Channel state information (CSI) feedback is necessary for the frequency division duplexing (FDD) multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems due to the channel non-reciprocity. With the help of deep learning, many works have succeeded in rebuilding the compressed ideal CSI for massive MIMO. However, simple CSI reconstruction is of limited practicality since the channel estimation and the targeted beamforming design are not considered. In this paper, a jointly optimized network is introduced for channel estimation and feedback so that a spectral-efficient beamformer can be learned. Moreover, the deployment-friendly subarray hybrid beamforming architecture is applied and a practical lightweight end-to-end network is specially designed. Experiments show that the proposed network is over 10 times lighter at the resource-sensitive user equipment compared with the previous state-of-the-art method with only a minor performance loss.
Hybrid beamforming is a promising technology to improve the energy efficiency of massive MIMO systems. In particular, subarray hybrid beamforming can further decrease power consumption by reducing the number of phase-shifters. However, designing the hybrid beamforming vectors is a complex task due to the discrete nature of the subarray connections and the phase-shift amounts. Finding the optimal connections between RF chains and antennas requires solving a non-convex problem in a large search space. In addition, conventional solutions assume that perfect CSI is available, which is not the case…
Terahertz (THz) communications with multi-GHz bandwidth are envisioned as a key technology for 6G systems. Ultra-massive (UM) MIMO with hybrid beamforming architectures are widely investigated to provide a high array gain to overcome the huge propagation loss. However, most of the existing hybrid beamforming architectures can only utilize the multiplexing offered by the multipath components, i.e., inter-path multiplexing, which is very limited due to the spatially sparse THz channel. In this paper, a widely-spaced multi-subarray (WSMS) hybrid beamforming architecture is proposed, which improve…
Terahertz (THz) communications are regarded as a pillar technology for the 6G systems, by offering multi-ten-GHz bandwidth. To overcome the huge propagation loss while reducing the hardware complexity, THz ultra-massive (UM) MIMO systems with hybrid beamforming are proposed to offer high array gain. Notably, the adjustable-phase-shifters considered in most existing hybrid beamforming studies are power-hungry and difficult to realize in the THz band. Moreover, due to the ultra-massive antennas, full channel-state-information (CSI) is challenging to obtain. To address these practical concerns, i…
Hybrid beamforming for Terahertz (THz) ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) systems is a promising technology for 6G space-air-ground integrated networks, which can overcome huge propagation loss and offer unprecedented data rates. With ultra-wide bandwidth and ultra-large-scale antennas array in THz band, the beam squint becomes one of the critical problems which could reduce the array gain and degrade the data rate substantially. However, the traditional phase-shifters-based hybrid beamforming architectures cannot tackle this issue due to the frequency-flat property of the …
In this paper, we study the beamforming design problem in frequency-division duplexing (FDD) downlink massive MIMO systems, where instantaneous channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be unavailable at the base station (BS). We propose to extract the information of the angle-of-departures (AoDs) and the corresponding large-scale fading coefficients (a.k.a. spatial information) of the downlink channel from the uplink channel estimation procedure, based on which a novel downlink beamforming design is presented. By separating the subpaths for different users based on the spatial information…
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) using conventional phased array (CPA) enables highly directional and fixed angular beamforming (FAB), therefore enhancing physical layer security (PLS) in the angular domain. However, as the eavesdropper is located in the direction pointed by the mainlobe of the information-carrying beam, information leakage is inevitable and FAB cannot guarantee PLS performance. To address this threat, we propose a novel fixed region beamforming (FRB) by employing a frequency diverse subarray (FDSA) architecture to enhance the PLS performance for mmWave directional communications. In …
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are able to provide passive beamforming gain via low-cost reflecting elements and hence improve wireless link quality. This work considers two-way passive beamforming design in RIS-aided frequency division duplexing (FDD) systems where the RIS reflection coefficients are the same for downlink and uplink and should be optimized for both directions simultaneously. We formulate a joint optimization of the transmit/receive beamformers at the base station (BS) and the RIS reflection coefficients. The objective is to maximize the weighted sum of the downlin…
We present a beamforming algorithm for multiuser wideband millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems where one access point uses hybrid analog/digital beamforming while multiple user stations have phased-arrays with a single RF chain. The algorithm operates in a more general mode than others available in literature and has lower computational complexity and training overhead. Throughout the paper, we describe: i) the construction of novel beamformer sets (codebooks) with wide sector beams and narrow beams based on the orthogonality property of beamformer vectors, ii) a beamforming algorith…
