Over-the-air computation (AirComp), which leverages the superposition property of wireless multiple-access channel (MAC) and the mathematical tool of function representation, has been considered as a promising technique for effective collection and computation of massive sensor data in wireless Big Data applications. In most of the existing work on AirComp, optimal system-parameter design is commonly considered under the peak-power constraint of each sensor. In this paper, we propose an optimal transmitter-receiver (Tx-Rx) parameter design problem to minimize the computation mean-squared error (MSE) of an AirComp system under the sum-power constraint of the sensors. We solve the non-convex problem and obtain a closed-form solution. Also, we investigate another problem that minimizes the sum power of the sensors under the constraint of computation MSE. Our results show that in both of the problems, the sensors with poor and good channel conditions should use less power than the ones with moderate channel conditions.
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) enables fast wireless data aggregation at the receiver through concurrent transmission by sensors in the application of Internet-of-Things (IoT). To further improve the performance of AirComp under unfavorable propagation channel conditions, we consider the problem of computation distortion minimization in a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided AirComp system. In particular, we take into account an additive bounded uncertainty of the channel state information (CSI) and the total power constraint, and jointly optimize the transceiver (Tx-Rx) and the …
To support the unprecedented growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications, tremendous data need to be collected by the IoT devices and delivered to the server for further computation. By utilizing the same signals for both radar sensing and data communication, the integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technique has broken the barriers between data collection and delivery in the physical layer. By exploiting the analog-wave addition in a multi-access channel, over-the-air computation (AirComp) enables function computation via transmissions in the physical layer. The promising perfo…
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) becomes a promising approach for fast wireless data aggregation via exploiting the superposition property in a multiple access channel. To further overcome the unfavorable signal propagation conditions for AirComp, in this paper, we propose an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) aided AirComp system to build controllable wireless environments, thereby boosting the received signal power significantly. This is achieved by smartly tuning the phase shifts for the incoming electromagnetic waves at IRS, resulting in reconfigurable signal propagations. Unfortunatel…
To facilitate the development of Internet of Things (IoT) services, tremendous IoT devices are deployed in the wireless network to collect and pass data to the server for further processing. Aiming at improving the data sensing and delivering efficiency, the integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technique has been proposed to design dual-functional signals for both radar sensing and data communication. To accelerate the data processing, the function computation via signal transmission is enabled by over-the-air computation (AirComp), which is based on the analog-wave addition property in…
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) is a disruptive technique for fast wireless data aggregation in Internet of Things (IoT) networks via exploiting the waveform superposition property of multiple-access channels. However, the performance of AirComp is bottlenecked by the worst channel condition among all links between the IoT devices and the access point. In this paper, a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted AirComp system is proposed to boost the received signal power and thus mitigate the performance bottleneck by reconfiguring the propagation channels. With an objective to mini…
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) is an efficient solution to enable federated learning on wireless channels. AirComp assumes that the wireless channels from different devices can be controlled, e.g., via transmitter-side phase compensation, in order to ensure coherent on-air combining. Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) can provide an alternative, or additional, means of controlling channel propagation conditions. This work studies the advantages of deploying IRSs for AirComp systems in a large-scale cloud radio access network (C-RAN). In this system, worker devices upload locally update…
The next-generation wireless networks are envisioned to support large-scale sensing and distributed machine learning, thereby enabling new intelligent mobile applications. One common network operation will be the aggregation of distributed data (such as sensor observations or AI-model updates) for functional computation (e.g., averaging) so as to support large-scale sensing and distributed machine learning. An efficient solution for data aggregation, called "over-the-air computation" (AirComp), embeds functional computation into simultaneous access by many edge devices. Such schemes exploit th…
Energy-Efficient Hybrid Data Computation via Coordinated AirComp and Edge Offloading
Shenzhen Research Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University（西北工业大学深圳研究院）；School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University（西北工业大学电子与信息工程学院）；School of Information and Communication Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学信息与通信工程学院）；School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学机械工程学院）；College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学计算与数据科学学院）；Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston（休斯顿大学电气与计算机工程系）
This paper addresses the problem of Over-The-Air (OTA) computation in wireless networks which has the potential to realize huge efficiency gains for instance in training of distributed ML models. We provide non-asymptotic, theoretical guarantees for OTA computation in fast-fading wireless channels where the fading and noise may be correlated. The distributions of fading and noise are not restricted to Gaussian distributions, but instead are assumed to follow a distribution in the more general sub-gaussian class. Furthermore, our result does not make any assumptions on the distribution of the s…
