We consider distributed optimization over a $d$-dimensional space, where $K$ remote clients send coded gradient estimates over an {\em additive Gaussian Multiple Access Channel (MAC)} with noise variance $σ_z^2$.
Furthermore, the codewords from the clients must satisfy the average power constraint $P$, resulting in a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of $KP/σ_z^2$. In this paper, we study the fundamental limits imposed by MAC on the {convergence rate of any distributed optimization algorithm and design optimal communication schemes to achieve these limits.} Our first result is a lower bound for the convergence rate, showing that communicating over a MAC imposes a slowdown of $\sqrt{d/\frac{1}{2}\log(1+\SNR)}$ on any protocol compared to the centralized setting. Next, we design a computationally tractable {digital} communication scheme that matches the lower bound to a logarithmic factor in $K$ when combined with a projected stochastic gradient descent algorithm. At the heart of our communication scheme is carefully combining several compression and modulation ideas such as quantizing along random bases, {\em Wyner-Ziv compression}, {\em modulo-lattice decoding}, and {\em amplitude shift keying.} We also show that analog schemes, which are popular due to their ease of implementation, can give close to optimal convergence rates at low $\SNR$ but experience a slowdown of roughly $\sqrt{d}$ at high $\SNR$.
In this paper, we investigate network nest coded modulation schemes for multiple access relay channels. The performance of the distributed systems which are based on distributed convolutional codes with network coded modulation is presented. An analytical upper bound on bit error probability performance for the studied distributed systems with Maximum Likelihood Sequence Detection (MLSD) is derived. The constructured bounds for the investigated systems are shown to be asymptotically tight for increasing channel Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) values
A distributed storage system (DSS) needs to be efficiently accessible and repairable. Recently, considerable effort has been made towards the latter, while the former is usually not considered, since a trivial solution exists in the form of systematic encoding. However, this is not a viable option when considering storage that has to be secure against eavesdroppers. This work investigates the problem of efficient access to data stored on an DSS under such security constraints. Further, we establish methods to balance the access load, i.e., ensure that each node is accessed equally often. We es…
In distributed communication, each transmitter prepares an ensemble of channel codes. To encode a message, a transmitter chooses a channel code individually without sharing the coding choice with other transmitters or with the receiver. Upon receiving the block of channel output symbols, the receiver either decodes the messages of interest if a pre-determined reliability requirement can be met, or reports collision otherwise. Revised from the distributed channel coding theorems in the literature, distributed capacity of a discrete-time memoryless multiple access channel is defined and derived …
We consider cooperative radio access network architectures, especially distributed massive MIMO and Cloud RAN, considering their similarities and differences. We address in particular the major challenge posed to both by the implementation of a high capacity fronthaul network to link the distributed access points to the central processing unit, and consider the effect on uplink performance of quantization of received signals in order to limit fronthaul load. We use the Bussgang decomposition along with a new approach to MMSE estimation of both channel and data to provide the basis of our analy…
Redundant storage maintains the performance of distributed systems under various forms of uncertainty. This paper considers the uncertainty in node access and download service. We consider two access models under two download service models. In one access model, a user can access each node with a fixed probability, and in the other, a user can access a random fixed-size subset of nodes. We consider two download service models. In the first (small file) model, the randomness associated with the file size is negligible. In the second (large file) model, randomness is associated with both the fil…
Fluid-Antenna-Assisted Distributed Joint Decoding for Cell-Free Massive MIMO Unsourced Random Access
Southeast University（东南大学）；National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Frontiers Science Center for Mobile Information Communication and Security, Southeast University（国家移动通信重点实验室，移动信息与安全前沿科学中心，东南大学）；Purple Mountain Laboratories（紫金山实验室）
In this paper, we study communication-efficient distributed stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with data sets of users distributed over a certain area and communicating through wireless channels. Since the time for one iteration in the proposed approach is independent of the number of users, it is well-suited to scalable distributed SGD. Furthermore, since the proposed approach is based on preamble-based random access, which is widely adopted for machine-type communication (MTC), it can be easily employed for training models with a large number of devices in various Internet-of-Things (IoT) app…
This paper investigates the problem of distributed medium access control in a wireless multiple access network with an unknown finite number of homogeneous transmitters. An enhanced physical link layer interface is considered where each link layer user can be equipped with multiple transmission options. Assume that each user is backlogged with a saturated message queue. With a generally-modeled channel, a distributed medium access control framework is suggested to adapt the transmission scheme of each user to maximize an arbitrarily chosen symmetric network utility. The proposed framework sugg…
Grant-free transmission is considered as a promising technology to support sporadic data transmission in massive machine-type communications (mMTC). Due to the distributed manner, high collision probability is an inherent drawback of grant-free access techniques. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is expected to be used in uplink grant-free transmission, multiplying connection opportunities by exploiting power domain resources. However, it is usually applied for coordinated transmissions where the base station performs coordination with full channel state information, which is not suitable …
Coded distributed computing (CDC) is a new technique proposed with the purpose of decreasing the intense data exchange required for parallelizing distributed computing systems. Under the famous MapReduce paradigm, this coded approach has been shown to decrease this communication overhead by a factor that is linearly proportional to the overall computation load during the mapping phase. Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that this overhead remains a main bottleneck in distributed computing. To address this, we take a new approach and we explore a new system model which, for the same aforementi…