Terahertz (THz) communications are regarded as a pillar technology for the sixth generation (6G) wireless systems, by offering multi-ten-GHz bandwidth. To overcome the short transmission distance and huge propagation loss, ultra-massive (UM) MIMO systems that employ sub-millimeter wavelength antennas array are proposed to enable an enticingly high array gain. In the UM-MIMO systems, hybrid beamforming stands out for its great potential in promisingly high data rate and reduced power consumption. In this paper, challenges and features of the THz hybrid beamforming design are investigated, in li…
In this work, we consider a two-level hierarchical MIMO antenna array system, where each antenna of the upper level is made up of a subarray on the lower one. The concept of spatial multiplexing is applied twice in this situation: Firstly, the spatial multiplexing of a Line-of-Sight (LoS) MIMO system is exploited. It is based on appropriate (sub-)array distances and achieves multiplexing gain due to phase differences among the signals at the receive (sub-)arrays. Secondly, one or more additional reflected paths of different angles (separated from the LoS path by different spatial beams at the …
We propose a method for channel training and precoding in FDD massive MIMO based on deep neural networks (DNNs), exploiting Downlink (DL) channel covariance knowledge. The DNN is optimized to maximize the DL multi-user sum-rate, by producing a pre-beamforming matrix based on user channel covariances that maps the original channel vectors to effective channels. Measurements of these effective channels are received at the users via common pilot transmission and sent back to the base station (BS) through analog feedback without further processing. The BS estimates the effective channels from rece…
Cell-free massive MIMO communications is an emerging network technology for 5G wireless communications wherein distributed multi-antenna access points (APs) serve many users simultaneously. Most prior work on cell-free massive MIMO systems assume time-division duplexing mode, although frequency-division duplexing (FDD) systems dominate current wireless standards. The key challenges in FDD massive MIMO systems are channel-state information (CSI) acquisition and feedback overhead. To address these challenges, we exploit the so-called angle reciprocity of multipath components in the uplink and do…
The overheads associated with feedback-based channel acquisition can greatly compromise the achievable rates of FDD based massive MIMO systems. Indeed, downlink (DL) training and uplink (UL) feedback overheads scale linearly with the number of base station (BS) antennas, in sharp contrast to TDD-based massive MIMO, where a single UL pilot trains the whole BS array. In this work, we propose a graph-theoretic approach to reducing DL training and UL feedback overheads in FDD massive MIMO systems. In particular, we consider a single-cell scenario involving a single BS with a massive antenna array …
In this paper we carry out the asymptotic diversity analysis for millimeter-wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems by using bit interleaved coded multiple beamforming (BICMB). First, a single-user mmWave system which employs $M_t$ antenna subarrays at the transmitter and $M_r$ antenna subarrays at the receiver is studied. Each antenna subarray in the transmitter and the receiver has $N_r$ and $N_t$ antennas, respectively. We establish a theorem for the diversity gain when the number of antennas in each remote antenna unit (RAU) goes to infinity. Based on the theore…
The Terahertz band is envisioned to meet the demanding 100 Gbps data rates for 6G wireless communications. Aiming at combating the distance limitation problem with low hardware-cost, ultra-massive MIMO with hybrid beamforming is promising. However, relationships among wavelength, array size and antenna spacing give rise to the inaccuracy of planar-wave channel model (PWM), while an enlarged channel matrix dimension leads to excessive parameters of applying spherical-wave channel model (SWM). Moreover, due to the adoption of hybrid beamforming, channel estimation (CE) needs to recover high-dime…
Movable Subarray-Aided ISAC in Hybrid Near-Far Field Channels
Wireless and Computing Research Institute, ZTE Corporation（中兴通讯无线与计算研究院）；State Key Laboratory of Environment Characteristics and Effects for Near-space, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京近空环境特性及效应全国重点实验室）；Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学电子工程系）
Downlink beamforming in Massive MIMO either relies on uplink pilot measurements - exploiting reciprocity and TDD operation, or on the use of a predetermined grid of beams with user equipments reporting their preferred beams, mostly in FDD operation. Massive MIMO in its originally conceived form uses the first strategy, with uplink pilots, whereas there is currently significant commercial interest in the second, grid-of-beams. It has been analytically shown that in isotropic scattering (independent Rayleigh fading) the first approach outperforms the second. Nevertheless there remains controvers…
In order to unlock the full advantages of massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) in the downlink, channel state information (CSI) is required at the base station (BS) to optimize the beamforming matrices. In frequency division duplex (FDD) systems, full channel reciprocity does not hold, and CSI acquisition generally requires downlink pilot transmission followed by uplink feedback. Prior work proposed the end-to-end design of pilot transmission, feedback, and CSI estimation via deep learning. In this work, we introduce an enhanced end-to-end design that leverages partial uplink-downlink…
