This letter focuses on the secure transmission for an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) systems, in which a base station (BS) communicates with its destination via an IRS, in the presence of a passive eavesdropper. To maximize the system secrecy rate, the transmit beamforming at the BS and the reflecting matrix at the IRS are jointly optimized with transmit power and discrete phase-shift constraints. It is first proved that the beamforming design is independent of the phase shift design under the rank-one channel assumption. The formulated non-convex problem is then converted into two subproblems, which are solved alternatively. Specifically, the closed-form solution of transmit beamforming at the BS is derived, and the semidefinite programming (SDP)-based method and element-wise block coordinate descent (BCD)-based method are proposed to design the reflecting matrix. The complexity of our proposed methods is analyzed theoretically. Simulation results reveal that the proposed IRS-assisted secure strategy can significantly boost the secrecy rate performance, regardless of eavesdropper's locations (near or blocking the confidential beam).
As communication systems that employ millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands must use large antenna arrays to overcome the severe propagation loss of mmWave signals, hybrid beamforming has been considered as an integral component of mmWave communications. Recently, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has been proposed as an innovative technology that can significantly improve the performance of mmWave communication systems through the use of low-cost passive reflecting elements. In this paper, we study IRS-aided mmWave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with hybrid beamforming arc…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is one of the key enablers of the fifth-generation cellular networks (5G). However, one of the fundamental challenges of mmWave communication is the susceptibility to blockage effects. One way to alleviate this effect is the use of Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS). Nevertheless, due to the large number of the reflecting elements on IRS, the channel estimation turns out to be a challenging problem. This paper proposes a low-complexity channel information acquisition method for IRS-assisted mmWave communication system. Our idea consists in exploiting th…
The opening of the millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum bands for 5G communications has motivated the need for novel spectrum sharing solutions at these high frequencies. In fact, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have recently emerged to enable spectrum sharing while enhancing the incumbents' quality-of-service (QoS). Nonetheless, co-existence over mmWave bands remains persistently challenging due to their unfavorable propagation characteristics. Hence, initiating mmWave spectrum sharing requires the RIS to further assist in improving the QoS over mmWave bands without jeopardizing spect…
Vision-aided wireless communication is motivated by the recent advances in deep learning and computer vision as well as the increasing dependence on line-of-sight links in millimeter wave (mmWave) and terahertz systems. By leveraging vision, this new research direction enables an interesting set of new capabilities such as vision-aided mmWave beam and blockage prediction, proactive hand-off, and resource allocation among others. These capabilities have the potential of reliably supporting highly-mobile applications such as vehicular/drone communications and wireless virtual/augmented reality i…
In this letter, we investigate the robust and secure beamforming (RSBF) in an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) aided millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple input single output (MISO) system, where multiple single antenna eavesdroppers (Eves) are arbitrarily distributed nearby the legitimate receiver. Considering the channel state information (CSI) of Eves' channels is imperfectly known at the legitimate transmitter, the RSBF design problems to maximize the worst case of achievable secrecy rate (ASR) are formulated under the total transmission power and unit-modulus constraints. Since the proble…
This work investigates the effect of double intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in improving the spectrum efficient of multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network operating in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band. Specifically, we aim to solve a weighted sum rate maximization problem by jointly optimizing the digital precoding at the transmitter and the analog phase shifters at the IRS, subject to the minimum achievable rate constraint. To facilitate the design of an efficient solution, we first reformulate the original problem into a tractable one by exploiting the majorization-min…
Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；CentraleSupélec（中央理工-高等电力学院）；Université Paris-Saclay（巴黎-萨克雷大学）；King Abdullah University of Science and Technology（阿卜杜拉国王科技大学）
Integrating large intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) into millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multi-input-multi-ouput (MIMO) has been a promising approach for improved coverage and throughput. Most existing work assumes the ideal channel estimation, which can be challenging due to the high-dimensional cascaded MIMO channels and passive reflecting elements. Therefore, this paper proposes a deep denoising neural network assisted compressive channel estimation for mmWave IRS systems to reduce the training overhead. Specifically, we first introduce a hybrid passive/active IRS architecture, where v…
