating principles of the proposed reflectarray antenna, the equivalent circuit (EQC) model of the unit cell is built, which also provides an efficient and rapid way to analyze the performance of the proposed reflectarray element. It is found from the EQC analysis that the connected elements can achieve better reflection phase responses than conventional separated elements, thereby improving the array bandwidth. As a proof of concept, a 503-element reflectarray antenna simultaneously covering the vehicle-to-satellite bands (12.25–12.75 GHz/14.0–14.5 GHz/19.6–21.2 GHz/29.4–31.0 GHz), the 24-GHz short-range vehicle radar band (24.25–26.65 GHz) and the 5G millimeter-wave band (27.5–28.35 GHz) is designed, fabricated, and characterized. The experimental results demonstrate that the presented reflectarray antenna can maintain undistorted beams, high antenna gain, low cross-pol level, and moderate aperture efficiency over a bandwidth of 100%, i.e., from 10 to 30 GHz. With its simple and planar aperture as well as excellent performance, the proposed reflectarray antenna can be a promising candidate for vehicles that require reliable high data-rate satellite links and 5G millimeter-wave connections simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correlations and mutual couplings in antenna arrays lead to performance deterioration of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The relation between mutual coupling and correlation is complex, especially in non-isotropic multipath environments. Reducing mutual coupling does not guarantee an eventual reduction of the overall correlation and vice versa. In general, it is not a trivial task to reduce mutual coupling and correlation simultaneously in arbitrary multipath environments. In this correspondence, a planar metamaterial structure (PMS) and an array-antenna decoupling surface (ADS) are applied to the antenna array for simultaneous reductions of correlations and mutual couplings. The PMS comprises regularly arranged metamaterial elements holding certain transmission features. The ADS placed between the PMS and array is a substrate with printed rectangular metal strips. A 1 × 4 patch array is taken as an example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. According to the simulated and measured results, the combination of PMS and ADS can work together without interfering or affecting the matching condition of the antennas. As a result, the mutual coupling and overall correlation between the antenna elements are reduced in a general multipath environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralized baseband processing (DBP) architecture, which partitions the base station antennas into multiple antenna clusters, has been recently proposed to alleviate the excessively high interconnect bandwidth, chip input/output data rates, and detection complexity for massive multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. In this paper, we propose a novel decentralized Gaussian message passing (GMP) detection for the DBP architecture. Based on the message passing rule, each antenna cluster iteratively calculated the local means and variances which are fused to generate the global symbol beliefs for demodulation. The state evolution framework of the decentralized GMP algorithm is presented under the assumptions of large-system limit and Gaussian sources. Analytical results corroborated by simulations demonstrate that the nonuniform antenna cluster partition scheme exhibits a higher convergence rate than the uniform counterpart. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed decentralized GMP detection outperforms the recently proposed decentralized algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a switched multibeam multi-sector array antenna is proposed to provide 3-D coverage for vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) under 5G-IoT application framework. The multi-sector design is optimized using a quality-conscious communication area synthesis process to achieve $\mathbf {360}^\circ$ coverage in azimuth. Each sector of the design has two microstrip array antenna (MAA) to obtain coverage in the upper and lower halves of the elevation region. The proposed antenna is designed to enhance frequency-dependent beam squint phenomena exploited to achieve multibeam coverage in the elevation region. The simulation results of the proposed antenna having $\mathbf {3\times 2}$ size of MAA indicates the achieved desired radiation characteristics, and a prototype of the same operating in WLAN band ($\mathbf {5.15-5.825}$ GHz) is fabricated for verification. The experimental results show the maximum realized gain is $\mathbf {7.85}$ dBi and the beam tilt of $\mathbf {10.8}^\circ$ to $\mathbf {46.8}^\circ$ in elevation is achieved at central frequencies $\mathbf {5.15}$ GHz and $\mathbf {5.825}$ GHz, respectively. The coverage obtained is $\mathbf {360}^\circ$ in azimuth and $\mathbf {93.6}^\circ$ in elevation. The signal to interference ratio is measured around the antenna, which shows interference suppression of more than $\mathbf {10}$ dB achieved between the MAAs of alternate sectors. Moreover, the port isolation is better than $\mathbf {26}$ dB. Hence, sixteen simultaneous beams utilizing frequency re-use can be operated in the 3-D space around the access point to communicate with multiple drones/vehicles and IoT nodes to realize a smart vehicular application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) constitutes an essential and promising paradigm that relies programmable wireless environment and provides capability for space-intensive communications, due to the use of low-cost massive reflecting elements over the entire surfaces of man-made structures. However, accurate channel estimation is a fundamental technical prerequisite to achieve the huge performance gains from RIS. By leveraging the low rank structure of RIS channels, three practical residual neural networks, named convolutional blind denoising network, convolutional denoising generative adversarial networks and multiple residual dense network, are proposed to obtain accurate channel state information, which can reflect the impact of different methods on the estimation performance. Simulation results reveal