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology（北京信息科学与技术国家研究中心）
Hybrid beamforming is widely recognized as an important technique for millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. Generalized spatial modulation (GSM) is further introduced to improve the spectrum efficiency. However, most of the existing works on beamforming assume the perfect channel state information (CSI), which is unrealistic in practical systems. In this paper, joint optimization of downlink pilot training, channel estimation, CSI feedback, and hybrid beamforming is considered in GSM aided frequency division duplexing (FDD) mmWave MIMO systems. With the help o…
Accurate estimation of DL CSI is required to achieve high spectrum and energy efficiency in massive MIMO systems. Previous works have developed learning-based CSI feedback framework within FDD systems for efficient CSI encoding and recovery with demonstrated benefits. However, downlink pilots for CSI estimation by receiving terminals may occupy excessively large number of resource elements for massive number of antennas and compromise spectrum efficiency. To overcome this problem, we propose a new learning-based feedback architecture for efficient encoding of partial CSI feedback of interleave…
Massive MIMO has been the subject of intense interest in both academia and industry for the past few years. 3GPP standardization for cellular systems have adopted the principles of massive MIMO and categorized the use of large rectangular planar arrays at the base station as full-dimension MIMO (FD-MIMO) to operate in both TDD and FDD. Operating a large antenna array base station requires the system to overcome several implementation challenges caused by hardware impairments making practical solutions non-ideal and expensive to deploy at scale. It is important to learn from existing challenges…
Hybrid digital analog (HDA) beamforming has attracted considerable attention in practical implementation of millimeter wave (mmWave) multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems due to the low power consumption with respect to its fully digital baseband counterpart. The implementation cost, performance, and power efficiency of HDA beamforming depends on the level of connectivity and reconfigurability of the analog beamforming network. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two typical architectures that can be regarded as extreme cases, namely, the fully-connected (FC) …
The use of large-scale antenna systems in future commercial wireless communications is an emerging technology that uses an excess of transmit antennas to realize high spectral efficiency. Achieving potential gains with large-scale antenna arrays in practice hinges on sufficient channel estimation accuracy. Much prior work focuses on TDD based networks, relying on reciprocity between the uplink and downlink channels. However, most currently deployed commercial wireless systems are FDD based, making it difficult to exploit channel reciprocity. In massive MIMO FDD systems, the problem of channel …
We analyze the diversity gain for a distributed antenna subarray employing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) in millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. We show that the diversity gain depends on the number of transmitted data streams, the number of remote antenna units, and the number of propagation paths between RAUs. Furthermore, we show that by using bit-interleaved coded multiple beamforming (BICMB), one can achieve the maximum diversity gain in a distributed antenna subarray system. The assumption in both scenarios is that the numbe…
Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Southeast University（东南大学）
In an aerial hybrid massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system, how to design a spectral-efficient broadband multi-user hybrid beamforming with a limited pilot and feedback overhead is challenging. To this end, by modeling the key transmission modules as an end-to-end (E2E) neural network, this paper proposes a data-driven deep learning (DL)-based unified hybrid beamforming framework for both the time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) systems with implicit channel state information (CSI). For TDD systems, t…
Recent works on massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) have shown that a potential breakthrough in capacity gains can be achieved by deploying a very large number of antennas at the basestation. In order to achieve the performance that massive MIMO systems promise, accurate transmit-side channel state information (CSI) should be available at the basestation. While transmit-side CSI can be obtained by employing channel reciprocity in time division duplexing (TDD) systems, explicit feedback of CSI from the user terminal to the basestation is needed for frequency division duplexing (FDD) s…
Massive MIMO is considered as one of the key enablers of the next generation 5G networks.With a high number of antennas at the BS, both spectral and energy efficiencies can be improved. Unfortunately, the downlink channel estimation overhead scales linearly with the number of antenna. This does not create complications in Time Division Duplex (TDD) systems since the channel estimate of the uplink direction can be directly utilized for link adaptation in the downlink direction. However, this channel reciprocity is unfeasible for the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) systems where different physic…
