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The advent of the sixth-generation (6G) networks presents another round of revolution for the mobile communication landscape, promising an immersive experience, robust reliability, minimal latency, extreme connectivity, ubiquitous coverage, and capabilities beyond communication, including intelligence and sensing. To achieve these ambitious goals, it is apparent that 6G networks need to incorporate the state-of-the-art technologies. One of the technologies that has garnered rising interest is fluid antenna system (FAS) which represents any software-controllable fluidic, conductive, or dielectric structure capable of dynamically changing its shape and position to reconfigure essential radio-frequency (RF) characteristics. Compared to traditional antenna systems (TASs) with fixed-position radiating elements, the core idea of FAS revolves around the unique flexibility of reconfiguring the radiating elements within a given space. One recent driver of FAS is the recognition of its position-flexibility as a new degree of freedom (dof) to harness diversity and multiplexing gains. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive tutorial, covering channel modeling, signal processing and estimation methods, information-theoretic insights, new multiple access techniques, and hardware designs. Moreover, we delineate the challenges of FAS and explore the potential of using FAS to improve the performance of other contemporary technologies. By providing insights and guidance, this tutorial paper serves to inspire researchers to explore new horizons and fully unleash the potential of FAS., Comment: 50 pages, 45 figures, 5 tables. Submitted for potential publication

Fluid Antenna Systems (FASs) have recently been proposed for enhancing the performance of wireless communication. Previous antenna designs to meet the requirements of FAS have been based on mechanically movable or liquid antennas and therefore have limited reconfiguration speeds. In this paper, we propose a design for a pixel-based reconfigurable antenna (PRA) that meets the requirements of FAS and the required switching speed. It can provide 12 FAS ports across 1/2 wavelength and consists of an E-slot patch antenna and an upper reconfigurable pixel layer with 6 RF switches. Simulation and experimental results from a prototype operating at 2.5 GHz demonstrate that the design can meet the requirements of FAS including port correlation with matched impedance., Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures, Submitted to IEEE Transations on Antennas and Propagation

While multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technologies continue to advance, concerns arise as to how MIMO can remain scalable if more users are to be accommodated with an increasing number of antennas at the base station (BS) in the upcoming sixth generation (6G). Recently, the concept of fluid antenna system (FAS) has emerged, which promotes position flexibility to enable transmitter channel state information (CSI) free spatial multiple access on one radio frequency (RF) chain. On the theoretical side, the fluid antenna multiple access (FAMA) approach offers a scalable alternative to massive MIMO spatial multiplexing. However, FAMA lacks experimental validation and the hardware implementation of FAS remains a mysterious approach. The aim of this paper is to provide a novel hardware design for FAS and evaluate the performance of FAMA using experimental data. Our FAS design is based on a dynamically reconfigurable "fluid" radiator which is capable of adjusting its position within a predefined space. One single-channel fluid antenna (SCFA) and one double-channel fluid antenna (DCFA) are designed, electromagnetically simulated, fabricated, and measured. The measured radiation patterns of prototypes are imported into channel and network models for evaluating their performance in FAMA. The experimental results demonstrate that in the 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands (24-30 GHz), the FAS prototypes can vary their gain up to an averaged value of 11 dBi. In the case of 4-user FAMA, the double-channel FAS can significantly reduce outage probability by 57% and increases the multiplexing gain to 2.27 when compared to a static omnidirectional antenna., Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

This letter investigates the performance of content caching in a heterogeneous cellular network (HetNet) consisting of fluid antenna system (FAS)-equipped mobile users (MUs) and millimeter-wave (mm-wave) single-antenna small base stations (SBSs), distributed according to the independent homogeneous Poisson point processes (HPPP). In particular, it is assumed that the most popular contents are cached in the SBSs to serve the FAS-equipped MUs requests. To assess the system performance, we derive compact expressions for the successful content delivery probability (SCDP) and the content delivery delay (CDD) using the Gauss-Laguerre quadrature technique. Our numerical results show that the performance of cache-enabled mm-wave HetNets can be greatly improved, when the FAS is utilized at the MUs instead of traditional fixed-antenna system deployment.

This letter investigates the application of the emerging fluid antenna (FA) technology in multiuser communication systems when side information (SI) is available at the transmitters. In particular, we consider a K-user dirty multiple access channel (DMAC) with non-causally known SI at the transmitters, where K users send independent messages to a common receiver with a FA capable of changing its location depending on the channel condition. By connecting Jakes' model to copula theory through Spearman's {\rho} rank correlation coefficient, we accurately describe the spatial correlation between the FA channels, and derive a closed-form expression for the outage probability (OP) under Fisher-Snedecor F fading. Numerical results illustrate how considering FA can improve the performance of multiuser communication systems in terms of the OP and also support a large number of users using only one FA at the common receiver in a few wavelengths of space.