Federated learning (FL) as a promising edge-learning framework can effectively address the latency and privacy issues by featuring distributed learning at the devices and model aggregation in the central server. In order to enable efficient wireless data aggregation, over-the-air computation (AirComp) has recently been proposed and attracted immediate attention. However, fading of wireless channels can produce aggregate distortions in an AirComp-based FL scheme. To combat this effect, the concept of dynamic learning rate (DLR) is proposed in this work. We begin our discussion by considering mu…
This paper presents the first broadband digital over-the-air computation (AirComp) system for phase asynchronous OFDM-based federated edge learning systems. Existing analog AirComp systems often assume perfect phase alignment via channel precoding and utilize uncoded analog modulation for model aggregation. In contrast, our digital AirComp system leverages digital modulation and channel codes to overcome phase asynchrony, thereby achieving accurate model aggregation in the asynchronous multi-user OFDM systems. To realize a digital AirComp system, we propose a non-orthogonal multiple access pro…
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) provides a promising way to support ultrafast aggregation of distributed data. However, its performance cannot be guaranteed in long-distance transmission due to the distortion induced by the channel fading and noise. To unleash the full potential of AirComp, this paper proposes to use a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) acting as a mobile base station to assist AirComp systems. Specifically, due to its controllable high-mobility and high-altitude, the UAV can move sufficiently close to the sensors to enable line-of-sight transmission and adaptively adju…
Federated learning (FL) is recognized as a key enabling technology to provide intelligent services for future wireless networks and industrial systems with delay and privacy guarantees. However, the performance of wireless FL can be significantly degraded by Byzantine attack, such as data poisoning attack, model poisoning attack and free-riding attack. To design the Byzantine-resilient FL paradigm in wireless networks with limited radio resources, we propose a novel communication-efficient robust model aggregation scheme via over-the-air computation (AirComp). This is achieved by applying the …
In this paper, we consider fast wireless data aggregation via over-the-air computation (AirComp) in Internet of Things (IoT) networks, where an access point (AP) with multiple antennas aim to recover the arithmetic mean of sensory data from multiple IoT devices. To minimize the estimation distortion, we formulate a mean-squared-error (MSE) minimization problem that involves the joint optimization of the transmit scalars at the IoT devices as well as the denoising factor and the receive beamforming vector at the AP. To this end, we derive the transmit scalars and the denoising factor in closed-…
In this paper, we study unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) assisted wireless data aggregation (WDA) in multicluster networks, where multiple UAVs simultaneously perform different WDA tasks via over-the-air computation (AirComp) without terrestrial base stations. This work focuses on maximizing the minimum amount of WDA tasks performed among all clusters by optimizing the UAV's trajectory and transceiver design as well as cluster scheduling and association, while considering the WDA accuracy requirement. Such a joint design is critical for interference management in multi-cluster AirComp networks,…
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) is a promising technology that is capable of achieving fast data aggregation in Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The mean-squared error (MSE) performance of AirComp is bottlenecked by the unfavorable channel conditions. This limitation can be mitigated by deploying a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), which reconfigures the propagation environment to facilitate the receiving power equalization. The achievable performance of RIS relies on the availability of accurate channel state information (CSI), which however is generally difficult to be obtained.…
In this study, we propose an over-the-air computation (AirComp) scheme for federated edge learning (FEEL) without channel state information (CSI) at the edge devices (EDs) or the edge server (ES). The proposed scheme relies on non-coherent communication techniques for achieving distributed training by majority vote (MV). In this work, the votes, i.e., the signs of the local gradients, from the EDs are represented with the pulse-position modulation (PPM) symbols constructed with discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) (DFT-s-OFDM). By taking the…
In future Internet-of-Things networks, sensors or even access points can be mounted on ground/aerial vehicles for smart-city surveillance or environment monitoring. To support the high-mobility sensing with low network latency, a technique called over-the-air-computation (AirComp) was recently developed which enables an access-point to receive a desired function of sensing-data from concurrent-transmissions by exploiting the superposition property of a multi-access-channel. This work aims at further developing AirComp for next-generation multi-antenna multi-modal sensor networks. Specifically,…
Over-the-air computation has the potential to increase the communication-efficiency of data-dependent distributed wireless systems, but is vulnerable to eavesdropping. We consider over-the-air computation over block-fading additive white Gaussian noise channels in the presence of a passive eavesdropper. The goal is to design a secure over-the-air computation scheme. We propose a scheme that achieves MSE-security against the eavesdropper by employing zero-forced artificial noise, while keeping the distortion at the legitimate receiver small. In contrast to former approaches, the security does n…
As a revolution in networking, Internet of Things (IoT) aims at automating the operations of our societies by connecting and leveraging an enormous number of distributed devices (e.g., sensors and actuators). One design challenge is efficient wireless data aggregation (WDA) over tremendous IoT devices. This can enable a series of IoT applications ranging from latency-sensitive high-mobility sensing to data-intensive distributed machine learning. Over-the-air (functional) computation (AirComp) has emerged to be a promising solution that merges computing and communication by exploiting analogwav…
