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The demanding objectives for the future sixth generation (6G) of wireless communication networks have spurred recent research efforts on novel materials and radio-frequency front-end architectures for wireless connectivity, as well as revolutionary communication and computing paradigms. Among the pioneering candidate technologies for 6G belong the reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), which are artificial planar structures with integrated electronic circuits that can be programmed to manipulate the incoming electromagnetic field in a wide variety of functionalities. Incorporating RISs in wireless networks have been recently advocated as a revolutionary means to transform any wireless signal propagation environment to a dynamically programmable one, intended for various networking objectives, such as coverage extension and capacity boosting, spatiotemporal focusing with benefits in energy efficiency and secrecy, and low electromagnetic field exposure. Motivated by the recent increasing interests in the field of RISs and the consequent pioneering concept of the RIS-enabled smart wireless environments, in this paper, we overview and taxonomize the latest advances in RIS hardware architectures as well as the most recent developments in the modeling of RIS unit elements and RIS-empowered wireless signal propagation. We also present a thorough overview of the channel estimation approaches for RIS-empowered communications systems, which constitute a prerequisite step for the optimized incorporation of RISs in future wireless networks. Finally, we discuss the relevance of the RIS technology in the latest wireless communication standards, and highlight the current and future standardization activities for the RIS technology and the consequent RIS-empowered wireless networking approaches.

Massive machine-type communications (mMTC) is envisioned to be one of the pivotal scenarios in the fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication, where the explosively emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications have triggered the demand for services with low-latency and high-reliability. To this end, grant-free random access paradigm has been proposed as a promising enabler in simplifying the connection procedure and significantly reducing access latency. In this paper, we propose to leverage the burgeoning reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) for grant-free massive access working at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency to further boost access reliability. By attaching independently controllable phase shifts, reconfiguring, and refracting the propagation of incident electromagnetic waves, the deployed RISs could provide additional diversity gain and enhance the access channel conditions. On this basis, to address the challenging active device detection (ADD) and channel estimation (CE) problem, we develop a joint-ADDCE (JADDCE) method by resorting to the existing approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm with expectation maximization (EM) to extract the structured common sparsity in traffic behaviors and cascaded channel matrices. Finally, simulations are carried out to demonstrate the superiority of our proposed scheme.

With the rapid development of computer technology and network communication technology, embedded micro control system has been widely used. It is crucial in the fields of large-scale chemical equipment, mechanized production base, transportation and future robots. Combined with the current Internet of Things technology, the equipment needs to be kept on the network during operation, real-time data comparison, data feedback, data reception and other network operations to provide strong help for human society. Focusing on the network communication level, due to the improvement of hardware and software technology, the basic link work has become the foundation part of realizing network communication, and the real problem is often the information transmission. For example, for wireless channel estimation and optimization based on embedded system, it is necessary to eliminate the interference of irresistible factors as far as possible, overview the defects in algorithm level and logic analysis level since the development of network communication technology, discuss the impact of network communication module of embedded monitoring system in practical application as far as possible, and make the error infinite to zero under the premise of unchanged hardware conditions. Based on the above conditions, the lightweight channel estimation method and the optimization under the condition of sparse matrix are proposed. This paper studies the network communication of embedded devices, especially the channel link in network communication, and focuses on the channel estimation algorithm. This paper proposes the advantages of LS and MMSE algorithms. According to the experimental results, although in terms of speed indicators, it still maintains better than the traditional algorithm in terms of average throughput, transmission delay, response time, transmission rate and so on in a static environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multipath propagation, mobility of transmitter, receiver and local scattering cause the signal to spread in frequency, time and angle, resulting in ISI in the received signal. Possible potential gain in spectral efficiency is challenged by the receiver's ability to accurately detect the symbol in the presence of ISI. Even though OFDM mitigates the problem of time dispersion, still it is necessary to effectively remove the amplitude/phase shift caused by channel and to solve this problem, channel estimation based equalization in the receiver, beam forming (BF) in the transmitter and relay in channel can be invoked. Among the various equalization methods for OFDM and Massive MIMO, minimum mean square error (MMSE) is considered to be a good solution for data recovery in spite of its complexity. MMSE can effectively utilize