The long-term average performance of the MISO downlink channel, with a large number of users compared to transmit antennas of the BS, depends on the interference management which necessitates the joint design problem of scheduling and precoding. Unlike the previous works which do not offer a truly joint design, this paper focuses on formulating a problem amenable for the joint update of scheduling and precoding. Novel optimization formulations are investigated to reveal the hidden difference of convex/ concave structure for three classical criteria (weighted sum rate, max-min SINR, and power minimization) and associated constraints are considered. Thereafter, we propose a convex-concave procedure framework based iterative algorithm where scheduling and precoding variables are updated jointly in each iteration. Finally, we show the superiority in performance of joint solution over the state-of-the-art designs through Monte-Carlo simulations.
Constant envelope (CE) precoding design is of great interest for massive multiuser multi-input multi-output systems because it can significantly reduce hardware cost and power consumption. However, existing CE precoding algorithms are hindered by excessive computational overhead. In this letter, a novel model-driven deep learning (DL)-based network that combines DL with conjugate gradient algorithm is proposed for CE precoding. Specifically, the original iterative algorithm is unfolded and parameterized by trainable variables. With the proposed architecture, the variables can be learned effici…
The paper presents a joint beamforming algorithm using statistical channel state information (S-CSI) for reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for multiuser MISO wireless communications. We used S-CSI, which is a long-term average of the cascaded channel as opposed to instantaneous CSI utilized in most existing works. Through this method, the overhead of channel estimation is dramatically reduced. We propose a proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithm which is a well-known actor-critic based reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to solve the optimization problem. To test the efficacy of…
In this work, we propose an iterative scheme for computing a linear precoder that takes into account the impact of hardware impairments in the multiuser multiple-input single-output downlink. We particularly focus on the case when the transmitter is equipped with nonlinear power amplifiers. Using Bussgang's theorem, we formulate a lower bound on the achievable sum rate in the presence of hardware impairments, and maximize it using projected gradient ascent. We provide numerical examples that demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed distortion-aware scheme for precoding over a millimeter-wave~c…
In this letter, we propose a sphere bounding scheme for probabilistic robust constructive interference (CI) power minimizing precoding, to address the imperfect channel state information (CSI) caused by the channel error (CE), which satisfies the known distribution in single-cell multiuser multipleinput single-output (MISO) downlink transmission. In the proposed scheme, we transform the probabilistic quality of service (QoS) constraints into tractable sphere bounding second-order cone (SOC) constraints through taking two-step tightening, and then we model tightened CI max-min signal-to-noise r…
In this paper, we study the interference exploitation precoding for the scenario where the number of streams simultaneously transmitted by the base station (BS) is larger than that of transmit antennas at the BS, and derive the optimal precoding structure by employing the pseudo inverse. We show that the optimal pre-scaling vector is equal to a linear combination of the right singular vectors that correspond to zero singular values of the coefficient matrix. By formulating the dual problem, the optimal precoding matrix can be expressed as a function of the dual variables in a closed form, and …
Considering the expensive radio frequency (RF) chain, huge training overhead and feedback burden issues in massive MIMO, in this letter, we propose a mixed-timescale per-group hybrid precoding (MPHP) scheme under an adaptive partially-connected RF precoding structure (PRPS), where the RF precoder is implemented using an adaptive connection network (ACN) and M analog phase shifters (APSs), where M is the number of antennas at the base station (BS). Exploiting the mixed-time stage channel state information (CSI) structure, the joint-design of ACN and APSs is formulated as a statistical signal-to…
Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) have emerged as a revolutionary solution to enhance wireless communications by changing propagation environment in a cost-effective and hardware-efficient fashion. In addition, symbol-level precoding (SLP) has attracted considerable attention recently due to its advantages in converting multiuser interference (MUI) into useful signal energy. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate the employment of IRS in symbol-level precoding systems to exploit MUI in a more effective way by manipulating the multiuser channels. In this paper, we focus on joint symbo…
This paper considers symbol-level precoding (SLP) for multiuser multi-input single-output (MISO) downlink transmission with the aid of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). Specifically, by assuming one-bit transmitted signals at the base station (BS), which arises from the use of low-resolution DACs in the regime of massive transmit antennas, a joint design of one-bit SLP at the BS and the phase shifts at the IRS is proposed with a goal of minimizing the worst-case symbol error probability (SEP) of the users under the PSK modulation. This joint design problem is essentially a mixed integer no…
