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Wireless Human-Machine Collaboration (WHMC) represents a critical advancement for Industry 5.0, enabling seamless interaction between humans and machines across geographically distributed systems. As the WHMC systems become increasingly important for achieving complex collaborative control tasks, ensuring their stability is essential for practical deployment and long-term operation. Stability analysis certifies how the closed-loop system will behave under model randomness, which is essential for systems operating with wireless communications. However, the fundamental stability analysis of the WHMC systems remains an unexplored challenge due to the intricate interplay between the stochastic nature of wireless communications, dynamic human operations, and the inherent complexities of control system dynamics. This paper establishes a fundamental WHMC model incorporating dual wireless loops for machine and human control. Our framework accounts for practical factors such as short-packet transmissions, fading channels, and advanced HARQ schemes. We model human control lag as a Markov process, which is crucial for capturing the stochastic nature of human interactions. Building on this model, we propose a stochastic cycle-cost-based approach to derive a stability condition for the WHMC system, expressed in terms of wireless channel statistics, human dynamics, and control parameters. Our findings are validated through extensive numerical simulations and a proof-of-concept experiment, where we developed and tested a novel wireless collaborative cart-pole control system. The results confirm the effectiveness of our approach and provide a robust framework for future research on WHMC systems in more complex environments., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

Wireless Networked Control Systems (WNCSs) are essential to Industry 4.0, enabling flexible control in applications, such as drone swarms and autonomous robots. The interdependence between communication and control requires integrated design, but traditional methods treat them separately, leading to inefficiencies. Current codesign approaches often rely on simplified models, focusing on single-loop or independent multi-loop systems. However, large-scale WNCSs face unique challenges, including coupled control loops, time-correlated wireless channels, trade-offs between sensing and control transmissions, and significant computational complexity. To address these challenges, we propose a practical WNCS model that captures correlated dynamics among multiple control loops with spatially distributed sensors and actuators sharing limited wireless resources over multi-state Markov block-fading channels. We formulate the codesign problem as a sequential decision-making task that jointly optimizes scheduling and control inputs across estimation, control, and communication domains. To solve this problem, we develop a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithm that efficiently handles the hybrid action space, captures communication-control correlations, and ensures robust training despite sparse cross-domain variables and floating control inputs. Extensive simulations show that the proposed DRL approach outperforms benchmarks and solves the large-scale WNCS codesign problem, providing a scalable solution for industrial automation., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

Machine learning has been considered a promising approach for indoor localization. Nevertheless, the sample efficiency, scalability, and generalization ability remain open issues of implementing learning-based algorithms in practical systems. In this paper, we establish a zero-shot learning framework that does not need real-world measurements in a new communication environment. Specifically, a graph neural network that is scalable to the number of access points (APs) and mobile devices (MDs) is used for obtaining coarse locations of MDs. Based on the coarse locations, the floor-plan image between an MD and an AP is exploited to improve localization accuracy in a floor-plan-aided deep neural network. To further improve the generalization ability, we develop a synthetic data generator that provides synthetic data samples in different scenarios, where real-world samples are not available. We implement the framework in a prototype that estimates the locations of MDs. Experimental results show that our zero-shot learning method can reduce localization errors by around $30$\% to $55$\% compared with three baselines from the existing literature.

Inter-carrier interference (ICI) caused by mobile reflectors significantly degrades the conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) performance in high-mobility environments. The orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation system effectively represents ICI in the delay-Doppler domain, thus significantly outperforming OFDM. Existing iterative and neural network (NN) based OTFS detectors suffer from high complex matrix operations and performance degradation in untrained environments, where the real wireless channel does not match the one used in the training, which often happens in real wireless networks. In this paper, we propose to embed the prior knowledge of interference extracted from the estimated channel state information (CSI) as a directed graph into a decoder untrained neural network (DUNN), namely graph-based DUNN (GDUNN). We then combine it with Bayesian parallel interference cancellation (BPIC) for OTFS symbol detection, resulting in GDUNN-BPIC. Simulation results show that the proposed GDUNN-BPIC outperforms state-of-the-art OTFS detectors under imperfect CSI.

This paper investigates guesswork over ordered statistics and formulates the complexity of ordered statistics decoding (OSD) in binary additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. It first develops a new upper bound of guesswork for independent sequences, by applying the Holder's inequity to Hamming shell-based subspaces. This upper bound is then extended to the ordered statistics, by constructing the conditionally independent sequences within the ordered statistics sequences. We leverage the established bounds to formulate the best achievable decoding complexity of OSD that ensures no loss in error performance, where OSD stops immediately when the correct codeword estimate is found. We show that the average complexity of OSD at maximum decoding order can be accurately approximated by the modified Bessel function, which increases near-exponentially with code dimension. We also identify a complexity saturation threshold, where increasing the OSD decoding order beyond this threshold improves error performance without further raising decoding complexity. Finally, the paper presents insights on applying these findings to enhance the efficiency of practical decoder implementations., Comment: Submitted for peer review;19 pages;15 figures

In addressing wireless networked control systems (WNCS) subject to unexpected packet loss and uncertainties, this paper presents a practical Model Predictive Control (MPC) based control scheme with considerations of of packet dropouts, latency, process noise and measurement noise. A discussion of the quasi-static Rayleigh fading channel is presented herein to enhance the realism of the underlying assumption in a real-world context. To achieve a desirable performance, the proposed control scheme leverages the predictive capabilities of a direct multiple shooting MPC, employs a compensation strategy to mitigate the impact of wireless channel imperfections. Instead of feeding noisy measurements into the MPC, we employ an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to mitigate the influence of measurement noise and process disturbances. Finally, we implement the proposed MPC algorithm on a simulated Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) and conduct a series of experiments to evaluate the performance of our control scheme across various scenarios. Through our simulation results and comparative analyses, we have substantiated the effectiveness and improvements brought about by our approach through the utilization of multiple metrics.