the diversity of the frequency selective channel and reduce the ISI. The MMSE equalization alone is not an efficient way of reduction of ISI, as the equalization is not carried out with the knowledge of channel impairments. To strengthen the effect of equalization for reducing ISI, channel estimation is used to estimate the amplitude/phase shift caused by the wireless channel impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their paper 'RIS-Assisted Secure UAV Communications with Resource Allocation and Cooperative Jamming', Guo et al. combine an RIS with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to improve the physical layer security of a wireless network. Current 5G wireless systems depend heavily on the quality of the wireless propagation environment, which had conventionally been modelled as an exogenous entity that can only be adapted and not controlled. This new vision of wireless network design is enabled by an emerging technology of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), also known as intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs). [Extracted from the article]

Aiming at the problem that existing channel estimation methods are unable to track the channel parameter variations within a single frame under continuous Doppler spread channel (CoDSC) which leads to serious estimation errors, this paper proposes a basis expansion model (BEM) orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) channel estimation method based on Cluster-Pruning Stagewise Weak Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (CP-SWOMP). This method first uses a discrete prolate spheroidal sequences (DPSS) as a basis function to model the channel response, converting the underdetermined channel estimation into a sparse reconstruction problem with basis coefficients. Then the basis coefficients are solved for using compressed sensing methods, the nearest neighbor clustering criterion is introduced into the Stagewise Weak Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (SWOMP) algorithm, and the atoms of the iterative intermediate process are subjected to a quadratic pruning operation, which solves the redundancy problem of the support set and improves the reconstruction accuracy. In this paper, multiple methods are simulated and validated at different normalized Doppler frequency, and the results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve better normalized mean square error (NMSE) and bit error rate (BER) performance with less pilot overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, we proposed the modified delay and Doppler profiler (mDDP) as an inter-carrier interference (ICI) countermeasure for underwater acoustic orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) mobile communications in a multipath environment. However, the performance improvement in the computer simulation and pool experiments was not significant. In a subsequent study, the accuracy of the channel transfer function (CTF), which is the input for the mDDP channel parameter estimation, was considered insufficient. Then a sequential ICI canceling mDDP was devised. This paper presents simulations of underwater OFDM communications using an iterative one- to three-step mDDP. The non-reflective pool experiment conditions are a two-wave multipath environment where the receiving transducer moves at a speed of 0.25 m/s and is subjected to a Doppler shift in the opposite direction. As NumCOL, the number of taps in the multitap equalizer which removes ICI, was increased, the bit error rate (BER) of 0.0526661 at NumCOL = 1 was significantly reduced by a factor of approximately 45 to a BER of 0.0011655 at NumCOL = 51 for the sequential ICI canceling mDDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future Terahertz communications exhibit significant potential in accommodating ultra-high-rate services. Employing extremely large-scale array antennas is a key approach to realize this potential, as they can harness substantial beamforming gains to overcome the severe path loss and leverage the electromagnetic advantages in the near field. This paper proposes novel estimation methods designed to enhance efficiency in Terahertz widely-spaced multi-subarray (WSMS) systems. Initially, we introduce three sparse channel representation methods: polar-domain representation (PD-R), multi-angular-domain representation (MAD-R), and two-dimensional polar-angular-domain representation (2D-PAD-R). Each method is meticulously developed for near-field WSMS channels, capitalizing on their sparsity characteristics. Building on this, we propose four estimation frameworks using the sparse recovery theory: polar-domain estimation (PD-E), multi-angular-domain estimation (MAD-E), two-stage polar-angular-domain estimation (TS-PAD-E), and two-dimensional polar-angular-domain estimation (2D-PAD-E). Particularly, 2D-PAD-E, integrating a 2D dictionary process, and TS-PAD-E, with its sequential approach to angle and distance estimation, stand out as particularly effective for near-field angle-distance estimation, enabling decoupled calculation of these parameters. Overall, these frameworks provide versatile and efficient solutions for WSMS channel estimation, balancing low complexity with high-performance outcomes. Additionally, they represent a fresh perspective on near-field signal processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expected development of the future generation of wireless communications systems such as 6G aims to achieve an ultrareliable and low-latency communications (URLLCs) while maximizing the data rates. These requirements push research into developing new advanced technologies. To this end, massive multiple input multiple output (MMIMO) is introduced as a promising transmission approach to fulfill these requirements. However, maximizing the downlink-achievable sum rate (DASR) in MMIMO with a frequency division duplex (FDD) transmission mode and limited coherence time (LCT) is very challenging. