In this article, a framework of artificial intelligence (AI)-native cross-module optimized physical layer with cooperative control agents is proposed, which involves optimization across global AI/machine learning (ML) modules of the physical layer with innovative design of multiple enhancement mechanisms and control strategies. Specifically, it achieves simultaneous optimization across global modules of uplink AI/ML-based joint source-channel coding with modulation, and downlink AI/ML-based modulation with precoding and corresponding data detection, reducing traditional inter-module information barriers to facilitate end-to-end optimization toward global objectives. Moreover, multiple enhancement mechanisms are also proposed, including i) an AI/ML-based cross-layer modulation approach with theoretical analysis for downlink transmission that breaks the isolation of inter-layer features to expand the solution space for determining improved constellation, ii) a utility-oriented precoder construction method that shifts the role of the AI/ML-based CSI feedback decoder from recovering the original CSI to directly generating precoding matrices aiming to improve end-to-end performance, and iii) incorporating modulation into AI/ML-based CSI feedback to bypass bit-level bottlenecks that introduce quantization errors, non-differentiable gradients, and limitations in constellation solution spaces. Furthermore, AI/ML-based control agents for optimized transmission schemes are proposed that leverage AI/ML to perform model switching according to channel state, thereby enabling integrated control for global throughput optimization. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed solutions in terms of block error rate and throughput. These extensive simulations employ more practical assumptions that are aligned with the requirements of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which hopefully provides valuable insights for future 3GPP standardization discussions.

Accurate and effective channel state information (CSI) feedback is a key technology for massive multiple-input and multiple-output systems. Recently, deep learning (DL) has been introduced for CSI feedback enhancement through massive collected training data and lengthy training time, which is quite costly and impractical for realistic deployment. In this article, a knowledge-driven meta-learning approach is proposed, where the DL model initialized by the meta model obtained from meta training phase is able to achieve rapid convergence when facing a new scenario during target retraining phase. Specifically, instead of training with massive data collected from various scenarios, the meta task environment is constructed based on the intrinsic knowledge of spatial-frequency characteristics of CSI for meta training. Moreover, the target task dataset is also augmented by exploiting the knowledge of statistical characteristics of wireless channel, so that the DL model can achieve higher performance with small actually collected dataset and short training time. In addition, we provide analyses of rationale for the improvement yielded by the knowledge in both phases. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach from the perspective of feedback performance and convergence speed.

Accurate and effective channel state information (CSI) feedback is a key technology for massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Recently, deep learning (DL) has been introduced to enhance CSI feedback in massive MIMO application, where the massive collected training data and lengthy training time are costly and impractical for realistic deployment. In this paper, a knowledge-driven meta-learning solution for CSI feedback is proposed, where the DL model initialized by the meta model obtained from meta training phase is able to achieve rapid convergence when facing a new scenario during the target retraining phase. Specifically, instead of training with massive data collected from various scenarios, the meta task environment is constructed based on the intrinsic knowledge of spatial-frequency characteristics of CSI for meta training. Moreover, the target task dataset is also augmented by exploiting the knowledge of statistical characteristics of channel, so that the DL model initialized by meta training can rapidly fit into a new target scenario with higher performance using only a few actually collected data in the target retraining phase. The method greatly reduces the demand for the number of actual collected data, as well as the cost of training time for realistic deployment. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach from the perspective of feedback performance and convergence speed.

Deep learning has revolutionized the design of channel state information (CSI) feedback modules in wireless communication. However, designing an optimal neural network (NN) architecture for CSI feedback can be laborious and time-consuming, especially for customized networks targeting different scenarios. To address this challenge, this paper proposes the use of Neural Architecture Search (NAS) to automatically generate scenario-specific CSI feedback neural network architectures. By employing automated machine learning and gradient-based NAS, an efficient and cost-effective architecture design process is achieved with reduced reliance on expert knowledge and design time, thus lowering the design threshold. This approach leverages implicit scenario knowledge and integrates it into the scenario customization process in a data-driven manner, fully harnessing the potential of deep learning in a given scenario. Experimental results demonstrate that the generated architecture called Auto-CsiNet outperforms manually designed models in terms of reconstruction performance (improvement by approximately 14%) and complexity reduction (approximately 50%), highlighting the effectiveness of NAS-based automated solutions.

In this paper, motivated by the inter-base station (BS) channel dependence due to the shared wireless environment, we propose to fuse sub-6 GHz channel information and mmWave low-overhead measurement to predict the optimal mmWave beam in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) and reduce the overhead of both mmWave BS selection and beam training. Moreover, deep learning is adopted to extract the complex dependence between sub-6 GHz and mmWave channels for achieving high prediction accuracy. Specifically, we propose to leverage a few user equipment (UE)-specific high-quality mmWave wide beams predicted by the sub-6 GHz channel state information (CSI) as the mmWave low-overhead measurement. In order to adapt to different confidences of the mmWave wide beam prediction for diverse UE, the sum-probability criterion is proposed to flexibly adjust the number of measured wide beams. Besides, to fully fuse the diversified features extracted from the sub-6 GHz CSI and mmWave wide beams, the attention mechanism is further exploited to adaptively weight the features for improving the prediction accuracy. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme achieves higher beamforming gain while imposing smaller mmWave measurement overhead over the conventional deep learning based schemes.

The integral cryptanalysis is a powerful cryptanalytic technique for the security evaluation of block cipher. However, when using the MILP‐aided division property to search the integral distinguishers, many candidates of initial division properties need to be tested, so that the computations are unbearable in practice. This study takes advantage of the division property propagation of S‐box to improve the optimal integral distinguisher searching algorithm, and further reduce its time complexity. Whereafter, the improved algorithm is used to give 8‐ and 9‐round integral distinguishers of uBlock‐128 and uBlock‐256, and 10‐ and 9‐round integral distinguishers of Pyjamask‐96 and Pyjamask‐128. On this basis, utilising the partial sums technique, the authors perform 9‐ and 11‐round key‐recovery attacks on uBlock‐128 and Pyjamask‐96, respectively. The data complexities are and , and the time complexities are less than times of 9‐round uBlock‐128 encryption and times of 11‐round Pyjamask‐96 encryption. The results given in this study are the best integral attacks available of the two ciphers presently.