Network slicing (NS) is a promising technology that supports diverse requirements for next-generation low-latency wireless communication networks. However, the tampering attack is a rising issue of jeopardizing NS service-provisioning. To resist tampering attacks in NS networks, we propose a novel optimization framework for reliable NS resource allocation in a blockchain-secured low-latency wireless network, where trusted base stations (BSs) with high reputations are selected for blockchain management and NS service-provisioning. For such a blockchain-secured network, we consider that the latency is measured by the summation of blockchain management and NS service-provisioning, whilst the NS reliability is evaluated by the BS denial-of-service (DoS) probability. To satisfy the requirements of both the latency and reliability, we formulate a constrained computing resource allocation optimization problem to minimize the total processing latency subject to the BS DoS probability. To efficiently solve the optimization, we design a constrained deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm, which satisfies both latency and DoS probability requirements by introducing an additional critic neural network. The proposed constrained DRL further solves the issue of high input dimension by incorporating feature engineering technology. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of our approach in achieving reliable and low-latency NS service-provisioning in the considered blockchain-secured wireless network., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2312.08016

This paper considers opportunistic scheduler (OS) design using statistical channel state information~(CSI). We apply max-weight schedulers (MWSs) to maximize a utility function of users' average data rates. MWSs schedule the user with the highest weighted instantaneous data rate every time slot. Existing methods require hundreds of time slots to adjust the MWS's weights according to the instantaneous CSI before finding the optimal weights that maximize the utility function. In contrast, our MWS design requires few slots for estimating the statistical CSI. Specifically, we formulate a weight optimization problem using the mean and variance of users' signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) to construct constraints bounding users' feasible average rates. Here, the utility function is the formulated objective, and the MWS's weights are optimization variables. We develop an iterative solver for the problem and prove that it finds the optimal weights. We also design an online architecture where the solver adaptively generates optimal weights for networks with varying mean and variance of the SNRs. Simulations show that our methods effectively require $4\sim10$ times fewer slots to find the optimal weights and achieve $5\sim15\%$ better average rates than the existing methods., Comment: This work has been accepted in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Restricted access window (RAW) in Wi-Fi 802.11ah networks manages contention and interference by grouping users and allocating periodic time slots for each group's transmissions. We will find the optimal user grouping decisions in RAW to maximize the network's worst-case user throughput. We review existing user grouping approaches and highlight their performance limitations in the above problem. We propose formulating user grouping as a graph construction problem where vertices represent users and edge weights indicate the contention and interference. This formulation leverages the graph's max cut to group users and optimizes edge weights to construct the optimal graph whose max cut yields the optimal grouping decisions. To achieve this optimal graph construction, we design an actor-critic graph representation learning (AC-GRL) algorithm. Specifically, the actor neural network (NN) is trained to estimate the optimal graph's edge weights using path losses between users and access points. A graph cut procedure uses semidefinite programming to solve the max cut efficiently and return the grouping decisions for the given weights. The critic NN approximates user throughput achieved by the above-returned decisions and is used to improve the actor. Additionally, we present an architecture that uses the online-measured throughput and path losses to fine-tune the decisions in response to changes in user populations and their locations. Simulations show that our methods achieve $30\%\sim80\%$ higher worst-case user throughput than the existing approaches and that the proposed architecture can further improve the worst-case user throughput by $5\%\sim30\%$ while ensuring timely updates of grouping decisions., Comment: This work has been accepted in the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking

In this paper, we develop a deep learning-based bandwidth allocation policy that is: 1) scalable with the number of users and 2) transferable to different communication scenarios, such as non-stationary wireless channels, different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, and dynamically available resources. To support scalability, the bandwidth allocation policy is represented by a graph neural network (GNN), with which the number of training parameters does not change with the number of users. To enable the generalization of the GNN, we develop a hybrid-task meta-learning (HML) algorithm that trains the initial parameters of the GNN with different communication scenarios during meta-training. Next, during meta-testing, a few samples are used to fine-tune the GNN with unseen communication scenarios. Simulation results demonstrate that our HML approach can improve the initial performance by $8.79\%$, and sampling efficiency by $73\%$, compared with existing benchmarks. After fine-tuning, our near-optimal GNN-based policy can achieve close to the same reward with much lower inference complexity compared to the optimal policy obtained using iterative optimization.

This paper designs a graph neural network (GNN) to improve bandwidth allocations for multiple legitimate wireless users transmitting to a base station in the presence of an eavesdropper. To improve the privacy and prevent eavesdropping attacks, we propose a user scheduling algorithm to schedule users satisfying an instantaneous minimum secrecy rate constraint. Based on this, we optimize the bandwidth allocations with three algorithms namely iterative search (IvS), GNN-based supervised learning (GNN-SL), and GNN-based unsupervised learning (GNN-USL). We present a computational complexity analysis which shows that GNN-SL and GNN-USL can be more efficient compared to IvS which is limited by the bandwidth block size. Numerical simulation results highlight that our proposed GNN-based resource allocations can achieve a comparable sum secrecy rate compared to IvS with significantly lower computational complexity. Furthermore, we observe that the GNN approach is more robust to uncertainties in the eavesdropper's channel state information, especially compared with the best channel allocation scheme.