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a DASR maximization approach using a feasible power allocation optimization method. The proposed approach is based on smartly allocating the total transmit power between the data transmission and training sequence transmission for channel estimation. This can be achieved by allocating more energy to the training signal than the data transmission during the channel estimation process to improve the quality of channel estimation without compromising more training sequence length, thus maximizing the DASR. Additionally, the theory of random matrix approach is exploited to derive an asymptotic closed-form expression for the DASR with a regularized zero-forcing precoder (RZFP), which allows the power optimization process to be achieved without the need for computationally complex Monte Carlo simulations. The results provided in this paper indicate that a considerable enhancement in the DASR performance is achieved using the proposed power allocation method in comparison with the conventional uniform power allocation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the issue of selecting the transmission power (energy per symbol) to minimize the expected energy required to successfully deliver a link-layer packet to the destination node in a wireless link performing the automatic repeat request. We consider the system that has a slow-fading channel and employs a minimum mean square error-based channel estimation scheme for a pilot symbol-assisted modulation. We derive a closed-form expression for the packet error probability (PkEP) in the presence of channel estimation error, and we use this expression for minimizing the PkEP in allocating the transmission energy among the pilot and data symbols. We also derive the expected energy required to successfully deliver a link-layer packet as a function of the transmission power and present an optimization method based on the properties of this function. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In vehicular communications, channel estimation is a complex problem due to the joint time–frequency selectivity of wireless propagation channels. To this end, several signal processing techniques as well as approaches based on neural networks have been proposed to address this issue. Due to the highly dynamic and random nature of vehicular communication environments, precise characterization of temporal correlation across a received data sequence can enable more accurate channel estimation. This paper proposes a new pilot constellation scheme in combination with a small feed‐forward neural network to improve the accuracy of channel estimation in V2X systems while keeping low the implementation complexity. The performance is evaluated in typical vehicular channels using simulated BER curves, and it is found superior to traditional channel estimation methods and state‐of‐the‐art neural‐network‐based implementations such as feed‐forward and super‐resolution. It is illustrated that the improvement becomes pronounced for small subcarrier spacings (or low 5G numerologies); hence, this paper contributes to the development of more reliable mobile services across rapidly varying vehicular communication channels with rich multi‐path interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

End-to-end systems have been introduced to address the issue of independent signal processing module design in traditional communication systems, which prevents achieving global system optimization. However, research on indoor end-to-end Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems remains limited, especially regarding the channel modeling of high-speed, high-capacity Direct Current-biased Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) systems. This paper proposes three channel modeling methods for end-to-end DCO-OFDM VLC systems. The accuracy of the proposed methods is demonstrated through R-Square model fitting performance and data distribution analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed channel modeling methods is further validated by comparing the bit error rate (BER) performance of traditional receivers and existing deep learning (DL)-based receivers. The results show that the proposed methods can effectively mitigate both linear and nonlinear distortions. By employing these channel modeling methods, communication systems can reduce the spectral occupancy of pilot signals, thereby significantly lowering the complexity of traditional channel estimation methods. Thus, these methods are suitable for use in end-to-end VLC communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates single-user uplink and two-user downlink channel estimation in reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. Because of the difficulty associated with the estimation of channels in RIS-aided wireless communication systems, channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be known at the receiver in some previous works in the literature. By assuming that prior knowledge of the line-of-sight (LoS) channel between the RIS and the base station (BS) is known, two compressive sensing-based channel estimation schemes that are based on simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit and structured matching pursuit (StrMP) algorithms are proposed for estimation of uplink channel between RIS and user equipment (UE), and joint estimations of downlink channels between BS and a UE, and between RIS and another UE, respectively. The proposed channel estimation schemes exploit the inherent common sparsity shared by the angular domain mmWave channels at different subcarriers. The superiority of one of the proposed channel estimation techniques, the StrMP-based channel estimation technique, with negligibly higher computational complexity cost compared with other channel estimators, is documented through extensive computer simulation. Specifically, with a reduced pilot overhead, the proposed StrMP-based channel estimation scheme exhibits better performance than other channel estimation schemes considered in this paper for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between 