This paper investigates the performance of a single-user fluid antenna system (FAS), by exploiting a class of elliptical copulas to describe the dependence structure amongst the fluid antenna positions (ports). By expressing the well-known Jakes' model in terms of the Gaussian copula, we consider two cases: (i) the general case, i.e., any arbitrary correlated fading distribution; and (ii) the specific case, i.e., correlated Nakagami-$m$ fading. For both scenarios, we first derive analytical expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the equivalent channel in terms of multivariate normal distribution. Then we obtain the outage probability (OP) and the delay outage rate (DOR) to analyze the performance of FAS. By employing the popular rank correlation coefficients such as Spearman's $\rho$ and Kendall's $\tau$ , we measure the degree of dependency in correlated arbitrary fading channels and illustrate how the Gaussian copula can be accurately connected to Jakes' model in FAS. Our numerical results demonstrate that increasing the size of FAS provides lower OP and DOR, but the system performance saturates as the number of antenna ports increases. In addition, our results indicate that FAS provides better performance compared to conventional single-fixed antenna systems even when the size of fluid antenna is small.

In this letter, we study the performance of a single-user fluid antenna system (FAS) under arbitrary fading distributions, in which the fading channel coefficients over the ports are correlated. We adopt copula theory to model the structure of dependency between fading coefficients. Specifically, we first derive an exact closed-from expression for the outage probability in the most general case, i.e., for any arbitrary choice of fading distribution and copula. Afterwards, for an important specific case, we analyze the performance of the outage probability under correlated Nakagami-$m$ fading channels by exploiting popular Archimedean copulas, namely, Frank, Clayton, and Gumbel. The results demonstrate that FAS outperforms the conventional single fixed-antenna system in terms of the outage probability. We also see that the spatial correlation dependency structure for the FAS is a key factor to determine its performance, which is natively captured through the choice of copula.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system has been the defining mobile communications technology in recent generations. With the ever-increasing demands looming towards the sixth generation (6G), we are in need of additional degrees of freedom that deliver further gains beyond MIMO. To this goal, fluid antenna system (FAS) has emerged as a new way to obtain spatial diversity using reconfigurable position-switchable antennas. Considering the case with more than one ports activated on a 2D fluid antenna surface at both ends, we take the information-theoretic approach to study the achievable performance limits of the MIMO-FAS. First of all, we propose a suboptimal scheme, referred to as QR MIMO-FAS, to maximize the rate at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) via joint port selection, transmit and receive beamforming and power allocation. We then derive the optimal diversity and multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) of MIMO-FAS. From the DMT, we highlight that MIMO-FAS outperforms traditional MIMO antenna systems. Further, we introduce a new metric, namely q-outage capacity, which can jointly consider rate and outage probability. Through this metric, our results indicate that MIMO-FAS surpasses traditional MIMO greatly., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables, 1 algorithm. Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

To enable innovative applications and services, both industry and academia are exploring new technologies for sixth generation (6G) communications. One of the promising candidates is fluid antenna system (FAS). Unlike existing systems, FAS is a novel communication technology where its antenna can freely change its position and shape within a given space. Compared to the traditional systems, this unique capability has the potential of providing higher diversity and interference-free communications. Nevertheless, the performance limits of FAS remain unclear as its system properties are difficult to analyze. To address this, we approximate the outage probability and diversity gain of FAS in closed-form expressions. We then propose a suboptimal FAS with $N^{*}$ ports, where a significant gain can be obtained over FAS with $N^{*}-1$ ports whilst FAS with $N^{*}+1$ ports only yields marginal improvement over the proposed suboptimal FAS. In this paper, we also provide analytical and simulation results to unfold the key factors that affect the performance of FAS. Limited to systems with one active radio frequency (RF)-chain, we show that the proposed suboptimal FAS outperforms single-antenna (SISO) system and selection combining (SC) system in terms of outage probability. Interestingly, when the given space is $\frac{\lambda}{2}$, the outage probability of the proposed suboptimal FAS with one active RF-chain achieves near to that of the maximal ratio combining (MRC) system with multiple active RF-chains., Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Fluid antenna system promises to obtain enormous diversity in the small space of a mobile device by switching the position of the radiating element to the most desirable position from a large number of prescribed locations of the given space. Previous researches have revealed the promising performance of fluid antenna systems if the position with the maximum received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is chosen. However, selecting the best position, referred to as port selection, requires a huge number of SNR observations from the ports and may prove to be infeasible. This letter tackles this problem by devising a number of fast port selection algorithms utilizing a combination of machine learning methods and analytical approximation when the system observes only a few ports. Simulation results illustrate that with only 10% of the ports observed, more than an order of magnitude reduction in the outage probability can be achieved. Even in the extreme cases where only one port is observed, considerable performance improvements are possible using the proposed algorithms., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to COMML