This paper proposes a blockchain-secured deep reinforcement learning (BC-DRL) optimization framework for {data management and} resource allocation in decentralized {wireless mobile edge computing (MEC)} networks. In our framework, {we design a low-latency reputation-based proof-of-stake (RPoS) consensus protocol to select highly reliable blockchain-enabled BSs to securely store MEC user requests and prevent data tampering attacks.} {We formulate the MEC resource allocation optimization as a constrained Markov decision process that balances minimum processing latency and denial-of-service (DoS) probability}. {We use the MEC aggregated features as the DRL input to significantly reduce the high-dimensionality input of the remaining service processing time for individual MEC requests. Our designed constrained DRL effectively attains the optimal resource allocations that are adapted to the dynamic DoS requirements. We provide extensive simulation results and analysis to} validate that our BC-DRL framework achieves higher security, reliability, and resource utilization efficiency than benchmark blockchain consensus protocols and {MEC} resource allocation algorithms.

This paper focuses on the frozen set design for precoded polar codes decoded by the successive cancellation list (SCL) algorithm. We propose a novel frozen set design method, whose computational complexity is low due to the use of analytical bounds and constrained frozen set structure. We derive new bounds based on the recently published complexity analysis of SCL decoding with near maximum-likelihood (ML) performance. To predict the ML performance, we employ the state-of-the-art bounds relying on the code weight distribution. The bounds and constrained frozen set structure are incorporated into the genetic algorithm to generate optimized frozen sets with low complexity. Our simulation results show that the constructed precoded polar codes of length 512 have a superior frame error rate (FER) performance compared to the state-of-the-art codes under SCL decoding with various list sizes., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, to be published in IEEE Transactions on Communications

In this paper, we establish a task-oriented cross-system design framework to minimize the required packet rate for timely and accurate modeling of a real-world robotic arm in the Metaverse, where sensing, communication, prediction, control, and rendering are considered. To optimize a scheduling policy and prediction horizons, we design a Constraint Proximal Policy Optimization(C-PPO) algorithm by integrating domain knowledge from relevant systems into the advanced reinforcement learning algorithm, Proximal Policy Optimization(PPO). Specifically, the Jacobian matrix for analyzing the motion of the robotic arm is included in the state of the C-PPO algorithm, and the Conditional Value-at-Risk(CVaR) of the state-value function characterizing the long-term modeling error is adopted in the constraint. Besides, the policy is represented by a two-branch neural network determining the scheduling policy and the prediction horizons, respectively. To evaluate our algorithm, we build a prototype including a real-world robotic arm and its digital model in the Metaverse. The experimental results indicate that domain knowledge helps to reduce the convergence time and the required packet rate by up to 50%, and the cross-system design framework outperforms a baseline framework in terms of the required packet rate and the tail distribution of the modeling error., Comment: This paper is accepted by IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, JSAC-SI-HCM 2024

As an emerging concept, the Metaverse has the potential to revolutionize the social interaction in the post-pandemic era by establishing a digital world for online education, remote healthcare, immersive business, intelligent transportation, and advanced manufacturing. The goal is ambitious, yet the methodologies and technologies to achieve the full vision of the Metaverse remain unclear. In this paper, we first introduce the three infrastructure pillars that lay the foundation of the Metaverse, i.e., human-computer interfaces, sensing and communication systems, and network architectures. Then, we depict the roadmap towards the Metaverse that consists of four stages with different applications. To support diverse applications in the Metaverse, we put forward a novel design methodology: task-oriented design, and further review the challenges and the potential solutions. In the case study, we develop a prototype to illustrate how to synchronize a real-world device and its digital model in the Metaverse by task-oriented design, where a deep reinforcement learning algorithm is adopted to minimize the required communication throughput by optimizing the sampling and prediction systems subject to a synchronization error constraint., Comment: This paper is accepted by the IEEE Wireless Communications

In this paper, we propose an efficient decoding algorithm for short low-density parity check (LDPC) codes by carefully combining the belief propagation (BP) decoding and order statistic decoding (OSD) algorithms. Specifically, a modified BP (mBP) algorithm is applied for a certain number of iterations prior to OSD to enhance the reliability of the received message, where an offset parameter is utilized in mBP to control the weight of the extrinsic information in message passing. By carefully selecting the offset parameter and the number of mBP iterations, the number of errors in the most reliable positions (MRPs) in OSD can be reduced by mBP, thereby significantly improving the overall decoding performance of error rate and complexity. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can approach the maximum-likelihood decoding (MLD) for short LDPC codes with only a slight increase in complexity compared to BP and a significant decrease compared to OSD. Specifically, the order-(m-1) decoding of the proposed algorithm can achieve the performance of the order-m OSD.

For cyber-physical systems in the 6G era, semantic communications connecting distributed devices for dynamic control and remote state estimation are required to guarantee application-level performance, not merely focus on communication-centric performance. Semantics here is a measure of the usefulness of information transmissions. Semantic-aware transmission scheduling of a large system often involves a large decision-making space, and the optimal policy cannot be obtained by existing algorithms effectively. In this paper, we first investigate the fundamental properties of the optimal semantic-aware scheduling policy and then develop advanced deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms by leveraging the theoretical guidelines. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithms can substantially reduce training time and enhance training performance compared to benchmark algorithms., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

The orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) symbol detector design for high mobility communication scenarios has received numerous attention lately. Current state-of-the-art OTFS detectors mainly can be divided into two categories; iterative and training-based deep neural network (DNN) detectors. Many practical iterative detectors rely on minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) denoiser to get the initial symbol estimates. However, their computational complexity increases exponentially with the number of detected symbols. Training-based DNN detectors typically suffer from dependency on the availability of large computation resources and the fidelity of synthetic datasets for the training phase, which are both costly. In this paper, we propose an untrained DNN based on the deep image prior (DIP) and decoder architecture, referred to as D-DIP that replaces the MMSE denoiser in the iterative detector. DIP is a type of DNN that requires no training, which makes it beneficial in OTFS detector design. Then we propose to combine the D-DIP denoiser with the Bayesian parallel interference cancellation (BPIC) detector to perform iterative symbol detection, referred to as D-DIP-BPIC. Our simulation results show that the symbol error rate (SER) performance of the proposed D-DIP-BPIC detector outperforms practical state-of-the-art detectors by 0.5 dB and retains low computational complexity.