In this correspondence, we propose a space domain index modulation (IM) scheme for the downlink of multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. Instead of the most common approach where spatial bits select active receiver antennas, in the presented scheme the spatial information is mapped onto the transmitter side. This allows IM to better exploit large dimensional antenna settings which are typically easier to deploy at the base station. In order to mitigate inter-user interference and allow single user detection, a precoder is adopted at the BS. Furthermore two alternative enh…
In this paper, we propose a low-complexity method to approximately solve the SINR-constrained optimization problem of symbol-level precoding (SLP). First, assuming a generic modulation scheme, the precoding optimization problem is recast as a standard non-negative least squares (NNLS). Then, we improve an existing closed-form SLP (CF-SLP) scheme using the conditions for nearly perfect recovery of the optimal solution support, followed by solving a reduced system of linear equations. We show through simulation results that in comparison with the CF-SLP method, the improved approximate solution …
Time reversal (TR) recently emerged as an interesting communication technology capable of providing a good spatio-temporal signal focusing effect. New generations of large-bandwidth devices with reduced cost leverage the use of TR wideband communication systems. While TR is usually implemented in the time domain, the same benefit can be obtained in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system by precoding the information in the frequency domain. Besides using multiple antennas, the focusing effect of TR also comes from the use of a high rate back-off factor (BOF), which is the s…
In this paper, we address robust design of symbol-level precoding for the downlink of multiuser multiple-input multiple-output wireless channels, in the presence of imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. In particular, we consider two common uncertainty models for the CSI imperfection, namely, spherical (bounded) and stochastic (Gaussian). Our design objective is to minimize the total (per-symbol) transmission power subject to constructive interference (CI) constraints as well as users' quality-of-service requirements in terms of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio. …
In this letter, we study the performance of a downlink multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with sub-connected structure over limited feedback channels. Tight rate approximations are theoretically analyzed for the system with pure analog precoding and hybrid precoding. The effect of quantized analog and digital precoding is characterized in the derived expressions. Furthermore, it is revealed that the pure analog precoding outperforms the hybrid precoding using maximal-ratio transmission (MRT) or zero forcing (ZF) under certain conditions, and we theoretically charact…
Millimeter-wave and terahertz technologies have been attracting attention from the wireless research community since they can offer large underutilized bandwidths which can enable the support of ultra-high-speed connections in future wireless communication systems. While the high signal attenuation occurring at these frequencies requires the adoption of very large (or the so-called ultra-massive) antenna arrays, in order to accomplish low complexity and low power consumption, hybrid analog/digital designs must be adopted. In this paper we present a hybrid design algorithm suitable for both mmW…
Microwave Linear Analog Computers Aided Multiuser Communication: General Impedance Matching and Precoding Optimization
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen)（香港中文大学（深圳））；Shenzhen Future Network of Intelligence Institute（深圳未来网络智能研究院）；National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学）
Multiuser, Multiple Input, Single Output (MU-MISO) systems are proving to be indispensable in the next generation wireless networks such as 5G and 6G. The spatial diversity of MISO systems have been leveraged in physical layer designs in these wireless systems to improve the capacity. Several recent studies have utilised redundancies in the content request along with the spatial diversity of a MISO system to improve the capacity further. It is shown that Max-Min Fair (MMF) Beamforming schemes for MISO based on SDMA, NOMA, OMA and Rate-Splitting could be used to improve the content delivery rat…
Aiming at maximizing the achievable sum-rate of wideband multiuser mmWave massive MIMO systems, the hybrid precoding is studied. Since each computation of the achievable sum-rate can be performed only after the analog precoder and digital precoder are both determined, the maximization of the achievable sum-rate has intractable computational complexity. By introducing the interference free (IF) achievable sum-rate, the design of the analog and digital precoders can be decoupled. To avoid the beam conflict and maximize the IF achievable sum-rate, a Hungarian-based codeword selection algorithm is…
Precoding design exploiting deep learning methods has been widely studied for multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. However, conventional neural precoding design applies black-box-based neural networks which are less interpretable. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based precoding method based on an interpretable design of a neural precoding network, namely iPNet. In particular, the iPNet mimics the classic minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) precoding and approximates the matrix inversion in the design of the neural network architecture. Specifically, the proposed …
This study proposes a symbol-level precoding algorithm based on the minimum mean squared error design objective under a strict per antenna power constraint for PSK modulation. The proposed design is then formulated in the standard form of a second-order cone program, allowing for an optimal solution via the interior point method. Numerical results indicate that the proposed design is superior to the existing approaches in terms of bit-error-rate for the low and intermediate SNR regime.