Mobility and blockage are two critical challenges in wireless transmission over millimeter-wave (mmWave) and Terahertz (THz) bands. In this paper, we investigate network massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission for mmWave/THz downlink in the presence of mobility and blockage. Considering the mmWave/THz propagation characteristics, we first propose to apply per-beam synchronization for network massive MIMO to mitigate the channel Doppler and delay dispersion effects. Accordingly, we establish a transmission model. We then investigate network massive MIMO downlink transmission …
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted wireless communication is widely deemed a key technology for 6G systems. The main challenge in deploying an IRS-aided terahertz (THz) link, though, is the severe propagation losses at high frequency bands. Hence, a THz IRS is expected to consist of a massive number of reflecting elements to compensate for those losses. However, as the IRS size grows, the conventional far-field assumption starts becoming invalid and the spherical wavefront of the radiated waves must be taken into account. In this work, we focus on the near-field and analytically det…
Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) are regarded as promising enablers for future millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless communication, due to their ability to create favorable line-of-sight (LoS) propagation environments. In this paper, we investigate channel estimation in downlink IRS-assisted mmWave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. By leveraging the sparsity of mmWave channels, we formulate the channel estimation problem as a fixed-rank constrained non-convex optimization problem. To tackle the non-convexity, an efficient algorithm is proposed by capitalizing on alternating mini…
In order to achieve terabits-per-second (Tbps) data rates in the sixth-generation (6G) mobile system, wireless communications are required to exploit the abundant spectrum in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) bands. However, high-frequency transmission heavily relies on high beamforming gain to compensate for severe propagation loss. A beam-based system faces a barrier in the process of initial access, where a base station must broadcast synchronization signals and system information to all users within its coverage. Hence, this paper proposes a novel omnidirectional broadcastin…
In this paper, a downlink intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enhanced millimeter-wave (mmWave) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system is considered. A joint optimization problem over active beamforming, passive beamforming and power allocation is formulated. Due to the highly coupled variables, the formulated optimization problem is non-convex. To solve this problem, an alternative optimization and successive convex approximation based iterative algorithm is proposed. Numerical results illustrate that: 1) the proposed scheme offers significant sum-rate gains, which confirms the effecti…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-Terahertz (THz) frequencies are expected to play a vital role in 6G wireless systems and beyond due to the vast available bandwidth of many tens of GHz. This paper presents an indoor 3-D spatial statistical channel model for mmWave and sub-THz frequencies based on extensive radio propagation measurements at 28 and 140 GHz conducted in an indoor office environment from 2014 to 2020. Omnidirectional and directional path loss models and channel statistics such as the number of time clusters, cluster delays, and cluster powers were derived from over 15,000 measured…
This letter focuses on the non-convex joint optimization with a dynamic resource of multi-user for an intelligent reflecting surface-enhanced mmWave system, where all users are concentrated on the unique cluster beam. Firstly, the objective function of the above non-linear problem is converted into a quadratic programming form under the quality of service constraints. Further, a multi-blocks alternating optimization framework with dynamic power allocation is proposed to obtain the maximum sum-rate, where the relaxed ADMM algorithm is adopted to tackle the optimal fulldigital precoder and the c…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and Terahertz (THz) will be used in the sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems, especially for indoor scenarios. This paper presents an indoor three-dimensional (3-D) statistical channel model for mmWave and sub-THz frequencies, which is developed from extensive channel propagation measurements conducted in an office building at 28 GHz and 140 GHz in 2014 and 2019. Over 15,000 power delay profiles (PDPs) were recorded to study channel statistics such as the number of time clusters, cluster delays, and cluster powers. All the parameters required in the channel generatio…
In this paper, an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is deployed to assist the terahertz (THz) communications. The molecular absorption causes path loss peaks to appear in the THz frequency band, and the fading peak is greatly affected by the transmission distance. In this paper, we aim to maximize the sum rate with individual rate constraints, in which the IRS location, IRS phase shift, the allocation of sub-bands of the THz spectrum, and power control for UEs are jointly optimized. For the special case of a single user equipment (UE) with a single sub-band, the globally optimal solution is…