OFDM Enabled Over-the-Air Computation Systems with Two-Dimensional Fluid Antennas
School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学电子与信息工程学院）；School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学计算机科学与工程学院）
Over-the-air computation (AirComp) shows great promise to support fast data fusion in Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks. AirComp typically computes desired functions of distributed sensing data by exploiting superposed data transmission in multiple access channels. To overcome its reliance on channel station information (CSI), this work proposes a novel blind over-the-air computation (BlairComp) without requiring CSI access, particularly for low complexity and low latency IoT networks. To solve the resulting non-convex optimization problem without the initialization dependency exhibited by the…
This paper considers a multi-cell AirComp network and investigates the optimal power control policies over multiple cells to regulate the effect of inter-cell interference. First, we consider the scenario of centralized multi-cell power control, where we characterize the Pareto boundary of the multi-cell MSE region by minimizing the sum MSE subject to a set of constraints on individual MSEs. Though the sum-MSE minimization problem is non-convex and its direct solution intractable, we optimally solve this problem via equivalently solving a sequence of convex second-order cone program feasibilit…
Facing the upcoming era of Internet-of-Things and connected intelligence, efficient information processing, computation, and communication design becomes a key challenge in large-scale intelligent systems. Recently, Over-the-Air (OtA) computation has been proposed for data aggregation and distributed computation of functions over a large set of network nodes. Theoretical foundations for this concept exist for a long time, but it was mainly investigated within the context of wireless sensor networks. There are still many open questions when applying OtA computation in different types of distrib…
Wireless data aggregation (WDA), referring to aggregating data distributed at devices (e.g., sensors and smartphone), is a common operation in 5G-and-beyond machine-type communications to support Internet-of-Things (IoT), which lays the foundation for diversified applications such as distributed sensing, learning, and control. Conventional WDA techniques that are designed based on a separated-communication-and-computation principle encounter difficulty in accommodating the massive access under the limited radio resource and stringent latency constraints imposed by emerging applications (e.g, a…
In this study, we propose a general-purpose synchronization method that allows a set of software-defined radios (SDRs) to transmit or receive any in-phase/quadrature data with precise timings while maintaining the baseband processing in the corresponding companion computers. The proposed method relies on the detection of a synchronization waveform in both receive and transmit directions and controlling the direct memory access blocks jointly with the processing system. By implementing this synchronization method on a set of low-cost SDRs, we demonstrate the performance of frequency-shift keyin…
ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学）；Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data（深圳大数据研究院）；Peking University（北京大学）；The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）
Departing from the classic paradigm of data-centric designs, the 6G networks for supporting edge AI features task-oriented techniques that focus on effective and efficient execution of AI task. Targeting end-to-end system performance, such techniques are sophisticated as they aim to seamlessly integrate sensing (data acquisition), communication (data transmission), and computation (data processing). Aligned with the paradigm shift, a task-oriented over-the-air computation (AirComp) scheme is proposed in this paper for multi-device split-inference system. In the considered system, local feature…
In this paper, we propose a framework where over-the-air computation (OAC) occurs in both uplink (UL) and downlink (DL), sequentially, in a multi-cell environment to address the latency and the scalability issues of federated edge learning (FEEL). To eliminate the channel state information (CSI) at the edge devices (EDs) and edge servers (ESs) and relax the time-synchronization requirement for the OAC, we use a non-coherent computation scheme, i.e., frequency-shift keying (FSK)-based majority vote (MV) (FSK-MV). With the proposed framework, multiple ESs function as the aggregation nodes in the…
This paper investigates the effect of imperfect channel state information (CSI) on the over-the-air computation (AirComp) system, in which multiple wireless devices (WDs) send individual messages to one access point (AP) for distributed functional computation. By particularly considering the channel estimation errors, we jointly design the transmit coefficients at the WDs and the receive strategy at the AP, for minimizing the computation mean squared error (MSE). First, we consider the single-input single-output (SISO) case with each WD and AP equipped with one single antenna, in which the glo…
Integrated Sensing, Communication, and Computation for Over-the-Air Federated Edge Learning
School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University（信息科学与技术学院，上海科技大学）；College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Shenzhen University（电子与信息工程学院，深圳大学）；School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications（信息与通信工程学院，北京邮电大学）；School of Science a（科学学院）
University of South Carolina（南卡罗来纳大学）；InterDigital（InterDigital公司）
In this study, a digital over-the-air computation (OAC) scheme for achieving continuous-valued gradient aggregation is proposed. It is shown that the average of a set of real-valued parameters can be calculated approximately by using the average of the corresponding numerals, where the numerals are obtained based on a balanced number system. By using this property, the proposed scheme encodes the local gradients into a set of numerals. It then determines the positions of the activated orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers by using the values of the numerals. To eliminat…
