The deployment of extremely large-scale antenna array (ELAA) brings higher spectral efficiency and spatial degree of freedom, but triggers issues on near-field channel estimation. Inspired by the success of deep learning (DL) in far-field channel estimation, this paper proposes a novel spatial-attention-based method to reconstruct extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO) channel. Initially, the spatial antenna correlation in near-field channels is drawn as the expectation over spatial region, different from only over spatial angle in far-field channels. The spatial antenna correlation implies that the near-field channel exhibits spatial nonstationarity, that the inter-antenna correlation vary with the antenna index and spatial regions and reveals the weakness of the widely applied convolutional neural network (CNN) with fixed receptive field. Subsequently, we develop a multi-scale spatial attention network (MsSAN) with low computational cost to enhance near-field MIMO channel estimation. In MsSAN, the channel is refined to subchannels of different scales layer by layer and each subchannel is treated as a whole and the spatial attention (SA) map is calculated by the sum of dot products of inter-subchannel so that the complexity grows linearly with channel size. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed MsSAN with low computational cost outperforms others in terms of near-field channel reconstruction.

The deployment of extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO) and short-wavelength signaling enhances communication capabilities and improves spectrum efficiency for future sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication. However, users may potentially be located in the near-field region due to the sharp increase in antenna array aperture. In the near-field region, the signal wave is spherical wave. Thus, the consideration of spatial angle and distance requires the development of novel channel estimation algorithms to reduce codebook overhead. This paper develops a novel scheme based on a low-size adaptive codebook to reconstruct the near-field channel. Initially, it is investigated that the angle spread for one channel path component is confined to a certain angular spatial region, which demonstrates the sparsity inherent in angular domain. Exploiting the angular sparsity inherent, we propose a novel adaptive joint sparse Bayesian learning (JSBL) estimation algorithm on all subcarriers to cater to reduce the codebook size. The proposed algorithm captures all spatial angular sparse information and then refines distance information so that the measurement codebook size only depends on the spatial angular resolution. Further, the proposed adaptive JSBL approach is extended to estimate the time-varying near-field channel. Moreover, Bayesian Cramér-Rao Bounds (BCRBs) are derived for quasi-static and temporal scenarios. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate that our approaches with low codebook overhead outperform other algorithms based on the angular-domain and polar-domain codebooks.

The deployment of extremely large-scale arrays and high-frequency signaling holds the potential to enhance communication capabilities and improve spectrum efficiency. However, channel estimation faces challenges due to the simultaneous consideration of spatial angles and distances, leading to storage constraints and energy spread. To cope with this issue, we analyze the sparsity inherent in beamspace domain representation and introduce an adaptive codebook scheme for extremely large-scale massive MIMO (XL-MIMO) channels. In this work, we transform multi-band channel estimation to sparse matrix recovery problem. Then, a novel adaptive joint sparse Bayesian learning algorithm is proposed to capture the angular-domain information and refine distance information iteratively without increasing codebook overhead for XL-MIMO channel estimation. Simulation results demonstrate our approach outperforms other algorithms based on the sampling angular-distance domain codebook with low codebook overhead.

Dual-functional radar-communication (DFRC) is a promising direction in the future integrated sensing and communication system. The joint radar and communication (JRC) beamforming scheme is recently developed in DFRC systems. To address the JRC beamforming challenge, conventional approaches predominantly rely on convex optimization methods, which severely depend on precise channel estimation and entail a high computational complexity. Motivated by this, a deep learning-based optimization approach is investigated for tackling the JRC beamforming problem. To enhance the overall performance, we design a deep alternating neural network architecture. Simulation results verify that our proposed method guarantees the required sensing performance and outperforms numerical algorithms in terms of the average data rate of communication users.

This paper concentrates on addressing the challenging problem of sensing channel estimation in cell-free integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. This challenge arises from the complex mixture of signals from both the direct sensing channel and target reflected sensing channel. To tackle this challenge, we introduce the digital twin (DT), as a powerful tool to exploit and characterize the inherent features of the target sensing channel by sampling data from the real world and interacting with it. To be specific, the DT model, designed as a generative adversarial network (GAN), is trained to be capable of generating the desired results from the coarse observations, where the distribution of the sensing channel in a particular cell-free ISAC system is implicitly learned via the adversarial process. With this basis, we propose a novel digital-twin-enabled channel estimation (DTE-CE) approach to enhance the performance of channel estimation, where the DTE-CE network is meticulously designed by utilizing the virtual channel matrix (VCM) model to facilitate the estimation process. Simulation results show the excellent performance of the proposed approach, as well as the effectiveness of our designed DTE-CE network, in terms of sensing channel estimation with different transmitting power and numbers of targets.

Dual-functional radar-communication (DFRC) is a promising technology in future integrated sensing and communication systems. Since communication and sensing performance need to be taken into consideration for joint radar and communication (JRC) beamforming in the DFRC system, existing approaches mainly transform JRC beamforming problems into convex optimization problems and then solve them with classical convex solvers. These traditional solutions heavily rely on precise channel estimation and entail high computational complexity. In this paper, we investigate a deep learning-based optimization approach for JRC beamforming to enhance the spectral efficiency for communication users and guarantee the probability of detecting targets. To achieve better performance, we leverage the theoretical optimal structures of JRC beamforming and design an effective deep neural network architecture. To further reduce the computational burden in the training phase of neural network, we develope an improved orthogonal beamforming technique. Simulation results verify that our proposed algorithm guarantees the required sensing performance and outperforms numerical algorithms in terms of communication performance. The orthogonal beamforming technique achieves satisfactory performance with low computational complexity.

From practical considerations in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, with the involvement of radio frequency (RF) chains, the channel reciprocity no longer holds even under time division duplex (TDD) operation. To fully leverage the advantage brought by TDD systems, channel reciprocity calibration needs to be necessarily investigated. In this paper, we propose the CNN-enhanced calibration method, which is composed of the channel estimation task and the calibration coefficient calculation task. Different from previous works, our method is based on our proposed double-CNN-based bi-directional channel estimator, which is designed specifically for the calibration problem to exploit the bi-directional channel correlation, the spatial correlation, and the angular correlation in millimeter wave (mmWave) channel. Based on this, a formulated LS calibration problem is solved. Numerical results manifest that our proposed method outperforms the existing calibration methods in the literatures.

Recent years, the application of solid-state disks (SSDs) increases explosively. All SSDs have to employ error correcting code (ECC) technique to ensure the reliability of flash memory at page level. However, data loss may be caused by bad block or chip failure of flash memory. To solve this problem, the article proposes a flash memory redundant array technique, which is similar to RAID-4. In this scheme, we utilize built-in NVRAM to cache the parity data update for minimal write to flash memory in parity channel.