DiffPace: Diffusion-based Plug-and-play Augmented Channel Estimation in mmWave and Terahertz Ultra-Massive MIMO Systems
Terahertz Wireless Communications (TWC) Laboratory, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（太赫兹无线通信实验室，上海交通大学）；Cooperative Medianet Innovation Center (CMIC), School of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（协作中位网创新中心（CMIC），信息科学与电子工程学院，上海交通大学）；Institute for Digital Communications, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)（数字通信研究所，弗赖堡-亚历山大-大学埃尔朗根-纽伦堡（FAU））
Terahertz (THz) communications have emerged as a promising candidate to support the heavy data traffic and exploding network capacity in the future 6G wireless networks. However, THz communications are facing many challenges for practical implementation, such as propagation loss, signal blockage, and hardware cost. In this article, an emerging paradigm of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted THz communications is analyzed, to address the above issues, by leveraging the joint active and passive beamforming to enhance the communication quality and reduce overheads. Aiming at practical i…
In this paper, the problem of training signal design for intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication under a sparse channel model is considered. The problem is approached based on the Cram$\acute{\text{e}}$r-Rao lower bound (CRB) on the mean-square error (MSE) of channel estimation. By exploiting the sparse structure of mmWave channels, the CRB for the channel parameter composed of path gains and path angles is derived in closed form under Bayesian and hybrid parameter assumptions. Based on the derivation and analysis, an IRS reflection pattern design m…
Terahertz (THz) communications open a new frontier for the wireless network thanks to their dramatically wider available bandwidth compared to the current micro-wave and forthcoming millimeter-wave communications. However, due to the short length of THz waves, they also suffer from severe path attenuation and poor diffraction. To compensate the THz-induced propagation loss, this paper proposes to combine two promising techniques, viz., massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), in THz multi-user communications, considering their significant beamform…
A fundamental challenge in millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is the susceptibility to blocking objects. One way to alleviate this problem is the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). Nevertheless, due to the large number of passive reflecting elements on RIS, channel estimation turns out to be a challenging task. In this paper, we address the channel estimation for RIS-aided mmWave communication systems based on a localization method. The proposed idea consists of exploiting the sparsity of the mmWave channel and the topology of the RIS. In particular, we first propose the con…
The hybrid relay-reflecting intelligent surface (HR-RIS) has been recently introduced as an efficient solution to overcome the double path loss and limited beamforming diversity of the conventional fully passive reflecting surface. This motivates us to investigate the application of the HR-RIS in improving the secrecy capacity of millimeter wave multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems with the presence of multi-antenna eavesdropper. The joint optimization of the transmit beamformer and the relay-reflecting coefficients at RIS is tackled via alternating optimization. In the proposed solut…
Terahertz (THz) communications have been envisioned as a promising enabler to provide ultra-high data transmission for sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. To tackle the blockage vulnerability brought by severe path attenuation and poor diffraction of THz waves, an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is put forward to smartly control the incident THz waves by adjusting the phase shifts. In this paper, we firstly design an efficient hardware structure of graphene-based IRS with phase response up to 306.82 degrees. Subsequently, to characterize the capacity of the IRS-enabled THz multiple-i…
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) offers a cost effective solution to link blockage problem in mmWave communications, and the prerequisite of which is the accurate estimation of (1) the optimal beams for base station/access point (BS/AP) and mobile terminal (MT), (2) the optimal reflection patterns for IRSs, and (3) link blockage. In this paper, we carry out beam training design for IRSs assisted mmWave communications to estimate the aforementioned parameters. To acquire the optimal beams and reflection patterns, we firstly perform random beamforming and maximum likelihood estimation to est…
This paper tackles the problem of single-user multiple-input multiple-output communication with 1-bit digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters. With the information-theoretic capacity as benchmark, the complementary strategies of beamforming and equiprobable signaling are contrasted in the regimes of operational interest, and the ensuing spectral efficiencies are characterized. Various canonical channel types are considered, with emphasis on line-of-sight settings under both spherical and planar wavefronts, respectively representative of short and long transmission ranges at mmWave a…