In this paper, we consider a frequency-division duplexing (FDD) multiple-user multiple-input-single-output (MU-MISO) wireless-powered communication network (WPCN) consisting of one hybrid data-and-energy access point (HAP) with multiple antennas which coordinates energy/information transfer to/from several single-antenna wireless devices (WD). Typically, in such a system, wireless energy transfer (WET) requires such techniques as energy beamforming (EB) for efficient transfer of energy to the WDs. Yet, efficient EB can only be accomplished if channel state information (CSI) is available to the…
We propose a comprehensive scheme for realizing a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with dual-polarized antennas in frequency division duplexing (FDD) mode. Employing dual-polarized elements in a massive MIMO array has been common practice recently and can, in principle, double the number of spatial degrees of freedom with a less-than-proportional increase in array size. However, processing a dual-polarized channel is demanding due to the high channel dimension and the lack of Uplink-Downlink (UL-DL) channel reciprocity in FDD mode. In particular, the difficulty arises in ch…
When base stations (BSs) are deployed with multiple antennas, they need to have downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) to optimize downlink transmissions by beamforming. The DL CSI is usually measured at mobile stations (MSs) through DL training and fed back to the BS in frequency division duplexing (FDD). The DL training and uplink (UL) feedback might become infeasible due to insufficient coherence time interval when the channel rapidly changes due to high speed of MSs. Without the feedback from MSs, it may be possible for the BS to directly obtain the DL CSI using the inherent relatio…
In this work we extend the concept of uplink-downlink rate balancing to frequency division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO systems. We consider a base station with large number antennas serving many single antenna users. We first show that any unused capacity in the uplink can be traded off for higher throughput in the downlink in a system that uses either dirty paper (DP) coding or linear zero-forcing (ZF) precoding. We then also study the scaling of the system throughput with the number of antennas in cases of linear Beamforming (BF) Precoding, ZF Precoding, and DP coding. We show that the downlin…
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) precoding is an efficient scheme that may significantly enhance the communication link. However, this enhancement comes with a cost. Many precoding schemes require channel knowledge at the transmitter that is obtained through feedback from the receiver. Focusing on the natural common fusion of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and MIMO, we exploit the channel correlation in the frequency and spatial domain to reduce the required feedback rate in a frequency division duplex (FDD) system. The proposed feedback method is based on Huffman codin…
Hybrid digital analog (HDA) beamforming has attracted considerable attention in practical implementation of millimeter wave (mmWave) multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems due to its low power consumption with respect to its digital baseband counterpart. The implementation cost, performance, and power efficiency of HDA beamforming depends on the level of connectivity and reconfigurability of the analog beamforming network. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two typical architectures for HDA MU-MIMO, i.e., the fully-connected (FC) architecture where each RF ant…
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) are expected to play an important role in future wireless communication systems. These surfaces typically rely on their reflection beamforming codebooks to reflect and focus the signal on the target receivers. Prior work has mainly considered pre-defined RIS beamsteering codebooks that do not adapt to the environment and hardware and lead to large beam training overhead. In this work, a novel deep reinforcement learning based framework is developed to efficiently construct the RIS reflection beam codebook. This framework adopts a multi-level design app…
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a promising technology to deliver the higher spectral and energy requirements in fifth-generation (5G) and beyond wireless networks while shaping the propagation environment. Such a design can be further enhanced with massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) characteristics towards boosting the network performance. However, channel reciprocity, assumed in 5G systems such as mMIMO, appears to be questioned in practice by recent studies on IRS. Hence, contrary to previous works, we consider frequency division duplexing (FDD) to study the performance …
Massive MIMO is widely considered as a key enabler of the next generation 5G networks. With a large number of antennas at the Base Station, both spectral and energy efficiencies can be enhanced. Unfortunately, the downlink channel estimation overhead scales linearly with the number of antennas. This burden is easily mitigated in TDD systems by the use of the channel reciprocity property. However, this is unfeasible for FDD systems and the method of two-stage beamforming was therefore developed to reduce the amount of channel state information feedback. The performance of this scheme being high…
In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, acquisition of the channel state information at the transmitter side (CSIT) is crucial. In this paper, a practical CSIT estimation scheme is proposed for frequency division duplexing (FDD) massive MIMO systems. Specifically, each received pilot symbol is first quantized to one bit per dimension at the receiver side and then the quantized bits are fed back to the transmitter. A joint one-bit compressed sensing algorithm is implemented at the transmitter to recover the channel matrices. The algorithm leverages the hidden joint sparsity st…
