VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Hongwei Hou
dblp:231/3975
· DBLP profile ↗
14ranked-venue papers
4as first author
14since 2021 · last 2026
—ORCID · conflict
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Computer networks · 13 · 3 first-author · 13 since 2021Databases, data management, data science and information retrieval · 1 · 1 first-author · 1 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Deep Learning-Based Joint Uplink-Downlink Channel Estimation for Upper Mid-Band Massive MIMO Systems
Hongwei Hou, Yafei Wang 0003, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002, Symeon Chatzinotas, Björn Ottersten 0001 |
ICC | 2 |
| 2026 | Tensor-Structured Bayesian Channel Prediction for Upper Mid-Band XL-MIMO SystemsabstractThe upper mid-band balances coverage and capacity for the future cellular systems and also embraces extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) systems, offering enhanced spectral and energy efficiency. However, these benefits are significantly degraded under mobility due to channel aging, and further exacerbated by the unique near-field (NF) and spatial non-stationarity (SnS) propagation in such systems. To address this challenge, we propose a novel channel prediction approach that incorporates dedicated channel modeling, probabilistic representations, and Bayesian inference algorithms for this emerging scenario. Specifically, we develop tensor-structured channel models in both the spatial-frequency-temporal (SFT) and beam-delay-Doppler (BDD) domains, which capture the NF and SnS propagation effects and leverage temporal correlations among multiple snapshots for channel prediction. In this model, the factor matrices of multi-linear transformations are parameterized by BDD domain grids and SnS factors, where beam domain grids are jointly determined by angles and slopes under spatial-chirp based NF representations. To enable tractable inference, we replace these environment-dependent BDD domain grids with uniformly sampled ones, and introduce perturbation parameters in each domain to mitigate grid mismatch.We further propose a hybrid beam domain strategy that integrates angle-only sampling with slope hyperparameterization to avoid the computational burden of explicit slope sampling. On this basis, we develop tensor-structured bi-layer inference (TS-BLI) algorithm under the expectation-maximization (EM) framework, which reduces the computational complexity by leveraging the inherent separation across different domains. In the E-step, we develop the bi-layer factor graph representation to isolate the bilinear mixing in the spatial domain induced by SnS propagation, thus facilitating bi-layer iterations using approximate inference techniques. In the M-step, we leverage an alternating strategy for hyperparameter learning, with closed-form rules derived by the quadratic approximation of objective functions. Numerical simulations based on a near-practical channel simulator developed upon QuaDRiGa with SnS extensions demonstrate the superior channel prediction performance of the proposed algorithm. Hongwei Hou, Yafei Wang 0003, Xinping Yi, Wenjin Wang 0001, Dirk T. M. Slock, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Commun. | 1 |
| 2026 | Joint Channel Estimation and Target Sensing for ISAC Systems: A Vandermonde-Structured Bayesian Tensor Decomposition ApproachabstractIntegrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has emerged as a key enabler for future wireless networks by unifying communication and sensing functionalities within a shared framework. However, achieving the coordination gains of these two functionalities critically depends on accurate estimation of the sensing targets and communication channels, while their joint estimation remains challenging. To address this, this paper proposes a Bayesian tensor decomposition (BTD) approach for joint channel estimation and target sensing in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-ISAC systems, where parts of sensing targets also act as communication scatterers. Specifically, we develop space-frequency domain received signal models for target sensing and channel estimation and formulate them as canonical polyadic decomposition (CPD) problems under the tensor decomposition framework. This formulation reveals the common multilinear structure and the partially shared physical parameters between sensing and communication, which underpins the ensuing joint estimation task. To solve these problems, we propose a dual-module Vandermonde structure-assisted BTD (V-BTD) algorithm that incorporates propagation-induced Vandermonde structure constraints within a Bayesian framework to enable effective sensing-communication collaboration while maintaining problem feasibility. In this algorithm, Module A estimates the factor matrices via unstructured BTD with Gaussian priors, whereas Module B exploits the Vandermonde structure to recover the underlying physical parameters using generalized von Mises priors. The dual-module design alternates between an unstructured tensor decomposition step and a structure-aware parameter recovery step, yielding a favorable trade-off between inference exactness and computational tractability. With the flexible prior models in the BTD framework, the proposed algorithm supports both uninformative and informative settings, thereby allowing sensing-derived information to be incorporated for communication channel estimation to further improve estimation accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms the benchmarks, highlighting its superiority for advanced ISAC systems. Hongwei Hou, Jiawei Zhuang, Wenjin Wang 0001, Fan Liu 0005, Yan Huang 0018, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Commun. | 2 |