0 dB and 5 dB upward at different instances for both uplink and downlink scenarios, respectively. However, below these values of SNR the proposed StrMP-based channel estimation scheme will require higher pilot overhead to perform optimally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) is considered a key factor in driving the future development of intelligent transport, which requires high-quality communication and fast sensing of vehicle information in high-speed mobile scenarios. However, high-speed mobility makes the wireless channel change rapidly, which requires frequent channel estimation and channel feedback between a vehicle and the roadside unit (RSU), resulting in an increase in communication overhead. At the same time, the high maneuverability of vehicles leads to frequent switching and misalignment of communication beams, so the RSU must have better beam prediction and tracking capabilities. To address this problem, this paper proposes an adaptive frame structure design scheme for sensing-assisted downlink (DL) communication. The basic idea of the scheme involves analyzing the communication model during the vehicle's movement. This analysis aims to establish a theoretical relationship between the Symbol Error Rate (SER) and the following two key factors: the vehicle's starting position and the distance it travels across. Subsequently, the scheme leverages the vehicle's position data, as detected by the RSU, to calculate the real-time SER for DL communication. The SER threshold is set based on the requirements of DL communication. If the real-time SER is below this threshold, channel estimation becomes unnecessary. This decreases the frequency of channel estimation and frees up time and frequency resources that would otherwise be occupied by channel estimation processes within the frame structure. The design of an adaptive frame structure, as detailed in the above scheme, is presented. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed method is analyzed and compared with that of the traditional communication protocol frame structure and the beam prediction-based frame structure. The simulation results indicate that the communication throughput of the proposed method can be improved by up to 6% compared with the traditional communication protocol frame structure while maintaining SER performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network load in mobile networks is continuously growing, putting pressure on mobile operators to deliver target network performance and user experience. This paper focuses on network capacity improvement through increased spectral efficiency, which can be achieved with overhead reduction by optimizing the demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) configuration, which is one of the channels/reference signals with the largest contribution to overhead. In a high-speed scenario, the Doppler effect noticeably influences the temporal nature of the channel such that a channel interpolation process is required within a slot. However, increasing the number of symbols used for DM-RS has a negative impact on capacity. The Doppler effect was analyzed for various 5G NR configurations of operating frequency and subcarrier spacing (SCS), and various use cases were considered using user equipment (UE) speed as the main parameter. For suitable use cases, the DM-RS configuration was optimized in networks with live traffic. The impact of the configuration change on 5G/NR spectral efficiency, user experience and link adaptation performance was assessed through a deep-dive analysis of active measurements, available performance Management (PM) counters and key performance indicators. An optimized DM-RS configuration is proposed, and it is demonstrated to achieve gains of 5–15%, depending on the metric used, use case analyzed, network load, traffic mix and other relevant network characteristics such as topology and clutter type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Channel estimation accuracy significantly affects the performance of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In the literature, there are quite a few channel estimation methods. However, the performances of these methods deteriorate considerably when the wireless channels suffer from nonlinear distortions and interferences. Machine learning (ML) shows great potential for solving nonparametric problems. This paper proposes ML-based channel estimation methods for systems with comb-type pilot patterns and random pilot symbols, such as ATSC 3.0. We compare their performances with conventional channel estimations in ATSC 3.0 systems for linear and nonlinear channel models. We also evaluate the robustness of the ML-based methods against channel model mismatch and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) mismatch. The results show that the ML-based channel estimations achieve good mean squared error (MSE) performance for linear and nonlinear channels if the channel statistics used for the training stage match those of the deployment stage. Otherwise, the ML estimation models may overfit the training channel, leading to poor deployment performance. Furthermore, the deep neural network (DNN)-based method does not outperform the linear channel estimation methods in nonlinear channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underwater acoustic channels often have to face the interference of impulsive noise, which is usually modeled by α-stable distribution in simulation experiments. To solve the problem of underwater acoustic channel estimation under impulsive noise, this paper proposes a convex combination–variable-step-size least mean p-norm algorithm. The algorithm incorporates a convex combination into the variable-step-size least mean p-norm algorithm and uses the convex combination of different convergence domains provided by changing the parameters of the Gaussian function to further improve the effect after convergence. The simulation results of channel estimation show that the convex combination–variable-step-size least mean p-norm