This paper investigates the uplink cascaded channel estimation for intelligent-reflecting-surface (IRS)-assisted multi-user multiple-input-single-output systems. We focus on a sub-6 GHz scenario where the channel propagation is not sparse and the number of IRS elements can be larger than the number of BS antennas. A novel channel estimation protocol without the need of on-off amplitude control to avoid the reflection power loss is proposed. In addition, the pilot overhead is substantially reduced by exploiting the common-link structure to decompose the cascaded channel coefficients by the mult…
The recently emerged symbol-level precoding (SLP) technique has been regarded as a promising solution in multi-user wireless communication systems, since it can convert harmful multi-user interference (MUI) into beneficial signals for enhancing system performance. However, the tremendous computational complexity of conventional symbol-level precoding designs severely hinders the practical implementations. In order to tackle this difficulty, we propose a novel deep learning (DL) based approach to efficiently design the symbol-level precoders. Particularly, in this correspondence, we consider a …
In this paper, we address the symbol level precoding (SLP) design problem under max-min SINR criterion in the downlink of multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) channels. First, we show that the distance preserving constructive interference regions (DPCIR) are always polyhedral angles (shifted pointed cones) for any given constellation point with unbounded decision region. Then we prove that any signal in a given unbounded DPCIR has a norm larger than the norm of the corresponding vertex if and only if the convex hull of the constellation contains the origin. Using these properties, we …
Consider the following problem: A multi-antenna base station (BS) sends multiple symbol streams to multiple single-antenna users via precoding. However, unlike conventional multiuser precoding, the transmitted signals are subjected to binary, unit-modulus, or even discrete unit-modulus constraints. Such constraints arise in the one-bit and constant-envelope (CE) massive MIMO scenarios, wherein high-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are replaced by one-bit DACs and phase shifters, respectively, for cutting down hardware cost and energy consumption. Multiuser precoding under one-bit…
The high energy consumption of massive multi-input multi-out (MIMO) system has become a prominent problem in the millimeter wave(mm-Wave) communication scenario. The hybrid precoding technology greatly reduces the number of radio frequency(RF) chains by handing over part of the coding work to the phase shifting network, which can effectively improve energy efficiency. However, conventional hybrid precoding algorithms based on mathematical means often suffer from performance loss and high computational complexity. In this paper, a novel BP-neural-network-enabled hybrid precoding algorithm is pr…
Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are regarded as key enablers of next-generation wireless communications, due to their capability of customizing the wireless propagation environment. In this paper, we investigate power-efficient resource allocation for IRS-assisted multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems. To minimize the transmit power, both the beamforming vectors at the access point (AP) and phase shifts at the IRS are jointly optimized while taking into account the minimum required quality-of-service (QoS) of the users. To tackle the non-convexity of the formulated optim…
Aiming at maximizing the energy efficiency (EE) of multicast multibeam satellite communications, we consider the precoding design under the total power and quality of service (QoS) constraints. Since the original EE maximization problem is nonconvex, it is sequentially converted into a concave-convex fractional programming problem by introducing some variables and using the first-order Taylor low bound approximation. Based on the Charnes-Cooper transformation, it is further converted into a convex problem. Then an iterative algorithm is presented to design the energy efficient precoding. To fi…
To enable user diversity and multiplexing gains, a fully digital precoding multiple input multiple output (MIMO) architecture is typically applied. However, a large number of radio frequency (RF) chains make the system unrealistic to low-cost communications. Therefore, a practical three-stage hybrid analogue-digital precoding architecture, occupying fewer RF chains, is proposed aiming for a non-orthogonal IoT signal in low-cost multiuser MIMO systems. The non-orthogonal waveform can flexibly save spectral resources for massive devices connections or improve data rate without consuming extra sp…
In this paper, we study the transmission design for reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided multiuser communication networks. Different from most of the existing contributions, we consider long-term CSI-based transmission design, where both the beamforming vectors at the base station (BS) and the phase shifts at the RIS are designed based on long-term CSI, which can significantly reduce the channel estimation overhead. Due to the lack of explicit ergodic data rate expression, we propose a novel deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) based algorithm to solve the optimization problem, …
When considering the future generation wireless networks, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) represents a viable multiple access technique for improving the spectral efficiency. The basic performance of NOMA is often enhanced using downlink beamforming and power allocation techniques. Although downlink beamforming has been previously studied with different performance criteria, such as sum-rate and max-min rate, it has not been studied in the multiuser, multiple-input single-output (MISO) case, particularly with the energy efficiency criteria. In this paper, we investigate the design of an …
We propose a deep learning-based channel estimation, quantization, feedback, and precoding method for downlink multiuser multiple-input and multiple-output systems. In the proposed system, channel estimation and quantization for limited feedback are handled by a receiver deep neural network (DNN). Precoder selection is handled by a transmitter DNN. To emulate the traditional channel quantization, a binarization layer is adopted at each receiver DNN, and the binarization layer is also used to enable end-to-end learning. However, this can lead to inaccurate gradients, which can trap the receiver…