To solve the access-balancing problem in distributed storage systems, we introduce a new combinatorial model, called MinVar model for fractional repetition (FR) codes. Since FR codes are based on graphs or set systems, our MinVar model is characterized by the property that the variance among the sums of block-labels incident to a fixed vertex is minimized. This characterization is different from Dau and Milenkovic's MaxMinSum model, while the minimum sum of labels is maximized. We show that our MinVar model is meaningful by distinguishing labelings with different variances but with the same Ma…
This paper investigates the problem of distributed medium access control in a time slotted wireless multiple access network with an unknown finite number of homogeneous users. Assume that each user has a single transmission option. In each time slot, a user chooses either to idle or to transmit a packet. Under a general channel model, a distributed medium access control framework is proposed to adapt transmission probabilities of all users to a value that maximizes an arbitrarily chosen symmetric network utility. Probability target of each user in the proposed algorithm is calculated based upo…
In this paper, the edge caching problem in ultra-dense fog radio access networks (F-RAN) is investigated. Taking into account time-variant user requests and ultra-dense deployment of fog access points (F-APs), we propose a dynamic distributed edge caching scheme to jointly minimize the request service delay and fronthaul traffic load. Considering the interactive relationship among F-APs, we model the caching optimization problem as a stochastic differential game (SDG) which captures the temporal dynamics of F-AP states and incorporates user requests status. The SDG is further approximated as a…
Consider the problem of a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Multiple-Access Channel (MAC) at the limit of large number of users. Clearly, in practical scenarios, only a small subset of the users can be scheduled to utilize the channel simultaneously. Thus, a problem of user selection arises. However, since solutions which collect Channel State Information (CSI) from all users and decide on the best subset to transmit in each slot do not scale when the number of users is large, distributed algorithms for user selection are advantageous. In this paper, we analyse a distributed user selection…
We consider a MapReduce-like distributed computing system. We derive a lower bound on the communication cost for any given storage and computation costs. This lower bound matches the achievable bound we proposed recently. As a result, we completely characterize the optimal tradeoff between the storage, the computation, and the communication. Our result generalizes the previous one by Li et al. to also account for the number of computed intermediate values.
Coded distributed computing can alleviate the communication load by leveraging the redundant storage and computation resources with coding techniques in distributed computing. In this paper, we study a MapReduce-type distributed computing framework over star topological network, where all the workers exchange information through a common access point. The optimal tradeoff among the normalized number of the stored files (storage load), computed intermediate values (computation load) and transmitted bits in the uplink and downlink (communication loads) are characterized. A coded computing scheme…
Shanghai Institute for Advanced Communication and Data Science, Shanghai University（上海大学先进通信与数据科学研究院）；Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University（清华大学北京信息科学与技术国家研究中心）
Future wireless access networks need to support diversified quality of service (QoS) metrics required by various types of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, e.g., age of information (AoI) for status generating sources and ultra low latency for safety information in vehicular networks. In this paper, a novel inner-state driven random access (ISDA) framework is proposed based on distributed policy learning, in particular a cross-entropy method. Conventional random access schemes, e.g., $p$-CSMA, assume state-less terminals, and thus assigning equal priorities to all. In ISDA, the inner-states of …
We present a communication solution tailored specifically for DC microgrids (MGs) that exploits: (i) the communication potential residing in power electronic converters interfacing distributed generators to powerlines and (ii) the multiple access nature of the communication channel presented by powerlines. The communication is achieved by modulating the parameters of the primary control loop implemented by the converters, fostering execution of the upper layer control applications. We present the proposed solution in the context of the distributed optimal economic dispatch, where the generator…
In attribute-based access control, users with certain verified attributes will gain access to some particular data. Concerning with privacy of the users' attributes, we study the problem of distributed attribute-based private access control (DAPAC) with multiple authorities, where each authority will learn and verify only one of the attributes. To investigate its fundamental limits, we introduce an information theoretic DAPAC framework, with $N \in \mathbb{N}$, $N\geq 2$, replicated non-colluding servers (authorities) and some users. Each user has an attribute vector $\mathbf{v^*}=(v_1^*, ...,…
We propose a concept system termed distributed base station (DBS), which enables distributed transmit beamforming at large carrier wavelengths to achieve significant range extension and/or increased downlink data rate, providing a low-cost infrastructure for applications such as rural broadband. We consider a frequency division duplexed (FDD) system, using feedback from the receiver to achieve the required phase coherence. At a given range, $N$ cooperating transmitters can achieve $N^2$-fold increase in received power compared to that for a single transmitters, and feedback-based algorithms wi…
Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission and reception have been considered in cellular networks for enabling larger coverage, improved rates, and interference mitigation. To harness the gains of coordinated beamforming, fast information exchange over a backhaul connecting the cooperating base stations (BSs) is required. In practice, the bandwidth and delay limitations of the backhaul may not be able to meet such stringent demands. These impairments motivate the study of cooperative approaches based only on local channel state information (CSI) and which require minimal or no information exc…
Many code families such as low-density parity-check codes, fractional repetition codes, batch codes and private information retrieval codes with low storage overhead rely on the use of combinatorial block designs or derivatives thereof. In the context of distributed storage applications, one is often faced with system design issues that impose additional constraints on the coding schemes, and therefore on the underlying block designs. Here, we address one such problem, pertaining to server access frequency balancing, by introducing a new form of Steiner systems, termed MaxMinSum Steiner system…