Emotion recognition or detection is broadly utilized in patient-doctor interactions for diseases such as schizophrenia and autism and the most typical techniques are speech detection and facial recognition. However, features extracted from these behavior-based emotion recognitions are not reliable since humans can disguise their emotions. Recording voices or tracking facial expressions for a long term is also not efficient. Therefore, our aim is to find a reliable and efficient emotion recognition scheme, which can be used for non-behavior-based emotion recognition in real-time. This can be solved by implementing a single-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) based emotion recognition scheme in a lightweight embedded system. However, existing schemes have relatively low accuracy. Therefore, we propose a reliable and efficient emotion recognition scheme - exploitative and explorative grey wolf optimizer based SVM (X - GWO - SVM) for ECG-based emotion recognition. Two datasets, one raw self-collected iRealcare dataset, and the widely-used benchmark WESAD dataset are used in the X - GWO - SVM algorithm for emotion recognition. This work demonstrates that the X - GWO - SVM algorithm can be used for emotion recognition and the algorithm exhibits superior performance in reliability compared to the use of other supervised machine learning methods in earlier works. It can be implemented in a lightweight embedded system, which is much more efficient than existing solutions based on deep neural networks.

Remote state estimation of large-scale distributed dynamic processes plays an important role in Industry 4.0 applications. In this paper, we focus on the transmission scheduling problem of a remote estimation system. First, we derive some structural properties of the optimal sensor scheduling policy over fading channels. Then, building on these theoretical guidelines, we develop a structure-enhanced deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework for optimal scheduling of the system to achieve the minimum overall estimation mean-square error (MSE). In particular, we propose a structure-enhanced action selection method, which tends to select actions that obey the policy structure. This explores the action space more effectively and enhances the learning efficiency of DRL agents. Furthermore, we introduce a structure-enhanced loss function to add penalties to actions that do not follow the policy structure. The new loss function guides the DRL to converge to the optimal policy structure quickly. Our numerical experiments illustrate that the proposed structure-enhanced DRL algorithms can save the training time by 50% and reduce the remote estimation MSE by 10% to 25% when compared to benchmark DRL algorithms. In addition, we show that the derived structural properties exist in a wide range of dynamic scheduling problems that go beyond remote state estimation., Comment: Paper submitted to IEEE. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2211.10827

Remote state estimation of large-scale distributed dynamic processes plays an important role in Industry 4.0 applications. In this paper, by leveraging the theoretical results of structural properties of optimal scheduling policies, we develop a structure-enhanced deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework for optimal scheduling of a multi-sensor remote estimation system to achieve the minimum overall estimation mean-square error (MSE). In particular, we propose a structure-enhanced action selection method, which tends to select actions that obey the policy structure. This explores the action space more effectively and enhances the learning efficiency of DRL agents. Furthermore, we introduce a structure-enhanced loss function to add penalty to actions that do not follow the policy structure. The new loss function guides the DRL to converge to the optimal policy structure quickly. Our numerical results show that the proposed structure-enhanced DRL algorithms can save the training time by 50% and reduce the remote estimation MSE by 10% to 25%, when compared to benchmark DRL algorithms., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

In this work, we propose a novel decoding algorithm for short block codes based on an edge-weighted graph neural network (EW-GNN). The EW-GNN decoder operates on the Tanner graph with an iterative message-passing structure, which algorithmically aligns with the conventional belief propagation (BP) decoding method. In each iteration, the "weight" on the message passed along each edge is obtained from a fully connected neural network that has the reliability information from nodes/edges as its input. Compared to existing deep-learning-based decoding schemes, the EW-GNN decoder is characterised by its scalability, meaning that 1) the number of trainable parameters is independent of the codeword length, and 2) an EW-GNN decoder trained with shorter/simple codes can be directly used for longer/sophisticated codes of different code rates. Furthermore, simulation results show that the EW-GNN decoder outperforms the BP and deep-learning-based BP methods from the literature in terms of the decoding error rate., Comment: Submitted to IEEE conference for possible publication

In this paper, we investigate signal detection in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems with hardware impairments, such as power amplifier nonlinearity and in-phase/quadrature imbalance. To deal with the complex combined effects of hardware imperfections, neural network (NN) techniques, in particular deep neural networks (DNNs), have been studied to directly compensate for the impact of hardware impairments. However, it is difficult to train a DNN with limited pilot signals, hindering its practical applications. In this work, we investigate how to achieve efficient Bayesian signal detection in MIMO systems with hardware imperfections. Characterizing combined hardware imperfections often leads to complicated signal models, making Bayesian signal detection challenging. To address this issue, we first train an NN to "model" the MIMO system with hardware imperfections and then perform Bayesian inference based on the trained NN. Modelling the MIMO system with NN enables the design of NN architectures based on the signal flow of the MIMO system, minimizing the number of NN layers and parameters, which is crucial to achieving efficient training with limited pilot signals. We then represent the trained NN with a factor graph, and design an efficient message passing based Bayesian signal detector, leveraging the unitary approximate message passing (UAMP) algorithm. The implementation of a turbo receiver with the proposed Bayesian detector is also investigated. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed technique delivers remarkably better performance than state-of-the-art methods.