Fluid antenna is a novel technology that can make an antenna appear instantly at one of N preset locations in a predefined space. An important application is to adopt fluid antenna in a small space of mobile device for obtaining the tremendous diversity hidden in the small space. Previous results have revealed that a single-antenna fluid antenna system, even with a very small space, can outperform a multiple antenna maximum ratio combining (MRC) system if $N$ is large enough. This paper explores the potential of using fluid antenna for multiple access through performance analysis. Fluid antenna multiple access (FAMA) exploits moments of deep fade experienced by the interference to achieve a favourable channel condition for the desired signal, without requiring sophisticated signal processing. We analyze the FAMA system by first deriving the outage probability of the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) in a double integral form. We then obtain an outage probability upper bound in closed form and an average outage capacity lower bound for the FAMA system, with an arbitrary number of interferers, from which the multiplexing gain of FAMA is characterized. We also estimate how large N is required to achieve a given multiplexing gain using fluid antennas with a given size. Results illustrate that it is possible for FAMA to support hundreds of users using only one fluid antenna at each user in a few wavelengths of space, giving rise to significant enhancement in the network outage capacity., Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures

Complementary to traditional approaches that focus on transceiver design for bringing the best out of unstable, lossy fading channels, one radical development in wireless communications that has recently emerged is to pursue a smart radio environment by using software-defined materials or programmable metasurfaces for establishing favourable propagation conditions. This article portraits a vision of communication superhighways enabled by surface wave (SW) propagation on "smart surfaces" for future smart radio environments. The concept differs from the mainstream efforts of using passive elements on a large surface for bouncing off radio waves intelligently towards intended user terminals. In this vision, energy efficiency will be ultra-high, due to much less pathloss compared to free space propagation, and the fact that SW is inherently confined to the smart surface not only greatly simplifies the task of interference management, but also makes possible exceptionally localized high-speed interference-free data access. We shall outline the opportunities and associated challenges arisen from the SW paradigm. We shall also attempt to shed light on several key enabling technologies that make this realizable. One important technology which will be discussed is a software-controlled fluidic waveguiding architecture that permits dynamic creation of high-throughput data highways., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

Fluid antenna represents a concept where a mechanically flexible antenna can switch its location freely within a given space. Recently, it has been reported that even with a tiny space, a single-antenna fluid antenna system (FAS) can outperform an L-antenna maximum ratio combining (MRC) system in terms of outage probability if the number of locations (or ports) the fluid antenna can be switched to, is large enough. This letter aims to study if extraordinary capacity can also be achieved by FAS with a small space. We do this by deriving the ergodic capacity, and a capacity lower bound. This letter also derives the level crossing rate (LCR) and average fade duration (AFD) for the FAS., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Over the past decades, multiple antenna technologies have appeared in many different forms, most notably as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), to transform wireless communications for extraordinary diversity and multiplexing gains. The variety of technologies has been based on placing a number of antennas at fixed locations which dictates the fundamental limit on the achievable performance. By contrast, this paper envisages the scenario where the physical position of an antenna can be switched freely to one of the N positions over a fixed-length line space to pick up the strongest signal in the manner of traditional selection combining. We refer to this system as a fluid antenna system (FAS) for tremendous flexibility in its possible shape and position. The aim of this paper is to study the achievable performance of a single-antenna FAS system with a fixed length and N in arbitrarily correlated Rayleigh fading channels. Our contributions include exact and approximate closed-form expressions for the outage probability of FAS. We also derive an upper bound for the outage probability, from which it is shown that a single-antenna FAS given any arbitrarily small space can outperform an L-antenna maximum ratio combining (MRC) system if N is large enough. Our analysis also reveals the minimum required size of the FAS, and how large N is considered enough for the FAS to surpass MRC., Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures

This work considers the protograph-coded physical network coding (PNC) based on Alamouti space-time block coding (STBC) over Nakagami-fading two-way relay channels, in which both the two sources and relay possess two antennas. We first propose a novel precoding scheme at the two sources so as to implement the iterative decoder efficiently at the relay. We further address a simplified updating rule of the log-likelihood-ratio (LLR) in such a decoder. Based on the simplified LLR-updating rule and Gaussian approximation, we analyze the theoretical bit-error-rate (BER) of the system, which is shown to be consistent with the decoding thresholds and simulated results. Moreover, the theoretical analysis has lower computational complexity than the protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm. Consequently, the analysis not only provides a simple way to evaluate the error performance but also facilitates the design of the joint channel-and-PNC (JCNC) in wireless communication scenarios., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accpeted

In this paper, we investigate the error performance of the protograph (LDPC) codes over Nakagami-$m$ fading relay channels. We first calculate the decoding thresholds of the protograph codes over such channels with different fading depths (i.e., different values of $m$) by exploiting the modified protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm. Furthermore, based on the PEXIT analysis and using Gaussian approximation, we derive the bit-error-rate (BER) expressions for the error-free (EF) relaying protocol and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol. We finally compare the threshold with the theoretical BER and the simulated BER results of the protograph codes. It reveals that the performance of DF protocol is approximately the same as that of EF protocol. Moreover, the theoretical BER expressions, which are shown to be reasonably consistent with the decoding thresholds and the simulated BERs, are able to evaluate the system performance and predict the decoding threshold with lower complexity as compared to the modified PEXIT algorithm. As a result, this work can facilitate the design of the protograph codes for the wireless communication systems., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted, IET Commun., Apri. 2013