the evolution direction of these three methods and reveal their superior performance compared with existing benchmark schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a gain enhanced wide azimuth beam automotive antenna using half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) cavity for automotive applications. The antenna is separated into two HMSIW cavities by electrical via walls. The two HMSIW cavities are excited through differential feeding, including a 180 $^{\circ }$ delay line in the center of the antenna. The antenna was operated in $TM_{11}$ mode and investigated using aperture theory based on the cavity model. The antenna size is small enough to mount in the rear-view mirror, which has a long rectangular shape. For comparison, the proposed antenna and a conventional 1 × 2 microstrip square patch antenna array were fabricated to the same dimensions. Then, these antennas were tested to provide validation. The tested results were consistent with the simulation results. The tested results show that the antenna, with the overall dimensions of 70 mm × 35 mm × 1.52 mm (1.38 $\lambda _{0}$ × 0.69 $\lambda _{0}$ × 0.03 $\lambda _{0}$), operates at 5.9 GHz. The gain of the antenna is 9.49 dB, and the azimuth beam width is 74.0 $^{\circ }$. The proposed antenna has a wider azimuth beam width (74.0 $^{\circ }$) than a conventional 1 × 2 square patch array antenna (42.0 $^{\circ }$) with similar gain and size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet stringent service requirements in 5G at reasonable CapEx/OpEx, multi radio unit (RU) joint transmission has gained great attention. Optimal precoding design is a main concern in multi-RU joint transmission. In this paper, a new multi-RU joint precoding scheme is newly designed for sum-r ate-maximization with a minimum rate guarantee constraint under imperfect channel estimation. Owing to non-convexity of minimum rate guarantee constraints which causes huge computational complexity, we decouple the non-convex rate guarantee constraint into two convex constraints; desired signal constraint and interference constraint. And then, we propose a computationally efficient algorithm to find the suboptimal solution by iteratively solving two convex suboptimization problems. Through intensive simulations, the performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated and found to be superior compared with two previous schemes as well as the small-cell base station (SBS) transmission scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terahertz (THz) communication is foreseen to be a key technology for the 6G wireless communications. In this paper, the performance of downlink Terahertz (THz) communication systems with low-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) at the Access Point (AP) and/or finite-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) at the user sides are investigated. Array-of-subarrays architecture is assumed at the AP, where each RF chain uniquely activates a disjoint subset of antennas, each of which is connected to an exclusive phase shifter. Hybrid precodings including maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing (ZF) precoding are considered. The best beamsteering direction for the phase shifters in the large subarray antenna regime is first proved to be the direction of the line-of-sight (LOS) path. Subsequently, the closed-form expression of the lower-bound of the achievable rate in the large subarray antenna regime is derived, which is the same for both MRT and ZF and is independent of the transmit power. Moreover, numerical results show that the rate loss caused by the phase uncertainties can be negligible in large subarray antenna regime and moderate resolution DACs and ADCs can achieve performance close to the infinite-resolution one. Numerical results validating the analysis are provided as well. Overall, the impact of finite-bit precoding and finite-bit ADCs on the achievable rate of indoor THz communication systems is characterized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectrum efficiency is a critical performance metric in wireless communications due to an increasing demand for radio spectrum to support high data rate applications. Direct sequence spread spectrum technology enables a code division multiple access (CDMA) system a strong anti-interference capability but with a relatively low spectrum efficiency. To address this issue, complementary coded scrambling multiple access (CCSMA) (X. Liu et al., in 2018) was proposed to use three-dimensional (space-time-frequency) resources for performance enhancement. However, in a CCSMA system, if the number of multipath returns is larger than the number of transmit (Tx) antennas, a code reuse problem occurs to degrade bit error rate performance significantly. This work designs a new scrambling code, namely generalized complementary coded scrambling multiple access (GCCSMA) codes, to overcome the code reuse problem in CCSMA. GCCSMA uses complementary codes, scrambling modulation, and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques jointly, which works well even in multipath channels with more paths than the number of Tx antennas. The analysis and simulations are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed GCCSMA system. [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 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled wireless powered communication network, where a UAV serves multiple energy constrained wireless sensor nodes (WSNs). In such a network, a UAV transmits wireless power to a group of WSNs which exploits the harvested power to transfer their own information towards the UAV in the uplink. For practical scenarios, a nonlinear energy harvesting saturation model is considered at WSNs. We aim to design resource allocation which maximizes the achievable sum rate in the uplink and minimizes the downlink transmit power simultaneously. The design is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP) which optimizes the UAV's 3D position, its transmit power, the time splitting ratio, the uplink transmission time and the beamwidth angle of the UAV. The formulated problem is a non-convex problem which is generally intractable. To address the MOOP, a