This paper investigates multiuser multi-input single-output (MISO) downlink communications assisted by a self-sustainable intelligent reflection surface (IRS), which can harvest power from the received signals. We study the joint design of the beamformer at an access point (AP) and the phase shifts and the power harvesting schedule at an IRS for maximizing the system sum-rate. The design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem taking into account the capability of IRS elements to harvest wireless power for realizing self-sustainability. Subsequently, we propose a computationally-eff…
Most recently, there has been a flurry of research activities on studying how massive MIMO precoding should be designed when the digital-to-analog conversion at the transmitter side is operated by cheap one-bit digital-to-analog converters (DACs). Such research is motivated by the desire to substantially cut down the hardware cost and power consumption of the radio-frequency chain, which is unaffordable in massive MIMO if high-resolution DACs are still used. One-bit MIMO precoding design problems are much harder to solve than their high-resolution DAC counterparts. In our previous work, we dev…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-based communication networks promise to improve channel capacity and energy efficiency. However, the promised capacity gains could be negligible for passive RISs because of the double pathloss effect. Active RISs can overcome this issue because they have reflector elements with a low-cost amplifier. This letter studies the active RIS-aided simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in a multiuser system. The users exploit power splitting (PS) to decode information and harvest energy simultaneously based on a realistic piecewise nonline…
In multiuser communication systems, user scheduling and beamforming (US-BF) design are two fundamental problems that are usually studied separately in the existing literature. In this work, we focus on the joint US-BF design with the goal of maximizing the set cardinality of scheduled users, which is computationally challenging due to the non-convex objective function and the coupled constraints with discrete-continuous variables. To tackle these difficulties, a successive convex approximation based US-BF (SCA-USBF) optimization algorithm is firstly proposed. Then, inspired by wireless intelli…
This paper shows that deep neural network (DNN) can be used for efficient and distributed channel estimation, quantization, feedback, and downlink multiuser precoding for a frequency-division duplex massive multiple-input multiple-output system in which a base station (BS) serves multiple mobile users, but with rate-limited feedback from the users to the BS. A key observation is that the multiuser channel estimation and feedback problem can be thought of as a distributed source coding problem. In contrast to the traditional approach where the channel state information (CSI) is estimated and qu…
The intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a planar array with massive reconfigurable passive elements, which can align the reflecting signals at the receivers via controlling the phase shifts at each element independently. Since IRS can be implemented without RF chain, it is seen as a cost-effective solution for boosting the spectral efficiency for the future communication system. This work considers the IRS-aided multiuser multi-input single-output downlink transmission, and our goal is to maximize the sum rate by jointly optimizing the transmit beamformer at the base station and the phase …
This paper studies an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) system. In this system, a multi-antenna access point (AP) uses transmit beamforming to send both information and energy signals to a set of receivers each for information decoding (ID) or energy harvesting (EH), and a dedicatedly deployed IRS properly controls its reflecting phase shifts to form passive reflection beams for facilitating both ID and EH at receivers. Under this setup, we jointly optimize the (active) inform…
This paper tackles the problem of the simultaneous interference among the multiple users in the downlink of a wireless multiantenna system. In order to exploit the multiuser interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side, symbol-level precoding is utilized through joint exploitation of the data from each individual user and the channel state information. This paper introduces a complexity reduction scheme that exploits the constellations symmetry to reduce the number of possible calculations and the number of constraints in the symbol-level optimization problem. This pape…
This study proposes the construction of a transmit signal for large-scale antenna systems with cost-effective 1-bit digital-to-analog converters in the downlink. Under quadrature-amplitude-modulation constellations, it is still an open problem to overcome a severe error floor problem caused by its nature property. To this end, we first present a feasibility condition which guarantees that each user's noiseless signal is placed in the desired decision region. For robustness to additive noise, we formulate an optimization problem, we then transform the feasibility conditions to cascaded matrix f…
In this paper, we consider a reconfigurable intelligence surface (RIS) aided uplink multiuser multi-input multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system, where the receiver is assumed to conduct low-complexity iterative detection. We aim to minimize the total transmit power by jointly designing the precoder of the transmitter and the passive beamforming of the RIS. This problem can be tackled from the perspective of information theory. But this information-theoretic approach may involve prohibitively high complexity since the number of rate constraints that specif…
This paper investigates robust and secure multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) downlink communications assisted by a self-sustainable intelligent reflection surface (IRS), which can simultaneously reflect and harvest energy from the received signals. We study the joint design of beamformers at an access point (AP) and the phase shifts as well as the energy harvesting schedule at the IRS for maximizing the system sum-rate. The design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem taking into account the wireless energy harvesting capability of IRS elements, secure communications, a…