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has been considered as a promising technology to alleviate the blockage effect and enhance coverage in millimeter wave (mmWave) communication. To explore the impact of IRS on the performance of mmWave communication, we investigate a multi-IRS assisted mmWave communication network and formulate a sum rate maximization problem by jointly optimizing the active and passive beamforming and the set of IRSs for assistance. The optimization problem is intractable due to the lack of convexity of the objective function and the binary nature of the IRS selection varia…
In this letter, we optimize the channel estimator of the cascaded channel in an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted millimeter wave (mmWave) multi-antenna system. In this system, the receiver is equipped with a hybrid architecture adopting quantized beamforming. Different from traditional multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the design of channel estimation is challenging since the IRS is usually a passive array with limited signal processing capability. We derive the optimized channel estimator in a closed form by reformulating the problem of cascaded channel estimation in…
Employing large antenna arrays is a key characteristic of millimeter wave (mmWave) and terahertz communication systems. Due to the hardware constraints and the lack of channel knowledge, codebook based beamforming/combining is normally adopted to achieve the desired array gain. However, most of the existing codebooks focus only on improving the gain of their target user, without taking interference into account. This can incur critical performance degradation in dense networks. In this paper, we propose a sample-efficient online reinforcement learning based beam pattern design algorithm that l…
Recently, terahertz (THz) communication has drawn considerable attention as one of the promising technologies for the future wireless communications owning to its ultra-wide bandwidth. Nonetheless, one major obstacle that prevents the actual deployment of THz lies in its inherent huge attenuation. Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) represent two effective solutions for compensating the large pathloss in THz systems. In this paper, we consider an IRS-aided multi-user THz MIMO system with orthogonal frequency division multiple access, where the sparse …
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are envisioned to be extensively employed for assisting wireless communications in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. On the other hand, terahertz (THz) enabled intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is expected to be one of the core enabling technologies for forthcoming beyond-5G wireless communications that promise a broad range of data-demand applications. In this paper, we propose a UAV-mounted IRS (UIRS) communication system over THz bands for confidential data dissemination from an access point (AP) towards multiple ground user equipments (UEs) in IoT ne…
With the standardization of 5G, commercial millimeter wave (mmWave) communications has become a reality despite all the concerns about the unfavorable propagation characteristics of these frequencies. Even though the 5G systems are still being rolled out, it is argued that their gigabits per second rates may fall short in supporting many emerging applications, such as 3D gaming and extended reality. Such applications will require several hundreds of gigabits per second to several terabits per second data rates with low latency and high reliability, which are expected to be the design goals of …
In this paper, we study the performance of wideband terahertz (THz) communications assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). Specifically, we first introduce a generalized channel model that is suitable for electrically large THz IRSs operating in the near-field. Unlike prior works, our channel model takes into account the spherical wavefront of the emitted electromagnetic waves and the spatial-wideband effect. We next show that conventional frequency-flat beamfocusing significantly reduces the power gain due to beam squint, and hence is highly suboptimal. More importantly, we analy…
This paper investigates two performance metrics, namely ergodic capacity and symbol error rate, of mmWave communication system assisted by a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS). We assume independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rician fadings between user-RIS-Access Point (AP), with RIS surface consisting of passive reflecting elements. First, we derive a new unified closed-form formula for the average symbol error probability of generalised M-QAM/M-PSK signalling over this mmWave link. We then obtain new closed-form expressions for the ergodic capacity with and without channel s…
Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) and millimeter wave (mmWave) communications are two major technologies to enhance the spectrum efficiency (SE). Considering that the SE improvement in the CRNs is limited due to the interference temperature imposed on the primary user (PU), and the severe path loss and high directivity in mmWave communications make it vulnerable to blockage events, we introduce an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) into mmWave CRNs. Due to the estimation mismatch and the passivity of Eavesdroppers (Eves), perfect channel state information (CSI) of wiretap links is challenging …