weighted Tchebycheff method is proposed. The numerical results show a trade-off between the minimum power in the downlink and the maximum rate as well as energy efficiency in the uplink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel generalized space-code index modulation (GSCIM) scheme for spectrum-efficient and energy-saving transmission. In our proposed scheme, the input information bits are transmitted not only by modulated symbols, but also by the activated transmit antennas pattern and the selected spreading code patterns for the in-phase and quadrature components. Due to the increase of the index dimension, more information bits can be implicitly transmitted, which can improve energy efficiency and have a higher data rate compared with spatial modulation (SM), generalized SM (GSM), generalized CIM-aided SM (GCIM-SM) and CIM-aided quadrature spatial modulation (CIM-QSM). In order to further reduce the complexity of despreading-based maximum likelihood (ML) detection, we propose an enhanced low-complexity detector that can achieve near-ML error performance. An analytical upper bound on the average bit error probability associated with the optimal ML detection is derived, which is verified by simulation results. Simulation results also show that the proposed GSCIM scheme outperforms SM, GSM, GCIM-SM and CIM-QSM schemes in terms of error performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel low-profile wideband antenna is proposed with high-gain, high-isolated, and dual-polarized properties. It consists of two mutually-orthogonal bowtie-shaped dipole radiators, four rectangular parasitic elements, and a cylindrical artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) cavity. By introducing parasitic elements, additional resonance is generated, and the bandwidth is widened. The gain is mainly improved by the cylindrical metallic wall and wideband AMC of the cavity. The AMC operates in ±90o reflection phase band-gap bandwidth of 2.35-4.25 GHz, and its equivalent circuit model is developed to understand the working mechanism. The orthogonal placement of two dipole radiators ensures polarization diversity and high isolation. The impacts of various environmental conditions on antenna performance are investigated. To verify the concept of design and demonstrate its excellent performance features, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The proposed wideband antenna has a height of 0.18 wavelength at the center frequency. The measured -10-dB impedance bandwidth is from 2.16 to 3.96 GHz, where the realized gain is 8.34-10.96 dBi and the radiation efficiency is more than 81.8%. High isolation of > 28.65 dB and low envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) of < 2.74 × 10-3 are also achieved between antenna elements. It can be used in the base station for intelligent Internet of Vehicle (IoV) applications, covering the bands of WLAN, WiMAX, Bluetooth, LTE, and 5G sub-6 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differential modulation schemes are very relevant in receivers having power and processing limitations, as these schemes dispense with the need for knowledge of channel coefficients for symbol detection. Spatial modulation (SM) is a scheme used in multi-antenna transmission scenarios where the data is transmitted in the amplitude, phase and spatial domains through selected antennas. In the coherent domain, generalized SM (GSM) employs multiple antennas in combination during every time slot to enhance the spectral efficiency (SE). In this paper, we propose two differential schemes which activate two or more antennas at a time to transmit the modulated symbol. These schemes achieve higher SE using a lesser number of antennas and lower order modulation schemes instead of the higher number of antennas required for conventional SM schemes based on differential modulation. Simulation studies reveal that the proposed schemes have better bit error rate performance than traditional differential SM schemes. We also derive the analytical union bound for the proposed schemes and is satisfied from medium to high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to the short wavelength at high frequency (HF), it is promising to combine massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) with HF communications. In particular, HF massive MIMO differs from the conventional MIMO in array structure and radio propagation. In this paper, we investigate the HF massive MIMO system with a compact planar array (CPA) deployed at the base station (BS) in the presence of electromagnetic mutual coupling (MC) for the asymptotic case under unlimited antenna elements assumption. Specifically, the HF sparse channel is analyzed asymptotically to show that the randomness characteristic of channel decreases in the asymptotic regime, which is conducive to the design of communication systems. Moreover, on the basis of the asymptotic analysis results, the optimal beamforming to maximize the minimum user signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) is derived by applying random matrix theory. Numerical results verify the accuracy of the asymptotic analysis, indicate the performance superiority of the proposed scheme to the traditional minimum mean squared error (MMSE) and maximum ratio transmission (MRT) schemes, and reveal the robustness of the proposal to electromagnetic MC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is known that interference alignment (IA) plays an important role in improving the degree of freedom (DoF) of multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) systems. However, most of the traditional IA schemes suffer from the high computational complexity and require the global and instantaneous channel state information (CSI), both of which make them difficult to be extended to cellular MIMO systems. To handle these issues, two new IA schemes, i.e., the retrospective interference regeneration (RIR) scheme and the beamforming based distributed retrospective interference alignment (B-DRIA) scheme, are proposed for cellular $K$ -user MIMO downlink networks. For the RIR scheme, it adopts interference elimination algorithm to erase redundant symbols in inter-cell interference (ICI) signals, and then