In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, hybrid analog-digital beamforming is an essential technique for exploiting the potential array gain without using a dedicated radio frequency chain for each antenna. However, due to the large number of antennas, the conventional channel estimation and hybrid beamforming algorithms generally require high computational complexity and signaling overhead. In this work, we propose an end-to-end deep-unfolding neural network (NN) joint channel estimation and hybrid beamforming (JCEHB) algorithm to maximize the system sum rate in time-division…
A large majority of cellular networks deployed today make use of Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) where, in contrast with Time Division Duplexing (TDD), the channel reciprocity does not hold and explicit downlink (DL) probing and uplink (UL) feedback are needed in order to achieve spatial multiplexing gain. To support massive MIMO, the overhead incurred by conventional DL probing and UL feedback schemes scales linearly with the number of BS antennas and, therefore, may be very large. In this paper, we present a new approach to achieve a very competitive trade-off between spatial multiplexing…
Large antenna arrays can be used to generate highly focused beams that support very high data rates and reduced energy consumption. However, optimal beam focusing requires large amount of feedback from the users in order to choose the best beam, especially in Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode. This paper develops a methodology for designing a multilevel codebook of beams in an environment with low number of multipaths. The antenna design supporting the focused beams is formulated as an optimization problem. A multilevel codebook of beams is constructed according to the coverage requirements…
The use of the millimeter (mm) wave spectrum for next generation (5G) mobile communication has gained significant attention recently. The small carrier wavelengths at mmwave frequencies enable synthesis of compact antenna arrays, providing beamforming gains that compensate the increased propagation losses. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of employing multiple antenna arrays to obtain diversity/multiplexing gains in mmwave systems, where each of the arrays is capable of beamforming independently. Considering a codebook based beamforming system (e.g., to facilitate limited feedback)…
In this paper, we propose a novel method for efficient implementation of a massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (massive MIMO) system with Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) operation. Our main objective is to reduce the large overhead incurred by Downlink (DL) common training and Uplink (UL) feedback needed to obtain channel state information (CSI) at the base station. Our proposed scheme relies on the fact that the underlying angular distribution of a channel vector, also known as the angular scattering function, is a frequency-invariant entity yielding a UL-DL reciprocity and has a limite…
Joint Spatial Division and Multiplexing (JSDM) is a recently proposed scheme to enable massive MIMO like gains and simplified system operations for Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) systems. The key idea lies in partitioning the users into groups with approximately similar covariances, and use a two stage downlink beamforming: a pre-beamformer that depends on the channel covariances and minimizes interference across groups and a multiuser MIMO precoder for the effective channel after pre-beamforming, to counteract interference within a group. We first focus on the regime of a fixed number of …
Millimeter-wave MIMO systems have gained increasing traction towards the goal of meeting the high data-rate requirements in next-generation wireless systems. The focus of this work is on low-complexity beamforming approaches for initial UE discovery in such systems. Towards this goal, we first note the structure of the optimal beamformer with per-antenna gain and phase control and the structure of good beamformers with per-antenna phase-only control. Learning these beamforming structures in mmW systems is fraught with considerable complexities such as the need for a non-broadcast system design…
Distributed phased arrays based multiple-input multiple-output (DPA-MIMO) is a recently proposed highly reconfigurable architecture enabling both spatial multiplexing and beamforming in millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems. In this work, we focus on coping with the hybrid precoding for the wideband DPA-MIMO system with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. More specifically, we propose an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) enabled hybrid precoding approach based on an alternating optimization framework, abbreviated to ADMM-AltMin, for such cooperative array-…
The prospect of ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) technology to combat the distance problem at the Terahertz (THz)-band is considered. It is well-known that the very large available bandwidths at THz frequencies come at the cost of severe propagation losses and power limitations, which result in very short communication distances. Recently, graphene-based plasmonic nano-antenna arrays that can accommodate hundreds of antenna elements in a few millimeters have been proposed. While such arrays enable efficient beamforming that can increase the communication range, they fail …