Wireless networked control system (WNCS) connecting sensors, controllers, and actuators via wireless communications is a key enabling technology for highly scalable and low-cost deployment of control systems in the Industry 4.0 era. Despite the tight interaction of control and communications in WNCSs, most existing works adopt separative design approaches. This is mainly because the co-design of control-communication policies requires large and hybrid state and action spaces, making the optimal problem mathematically intractable and difficult to be solved effectively by classic algorithms. In this paper, we systematically investigate deep learning (DL)-based estimator-control-scheduler co-design for a model-unknown nonlinear WNCS over wireless fading channels. In particular, we propose a co-design framework with the awareness of the sensor's age-of-information (AoI) states and dynamic channel states. We propose a novel deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based algorithm for controller and scheduler optimization utilizing both model-free and model-based data. An AoI-based importance sampling algorithm that takes into account the data accuracy is proposed for enhancing learning efficiency. We also develop novel schemes for enhancing the stability of joint training. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed joint training algorithm can effectively solve the estimation-control-scheduling co-design problem in various scenarios and provide significant performance gain compared to separative design and some benchmark policies., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

This paper investigates the maximal achievable rate for a given average error probability and blocklength for the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) system. The result consists of a finite blocklength channel coding achievability bound and a converse bound based on the Berry-Esseen theorem, the Mellin transform and the mutual information. Numerical evaluation shows fast speed of convergence to the maximal achievable rate as the blocklength increases and also proves that the channel variance is a sound measurement of the backoff from the maximal achievable rate due to finite blocklength.

In this paper, we aim to improve the Quality-of-Service (QoS) of Ultra-Reliability and Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) in interference-limited wireless networks. To obtain time diversity within the channel coherence time, we first put forward a random repetition scheme that randomizes the interference power. Then, we optimize the number of reserved slots and the number of repetitions for each packet to minimize the QoS violation probability, defined as the percentage of users that cannot achieve URLLC. We build a cascaded Random Edge Graph Neural Network (REGNN) to represent the repetition scheme and develop a model-free unsupervised learning method to train it. We analyze the QoS violation probability using stochastic geometry in a symmetric scenario and apply a model-based Exhaustive Search (ES) method to find the optimal solution. Simulation results show that in the symmetric scenario, the QoS violation probabilities achieved by the model-free learning method and the model-based ES method are nearly the same. In more general scenarios, the cascaded REGNN generalizes very well in wireless networks with different scales, network topologies, cell densities, and frequency reuse factors. It outperforms the model-based ES method in the presence of the model mismatch., Comment: Submitted to IEEE journal for possible publication

The orthogonal time-frequency space (OTFS) modulation is proposed for beyond 5G wireless systems to deal with high mobility communications. The existing low complexity OTFS detectors exhibit poor performance in rich scattering environments where there are a large number of moving reflectors that reflect the transmitted signal towards the receiver. In this paper, we propose an OTFS detector, referred to as the BPICNet OTFS detector that integrates NN, Bayesian inference, and parallel interference cancellation concepts. Simulation results show that the proposed OTFS detector significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art., Comment: Accepted for a publication in IEEE Wireless Communication Letter

In this paper, we propose an efficient ordered-statistics decoding (OSD) algorithm with an adaptive Gaussian elimination (GE) reduction technique. The proposed decoder utilizes two decoding conditions to adaptively remove GE in OSD. The first condition determines whether GE could be skipped in the OSD process by estimating the decoding error probability. Then, the second condition is utilized to identify the correct decoding result during the decoding process without GE. The proposed decoder can break the ``complexity floor'' in OSD decoders introduced by the GE overhead. Simulation results advise that when compared with the latest schemes in the literature, the proposed approach can significantly reduce the decoding complexity at high SNRs without any degradation in the error-correction capability., Comment: 5 figs, 6 pages

This paper reviews the potential channel decoding techniques for ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). URLLC is renowned for its stringent requirements including ultra-reliability, low end-to-end transmission latency, and packet-size flexibility. These requirements exacerbate the difficulty of the physical-layer design, particularly for the channel coding and decoding schemes. To satisfy the requirements of URLLC, decoders must exhibit superior error-rate performance \black{and} low decoding complexity. \black{Also, it is desired that decoders be universal} to accommodate various coding schemes. This paper provides a comprehensive review and comparison of different candidate decoding techniques for URLLC in terms of their error-rate performance and computational complexity for structured and random short codes. We further make recommendations of the decoder selections and suggest several potential research directions., Comment: To appear in IEEE Communications Magazine

Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems can be used to meet high throughput requirements of 5G and beyond networks. A base station serves many users in an uplink MU-MIMO system, leading to a substantial multi-user interference (MUI). Designing a high-performance detector for dealing with a strong MUI is challenging. This paper analyses the performance degradation caused by the posterior distribution approximation used in the state-of-the-art message passing (MP) detectors in the presence of high MUI. We develop a graph neural network based framework to fine-tune the MP detectors' cavity distributions and thus improve the posterior distribution approximation in the MP detectors. We then propose two novel neural network based detectors which rely on the expectation propagation (EP) and Bayesian parallel interference cancellation (BPIC), referred to as the GEPNet and GPICNet detectors, respectively. The GEPNet detector maximizes detection performance, while GPICNet detector balances the performance and complexity. We provide proof of the permutation equivariance property, allowing the detectors to be trained only once, even in the systems with dynamic changes of the number of users. The simulation results show that the proposed GEPNet detector performance approaches maximum likelihood performance in various configurations and GPICNet detector doubles the multiplexing gain of BPIC detector., Comment: Source Code: https://github.com/GNN-based-MIMO-Detection/GNN-based-MIMO-Detection