uses interference regeneration algorithm to avoid secondary interference. The RIR scheme obtains greater DoF gain than the retrospective interference alignment (RIA) scheme, but incurs performance degradation when the transceiver antennas ratio (TAR) approaches 1. Therefore, the B-DRIA scheme is further proposed. For the B-DRIA scheme, the cellular beamforming matrix is introduced to eliminate the ICI, and meanwhile distributed RIA algorithm is adopted to align inter-user interference (IUI). The simulation results show that the B-DRIA scheme obtains larger DoF than the RIR scheme locally. Specifically, when TAR approaches 1, two schemes obtain the same DoF. While TAR approaches 2, the DoF of the B-DRIA scheme is superior than the RIR scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple signal classification (MUSIC) has been widely applied in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) receivers for direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. To reduce the cost of radio frequency (RF) chains at millimeter-wave bands, hybrid analog-digital structure has been adopted in massive MIMO transceivers. In this situation, received signals at the antennas are unavailable to the digital receiver, and as a consequence, the spatial covariance matrix (SCM), which is essential in MUSIC algorithm, cannot be obtained using traditional sample average approach. Based on our previous work, we propose a novel algorithm for SCM reconstruction in hybrid massive MIMO systems with multiple RF chains in this paper. By switching the analog beamformers to a group of predetermined DOAs, SCM can be reconstructed through the solutions of a set of linear equations. Furthermore, a low-complexity algorithm, as well as a careful selection of the predetermined DOAs, will be also presented in this paper. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can reconstruct the SCM accurately so that MUSIC algorithm can be well used in hybrid massive MIMO systems with multiple RF chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a hybrid architecture called fully connected sub-array (FCSA) is considered for uplink data decoding with mutual coupling and space constraints at the base station (BS). The above architecture achieves the same system performance with a lower hardware complexity than a fully connected array. The packing of many antenna elements on a small surface area leads to the mutual coupling effect. Moreover, having antenna elements at the BS with finite directivity is more practical than having isotropic antenna elements at the BS. In the present work, we have considered uplink data decoding with dipole antennas arranged in a uniform planar array (UPA) grid at the BS with the error in separation between the antenna elements and mutual coupling as additional impairments. An approximate expression for the mutual coupling matrix (MCM) is derived and verified. A geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) for the channel is considered between the user equipment (UE) and the BS. The performance of the hybrid architecture in terms of spectral efficiency (SE) and bit error rate (BER) of the system, with the mutual coupling effect and antenna separation error, is analyzed. Numerical simulations show that when the BS has no information on the MCM, SE and the system's BER performances with the FCSA architecture degrade. In the absence of any information on the coupling effect, the system performs better when a more extensive array size is used at the BS. Both the SE and BER degraded when longer dipoles were used in the array. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aircraft cabins are one of the last venues without mobile broadband. Considering future 5G applications and connectivity requirements, direct air-to-ground communications (DA2GC) is the only technique which can provide high capacity and low latency backhaul link for aircraft via a direct communication link. To this end, we propose an analytical framework to investigate the ground station deployment problem for DA2GC network employing multi-user beamforming with dual-polarized hybrid DA2GC antenna arrays. In addition, the proposed framework is utilized to analyze and optimize the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the DA2GC network to provide coverage for European airspace. We present the interplay between different network parameters: the number of ground stations, array size, transmit power and bandwidth, and TCO optimizing deployment parameters are calculated in order to satisfy capacity requirements. At the end, we show that, depending on the cost of different network resources, a terrestrial cellular network can be designed to cover the whole European airspace with limited number of ground stations with a certain array size, i.e., 900 and 361 antenna elements for ground station and air station, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The safety of vulnerable road users is paramount, particularly as we move towards the widespread adoption of autonomous and self-driving vehicles. In this study, we investigate the use of a six-element distributed antenna system (DAS), operating at 5.8 GHz and mounted on the exterior (i.e., roof and wing mirrors) of an automobile, to enhance signal reliability for pedestrian-to-vehicle (P2V) communications. Due to its low complexity and ease of implementation, we consider the use of a switch-and-examine combining with post-examining selection (SECps) scheme to combine the signal received by the DAS. During our experiments, a pedestrian wearing a wireless device on their chest either stood stationary or walked by the side of a road. It was found that the overall signal reliability depends on not only the number, but also different groupings of the antennas which are selected. The goodness-of-fit results have shown that the temporal behavior of the diversity gain was adequately described by the Gaussian distribution. Building upon this, we also provide some useful insights into the antenna selection through the comparison of three different antenna selection mechanisms, namely per-sample random antenna selection, one-shot antenna selection and per-sample optimal antenna selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]