In this paper, we establish an integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system based on a distributed semi-passive intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), which allows location sensing and data transmission to be carried out simultaneously, sharing the same frequency and time resources. The detailed working process of the proposed IRS-based ISAC system is designed, including the transmission protocol, location sensing and beamforming optimization. Specifically, each coherence block consists of two periods, the ISAC period with two time blocks and the pure communication (PC) period. During eac…
An intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system with transmit antenna selection (TAS) using orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC) scheme is proposed in this paper. This system combines TAS and IRS with hybrid analog-digital beamforming (HBF) for 60 GHz mmWave communications in order to exploit the benefits of TAS, OSTBC, analog beamforming (ABF), and transmit digital precoding techniques. The proposed system, however, benefits from the transmit diversity gain of OSTBC scheme as well as from the signal-to-noise r…
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is envisioned as a promising technology to broaden signal coverage and enhance transmission in terahertz (THz) communications. Due to the passivity of IRS, the channel measurement can not be achieved by traditional pilot manner and the subsequent cooperative transmission design remains an open problem. This paper investigates the channel estimation and transmission solutions for massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) IRS-assisted THz system. The channel estimation is realized by beam training and the quantization error is analyzed for evaluating perf…
Terahertz (THz) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) have been regarded as two promising technologies to improve the capacity and coverage for future 6G networks. Generally, IRS is usually equipped with large-scale elements when implemented at THz frequency. In this case, the near-field model and beam squint should be considered. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the far-field and near-field beam squint problems in THz IRS communications for the first time. The far-field and near-field channel models are constructed based on the different electromagnetic radiation characteristics. N…
Integrated ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) systems are promising for 6G and beyond Terahertz (0.1-10 THz) communications, to effectively bypass the barriers of limited coverage and line-of-sight blockage. However, excessive dimensions of UM-MIMO and IRS enlarge the near-field region, while strong THz channel sparsity in far-field is detrimental to spatial multiplexing. Moreover, channel estimation (CE) requires recovering the large-scale channel from severely compressed observations due to limited RF-chains. To tackle these challe…
We investigate THz communication uplink multiple access using cascaded intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) assuming correlated channels. Two independent objectives to be achieved via adjusting the phases of the cascaded IRSs: 1) maximizing the received rate of a desired user under interference from the second user and 2) maximizing the sum rate of both users. The resulting optimization problems are non-convex. For the first objective, we devise a sub-optimal analytical solution by maximizing the received power of the desired user, however, this results in an over determined system. Approxim…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted extensive attention in recent years. However, most research focuses on the scenario of the narrowband and/or instantaneous channel state information (CSI), while wide bandwidth with the use of millimeter-wave (mmWave) (including sub-Terahertz) spectrum is a major trend in next-generation wireless communications, and statistical CSI is more practical to obtain in realistic systems. Thus, we {consider} the ergodic achievable rate of RIS-assisted mmWave multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing communication sy…
This paper investigates the problem of increasing the security at the physical layer of a Millimeter Wave (mmWave) network equipped with several Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRSs). In this network, multiple IRSs help the Base Station (BS) to reach the signal to the desired user and at the same time maintain the security of the network i.e. securing the signal from receiving by the unallowable eavesdropper. The target of the proposed scheme is to maximize the secrecy rate by jointly optimizing the active beamforming at the BS and passive beamforming at the IRSs. This leads to a non-convex o…
Terahertz (THz) systems are capable of supporting ultra-high data rates thanks to large bandwidth, and the potential to harness high-gain beamforming to combat high pathloss. In this paper, a novel quantum sensing (Ghost Imaging (GI)) based beam training is proposed for Simultaneously Transmitting and Reflecting Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (STAR RIS) aided THz multi-user massive MIMO systems. We first conduct GI by surrounding 5G downlink signals to obtain 3D images of the environment including users and obstacles. Based on the information, we calculate the optimal position of the UAV-m…