Remote state estimation, where many sensors send their measurements of distributed dynamic plants to a remote estimator over shared wireless resources, is essential for mission-critical applications of Industry 4.0. Most of the existing works on remote state estimation assumed orthogonal multiple access and the proposed dynamic radio resource allocation algorithms can only work for very small-scale settings. In this work, we consider a remote estimation system with non-orthogonal multiple access. We formulate a novel dynamic resource allocation problem for achieving the minimum overall long-term average estimation mean-square error. Both the estimation quality state and the channel quality state are taken into account for decision making at each time. The problem has a large hybrid discrete and continuous action space for joint channel assignment and power allocation. We propose a novel action-space compression method and develop an advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithm to solve the problem. Numerical results show that our algorithm solves the resource allocation problem effectively, presents much better scalability than the literature, and provides significant performance gain compared to some benchmarks., Comment: Paper submitted to IEEE for possible publication

Remote state estimation, where sensors send their measurements of distributed dynamic plants to a remote estimator over shared wireless resources, is essential for mission-critical applications of Industry 4.0. Existing algorithms on dynamic radio resource allocation for remote estimation systems assumed oversimplified wireless communications models and can only work for small-scale settings. In this work, we consider remote estimation systems with practical wireless models over the orthogonal multiple-access and non-orthogonal multiple-access schemes. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which remote estimation systems can be stabilized. The conditions are described in terms of the transmission power budget, channel statistics, and plants' parameters. For each multiple-access scheme, we formulate a novel dynamic resource allocation problem as a decision-making problem for achieving the minimum overall long-term average estimation mean-square error. Both the estimation quality and the channel quality states are taken into account for decision making. We systematically investigated the problems under different multiple-access schemes with large discrete, hybrid discrete-and-continuous, and continuous action spaces, respectively. We propose novel action-space compression methods and develop advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithms to solve the problems. Numerical results show that our algorithms solve the resource allocation problems effectively and provide much better scalability than the literature., Comment: Paper submitted to IEEE for possible publication. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2205.11861

In this paper, we consider a federated learning problem over wireless channel that takes into account the coding rate and packet transmission errors. Communication channels are modelled as packet erasure channels (PEC), where the erasure probability is determined by the block length, code rate, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To lessen the effect of packet erasure on the FL performance, we propose two schemes in which the central node (CN) reuses either the past local updates or the previous global parameters in case of packet erasure. We investigate the impact of coding rate on the convergence of federated learning (FL) for both short packet and long packet communications considering erroneous transmissions. Our simulation results shows that even one unit of memory has considerable impact on the performance of FL in erroneous communication.

This work studies remote state estimation of multiple linear time-invariant systems over shared wireless time-varying communication channels. We model the channel states by a semi-Markov process which captures both the random holding period of each channel state and the state transitions. The model is sufficiently general to be used in both fast and slow fading scenarios. We derive necessary and sufficient stability conditions of the multi-sensor-multi-channel system in terms of the system parameters. We further investigate how the delay of the channel state information availability and the holding period of channel states affect the stability. In particular, we show that, from a system stability perspective, fast fading channels may be preferable to slow fading ones., Comment: Paper accepted by IEEE L-CSS

The coordination of prosumer-owned, behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DER) can be achieved using a multiperiod, distributed optimal power flow (DOPF), which satisfies network constraints and preserves the privacy of prosumers. To solve the problem in a distributed fashion, it is decomposed and solved using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), which may require many iterations between prosumers and the central entity (i.e., an aggregator). Furthermore, the computational burden is shared among the agents with different processing capacities. Therefore, computational constraints and communication requirements may make the DOPF infeasible or impractical. In this paper, part of the DOPF (some of the prosumer subproblems) is executed on a Raspberry Pi-based hardware prototype, which emulates a low processing power, edge computing device. Four important aspects are analyzed using test cases of different complexities. The first is the computation cost of executing the subproblems in the edge computing device. The second is the algorithm operation on congested electrical networks, which impacts the convergence speed of DOPF solutions. Third, the precision of the computed solution, including the trade-off between solution quality and the number of iterations, is examined. Fourth, the communication requirements for implementation across different communication networks are investigated. The above metrics are analyzed in four scenarios involving 26-bus and 51-bus networks.

Seizure onset detection in electroencephalography (EEG) signals is a challenging task due to the non-stereotyped seizure activities as well as their stochastic and non-stationary characteristics in nature. Joint spectral-temporal features are believed to contain sufficient and powerful feature information for absence seizure detection. However, the resulting high-dimensional features involve redundant information and require heavy computational load. Here, we discover significant low-dimensional spectral-temporal features in terms of mean-standard deviation of wavelet transform coefficient (MS-WTC), based on which a novel absence seizure detection framework is developed. The EEG signals are transformed into the spectral-temporal domain, with their low-dimensional features fed into a convolutional neural network. Superior detection performance is achieved on the widely-used benchmark dataset as well as a clinical dataset from the Chinese 301 Hospital. For the former, seven classification tasks were evaluated with the accuracy from 99.8% to 100.0%, while for the latter, the method achieved a mean accuracy of 94.7%, overwhelming other methods with low-dimensional temporal and spectral features. Experimental results on two seizure datasets demonstrate reliability, efficiency and stability of our proposed MS-WTC method, validating the significance of the extracted low-dimensional spectral-temporal features.

This paper analyzes the maximal achievable rate for a given blocklength and error probability over a multiple-antenna ambient backscatter channel with perfect channel state information at the receiver. The result consists of a finite blocklength channel coding achievability bound and a converse bound based on the Neyman-Pearson test and the normal approximation based on the Berry- Esseen Theorem. Numerical evaluation of these bounds shows fast convergence to the channel capacity as the blocklength increases and also proves that the channel dispersion is an accurate measure of the backoff from capacity due to finite blocklength.