algorithm provides a more stable, robust, and universal solution than the variable-step-size least mean p-norm algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of information technology construction, the integration of radar and communication represents a crucial technological evolution. Driven by the research boom of integrated sensing and communications (ISACs), some scholars have proposed utilizing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to separately modulate radar and communication signals. However, the OFDM symbols in this paper incorporate a cyclic prefix (CP) and a virtual carrier (VC) instead of zero padding (ZP). This approach mitigates out-of-band power caused by ZP, in addition to reducing adjacent channel interference (ACI). In addition, we introduce low-density parity-check (LDPC) and use an improved normalized min-sum algorithm (NMSA) in decoding. The enhanced decoding efficiency and minimized system errors render the proposed waveform more suitable for complex environments. In terms of signal processing methods, this paper continues to use radar signals as a priori information to participate in channel estimation. Further, we consider the symbol timing offset (STO) and carrier frequency offset (CFO) issues. In order to obtain more reliable data, we use the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) estimation based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to evaluate the channel. Simulation experiments verify that the system we propose not only realizes the transmission and detection functions but also improves the performance index of the integrated signal, such as the bit error rate (BER) of 7 × 10−5, the peak side lobe ratio (PSLR) of −13.81 dB, and the integrated side lobe ratio (ISLR) of −8.98 dB at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 10 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multi-antenna systems, advanced techniques such as massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), beamforming, and beam selection depend heavily on the accurate acquisition of the channel state. However, pilot contamination (PC) can be a major source of interference which degrades they are performance. Moreover, the severity of PC increases as more pilots are reused between users in the wireless systems. Researchers have shown that PC can be mitigated by using deep learning (DL) approaches. Nevertheless, when minimizing PC, the examination that identifies the applications and factors that distinguish these DL approaches is still limited. This paper reviews these DL approaches and the improvements needed to enhance their performance. Simulation results confirm that DL networks that learn to predict the channels directly have superior performance under PC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a downlink channel estimation method intended for a Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) access link. Due to its low computational complexity, this method is well suited for energy-efficient IoT devices, still providing acceptable reception quality in terms of signal-to-noise (SNR) performance. This paper describes the physical layer of NB-IoT within the scope of channel estimation, and also reviews existing channel estimation methods for OFDM signals. The proposed method, based on linear interpolation of channel coefficients, is described as a three-step procedure. Next, indicators of channel quality assessment, which may be determined without prior knowledge about the transmitted signal, are defined. Two variants of channel estimation, differing in the frequency domain processing, are evaluated to assess the significance of frequency selectivity in an NB-IoT downlink. The chosen method is compared with another method implemented in MATLAB LTE ToolboxTM. An analysis of the computation time is conducted, subsequently demonstrating the definite advantage of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the first version of the fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR) standard with massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been finished by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), with initial deployments occurring in 2018. Despite the major advances in 5G, there are still many challenges remaining. 6G and beyond will require even higher data rates, lower latencies, better energy efficiency, and improved robustness. Multiple antenna technologies, which have played important roles in nearly all recent wireless standards, will be key to addressing these challenges. MIMO research continues to evolve, and new MIMO research topics such as enhanced massive MIMO techniques and array architectures hold much potential for 6G and beyond. Cell-free massive MIMO utilize a large number of distributed access points (APs) that jointly serve users in a coordinated fashion, using only local channel state information at each AP. While the performance of cell-free massive MIMO can be analyzed using a similar methodology as in cellular massive MIMO, the fundamental limits, signal processing, and resource allocation are substantially different. In order to reduce the hardware cost and energy consumption in millimeter wave (mmWave) massive MIMO systems, beamspace MIMO has been proposed to significantly reduce the number of required radio-frequency (RF) chains by using lens antenna arrays or phase shifters. Alternatively, the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) concept involves electromagnetically controllable surfaces that can be integrated into large-scale infrastructure such as building walls, airports, and stadiums. There are active and partially passive forms of large intelligent surface (LIS), and variants with either large antenna spacing or continuous aperture. There are also some substantial differences between the new multiple antenna technologies and traditional MIMO systems, such as transceiver design and propagation models. This special issue aims to highlight recent research on multiple antenna technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]