This paper analyzes wireless network control for remote estimation of linear time-invariant dynamical systems under various Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) packet retransmission schemes. In conventional HARQ, packet reliability increases gradually with additional packets; however, each retransmission maximally increases the Age of Information and causes severe degradation in estimation mean squared error (MSE) performance. We optimize standard HARQ schemes by allowing partial retransmissions to increase the packet reliability gradually and limit the AoI growth. In incremental redundancy HARQ, we optimize the retransmission time to enable the early arrival of the next status updates. In Chase combining HARQ, since packet length remains fixed, we allow retransmission and new updates in a single time slot using non-orthogonal signaling. Non-orthogonal retransmissions increase packet reliability without delaying the fresh updates. We formulate bi-objective optimization with the proposed variance of the MSE-based cost function and standard long-term average MSE cost function to guarantee short-term performance stability. Using the Markov decision process formulation, we find the optimal static and dynamic policies under the proposed HARQ schemes to improve MSE performance further. The simulation results show that the proposed HARQ-based policies are more robust and achieve significantly better and more stable MSE performance than standard HARQ-based policies., Comment: This article is submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems can be used to meet high throughput requirements of 5G and beyond networks. In an uplink MUMIMO system, a base station is serving a large number of users, leading to a strong multi-user interference (MUI). Designing a high performance detector in the presence of a strong MUI is a challenging problem. This work proposes a novel detector based on the concepts of expectation propagation (EP) and graph neural network, referred to as the GEPNet detector, addressing the limitation of the independent Gaussian approximation in EP. The simulation results show that the proposed GEPNet detector significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art MU-MIMO detectors in strong MUI scenarios with equal number of transmit and receive antennas.

In this paper, we develop a density evolution (DE) framework for analyzing the iterative joint decoding (JD) for non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems, where the ordered-statistics decoding (OSD) is applied to decode short block codes. We first investigate the density-transform feature of the soft-output OSD (SOSD), by deriving the density of the extrinsic log-likelihood ratio (LLR) with known densities of the priori LLR. Then, we represent the OSD-based JD by bipartite graphs (BGs), and develop the DE framework by characterizing the density-transform features of nodes over the BG. Numerical examples show that the proposed DE framework accurately tracks the evolution of LLRs during the iterative decoding, especially at moderate-to-high SNRs. Based on the DE framework, we further analyze the BER performance of the OSD-based JD, and the convergence points of the two-user and equal-power systems., Comment: 30 Pages, 12 Figures

In this paper, we design the joint decoding (JD) of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems employing short block length codes. We first proposed a low-complexity soft-output ordered-statistics decoding (LC-SOSD) based on a decoding stopping condition, derived from approximations of the a-posterior probabilities of codeword estimates. Simulation results show that LC-SOSD has the similar mutual information transform property to the original SOSD with a significantly reduced complexity. Then, based on the analysis, an efficient JD receiver which combines the parallel interference cancellation (PIC) and the proposed LC-SOSD is developed for NOMA systems. Two novel techniques, namely decoding switch (DS) and decoding combiner (DC), are introduced to accelerate the convergence speed. Simulation results show that the proposed receiver can achieve a lower bit-error rate (BER) compared to the successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding over the additive-white-Gaussian-noise (AWGN) and fading channel, with a lower complexity in terms of the number of decoding iterations., Comment: 6 pages; 5 figures

Recently, the orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation is proposed for 6G wireless system to deal with high Doppler spread. The high Doppler spread happens when the transmitted signal is reflected towards the receiver by fast moving objects (e.g. high speed cars), which causes inter-carrier interference (ICI). Recent state-of-the-art OTFS detectors fail to achieve an acceptable bit-error-rate (BER) performance as the number of mobile reflectors increases which in turn, results in high inter-carrier-interference (ICI). In this paper, we propose a novel detector for OTFS systems, referred to as the Bayesian based parallel interference and decision statistics combining (B-PIC-DSC) OTFS detector that can achieve a high BER performance, under high ICI environments. The B-PIC-DSC OTFS detector employs the PIC and DSC schemes to iteratively cancel the interference, and the Bayesian concept to take the probability measure into the consideration when refining the transmitted symbols. Our simulation results show that in contrast to the state-of-the-art OTFS detectors, the proposed detector is able to achieve a BER of less than $10^{-5}$, when SNR is over $14$ dB, under high ICI environments.

Much stringent reliability and processing latency requirements in ultra-reliable-low-latency-communication (URLLC) traffic make the design of linear massive multiple-input-multiple-output (M-MIMO) receivers becomes very challenging. Recently, Bayesian concept has been used to increase the detection reliability in minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) linear receivers. However, the latency processing time is a major concern due to the exponential complexity of matrix inversion operations in MMSE schemes. This paper proposes an iterative M-MIMO receiver that is developed by using a Bayesian concept and a parallel interference cancellation (PIC) scheme, referred to as a linear Bayesian learning (LBL) receiver. PIC has a linear complexity as it uses a combination of maximum ratio combining (MRC) and decision statistic combining (DSC) schemes to avoid matrix inversion operations. Simulation results show that the bit-error-rate (BER) and latency processing performances of the proposed receiver outperform the ones of MMSE and best Bayesian-based receivers by minimum $2$ dB and $19$ times for various M-MIMO system configurations.

Cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (M-MIMO) technology plays a prominent role in the beyond fifth-generation (5G) networks. However, designing a high performance CF M-MIMO detector is a challenging task due to the presence of pilot contamination which appears when the number of pilot sequences is smaller than the number of users. This work proposes a CF M-MIMO detector referred to as CF expectation propagation (CF-EP) that incorporates the pilot contamination when calculating the posterior belief. The simulation results show that the proposed detector achieves significant improvements in terms of the bit-error rate and sum spectral efficiency performances as compared to the ones of the state-of-the-art CF detectors.

The stringent requirements on reliability and processing delay in the fifth-generation ($5$G) cellular networks introduce considerable challenges in the design of massive multiple-input-multiple-output (M-MIMO) receivers. The two main components of an M-MIMO receiver are a detector and a decoder. To improve the trade-off between reliability and complexity, a Bayesian concept has been considered as a promising approach that enhances classical detectors, e.g. minimum-mean-square-error detector. This work proposes an iterative M-MIMO detector based on a Bayesian framework, a parallel interference cancellation scheme, and a decision statistics combining concept. We then develop a high performance M-MIMO receiver, integrating the proposed detector with a low complexity sequential decoding for polar codes. Simulation results of the proposed detector show a significant performance gain compared to other low complexity detectors. Furthermore, the proposed M-MIMO receiver with sequential decoding ensures one order magnitude lower complexity compared to a receiver with stack successive cancellation decoding for polar codes from the 5G New Radio standard.

In this paper, we propose a new linear-equation ordered-statistics decoding (LE-OSD). Unlike the OSD, LE-OSD uses high reliable parity bits rather than information bits to recover the codeword estimates, which is equivalent to solving a system of linear equations (SLE). Only test error patterns (TEPs) that create feasible SLEs, referred to as the valid TEPs, are used to obtain different codeword estimates. We introduce several constraints on the Hamming weight of TEPs to limit the overall decoding complexity. Furthermore, we analyze the block error rate (BLER) and the computational complexity of the proposed approach. It is shown that LE-OSD has a similar performance as OSD in terms of BLER, which can asymptotically approach Maximum-likelihood (ML) performance with proper parameter selections. Simulation results demonstrate that the LE-OSD has a significantly reduced complexity compared to OSD, especially for low-rate codes, that usually require high decoding order in OSD. Nevertheless, the complexity reduction can also be observed for high-rate codes. In addition, we further improve LE-OSD by applying the decoding stopping condition and the TEP discarding condition. As shown by simulations, the improved LE-OSD has a considerably reduced complexity while maintaining the BLER performance, compared to the latest OSD approach from literature., Comment: 32 Pages, 5 figures

In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) technique in providing high-reliability and low-latency in the finite blocklength (FBL) regime in a single user uplink scenario. We characterize the packet error rate (PER), throughput, and delay performance of chase combining HARQ (CC-HARQ) and incremental redundancy HARQ (IR-HARQ) in AWGN and Rayleigh fading channel with $m$ retransmissions. Furthermore, we consider a quasi-static fading channel model, which is more accurate than the over-simplified i.i.d. block fading or same channel assumption over consecutive packets. We use finite state Markov model under the FBL regime to model correlative fading. Numerical results present interesting insight into the reliability-latency trade-off of HARQ. Furthermore, we formulate an optimization problem to maximize the throughput performance of IR-HARQ by reducing excessive retransmission overhead for a target packet error performance under different SNRs, Doppler frequencies, and rate regimes., Comment: Submitted to IEEE GLOBECOM 2021

We consider a joint uplink and downlink scheduling problem of a fully distributed wireless networked control system (WNCS) with a limited number of frequency channels. Using elements of stochastic systems theory, we derive a sufficient stability condition of the WNCS, which is stated in terms of both the control and communication system parameters. Once the condition is satisfied, there exists a stationary and deterministic scheduling policy that can stabilize all plants of the WNCS. By analyzing and representing the per-step cost function of the WNCS in terms of a finite-length countable vector state, we formulate the optimal transmission scheduling problem into a Markov decision process and develop a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based framework for solving it. To tackle the challenges of a large action space in DRL, we propose novel action space reduction and action embedding methods for the DRL framework that can be applied to various algorithms, including Deep Q-Network (DQN), Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG), and Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3). Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms benchmark policies., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

Over-the-air computation (AirComp) has been recognized as a low-latency solution for wireless sensor data fusion, where multiple sensors send their measurement signals to a receiver simultaneously for computation. Most existing work only considered performing AirComp over a single frequency channel. However, for a sensor network with a massive number of nodes, a single frequency channel may not be sufficient to accommodate the large number of sensors, and the AirComp performance will be very limited. So it is highly desirable to have more frequency channels for large-scale AirComp systems to benefit from multi-channel diversity. In this letter, we propose an $M$-frequency AirComp system, where each sensor selects a subset of the $M$ frequencies and broadcasts its signal over these channels under a certain power constraint. We derive the optimal sensors' transmission and receiver's signal processing methods separately, and develop an algorithm for joint design to achieve the best AirComp performance. Numerical results show that increasing one frequency channel can improve the AirComp performance by threefold compared to the single-frequency case., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

The fifth-generation (5G) of mobile standards is expected to provide ultra-reliability and low-latency communications (URLLC) for various applications and services, such as online gaming, wireless industrial control, augmented reality, and self driving cars. Meeting the contradictory requirements of URLLC, i.e., ultra-reliability and low-latency, is considered to be very challenging, especially in bandwidth-limited scenarios. Most communication strategies rely on hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) to improve reliability at the expense of increased packet latency due to the retransmission of failing packets. To guarantee high-reliability and very low latency simultaneously, we enhance HARQ retransmission mechanism to achieve reliability with guaranteed packet level latency and in-time delivery. The proposed non-orthogonal HARQ (N-HARQ) utilizes non-orthogonal sharing of time slots for conducting retransmission. The reliability and delay analysis of the proposed N-HARQ in the finite block length (FBL) regime shows very high performance gain in packet delivery delay over conventional HARQ in both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading channels. We also propose an optimization framework to further enhance the performance of N-HARQ for single and multiple retransmission cases.