| 2026 | DMRS-Based Uplink Channel Estimation for MU-MIMO Systems With Location-Specific SCSI AcquisitionabstractWith the growing number of users in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, demodulation reference signals (DMRS) are efficiently multiplexed in the code domain via orthogonal cover codes (OCC) to ensure orthogonality and minimize pilot interference. In this paper, we investigate uplink DMRS-based channel estimation for MU-MIMO systems with Type II OCC pattern standardized in third generation partnership project (3GPP) Release 18, leveraging location-specific statistical channel state information (SCSI) to enhance performance. Specifically, we propose a SCSI-assisted Bayesian channel estimator (SA-BCE) based on the minimum mean square error criterion to suppress the pilot interference and noise, albeit at the cost of cubic computational complexity due to matrix inversions. To reduce this complexity while maintaining performance, we extend the scheme to a windowed version (SA-WBCE), which incorporates antenna-frequency domain windowing and beam-delay domain processing to exploit asymptotic sparsity and mitigate energy leakage in practical systems. To avoid the frequent real-time SCSI acquisition, we construct a grid-based location-specific SCSI database based on the principle of spatial consistency, and subsequently leverage the uplink received signals within each grid to extract the SCSI. Facilitated by the multilinear structure of wireless channels, we formulate the SCSI acquisition problem within each grid as a tensor decomposition problem, where the factor matrices are parameterized by the multi-path powers, delays, and angles. The computational complexity of SCSI acquisition can be significantly reduced by exploiting the Vandermonde structure of the factor matrices. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed location-specific SCSI database construction method achieves high accuracy, while the SA-BCE and SA-WBCE significantly outperform state-of-the-art benchmarks in MU-MIMO systems. Jiawei Zhuang, Hongwei Hou, Minjie Tang, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002, Vincent K. N. Lau |
IEEE Trans. Commun. | 2 |
| 2026 | A Tensor-Structured Approach to Dynamic Channel Prediction for Massive MIMO Systems With Temporal Non-StationarityabstractIn moderate- to high-mobility scenarios, channel state information (CSI) varies rapidly and becomes temporally non-stationary, leading to severe performance degradation in the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions. To address this issue, we propose a tensor-structured approach to dynamic channel prediction (TS-DCP) for massive MIMO systems with temporal non-stationarity, exploiting both dual-timescale and cross-domain correlations. Specifically, due to inherent spatial consistency, non-stationary channels over long-timescales can be approximated as stationary on short-timescales, decoupling complicated temporal correlations into more tractable dual-timescale ones. To exploit such property, we propose the sliding frame structure composed of multiple pilot orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols, which capture short-timescale correlations within frames by Doppler domain modeling and long-timescale correlations across frames by Markov/autoregressive processes. Building on this, we develop the Tucker-based spatial-frequency-temporal domain channel model, incorporating angle-delay-Doppler (ADD) domain channels and factor matrices parameterized by ADD domain grids. Furthermore, we model cross-domain correlations of ADD domain channels within each frame, induced by clustered scattering, through the Markov random field and tensor-coupled Gaussian distribution that incorporates high-order neighborhood structures. Following these probabilistic models, we formulate the TS-DCP problem as variational free energy (VFE) minimization, and unify different inference rules through the structure design of trial beliefs. This formulation results in the dual-layer VFE optimization process and yields the online TS-DCP algorithm, where the computational complexity is reduced by exploiting tensor-structured operations. Numerical simulations demonstrate the significant superiority of the proposed algorithm over benchmarks in terms of channel prediction performance. Hongwei Hou, Yafei Wang 0003, Xinping Yi, Wenjin Wang 0001, Dirk T. M. Slock, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. | 1 |
| 2025 | OLAMCF: Offline Large AI Models Enhanced CSI Feedback in FDD Massive MIMO SystemsabstractLarge AI models (LAMs) offer new opportunities for wireless intelligence, but their deployment in latency- and resource-constrained systems remains challenging. To explore this in the context of channel state information (CSI) feedback for frequency-division duplex (FDD) massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems, we propose a novel framework, OLAMCF, that integrates LAMs via offline codebook optimization, thereby avoiding the need for real-time inference. Specifically, the large vision model (LVM) at the core of this framework is built upon a vision-based backbone, pre-trained on large-scale image datasets and fine-tuned with site-specific CSI. This strategy allows this framework to capture the structural similarity between CSI and image to refine codewords from the conventional codebook and generate customized codebooks tailored to the specific environments. Simulation results show that our approach significantly outperforms existing schemes in both reconstruction accuracy and system throughput, without introducing additional inference latency or computational overhead. This design philosophy—extracting the best offline and discarding the rest online—offers a practical perspective on integrating LAMs into communication systems. Jialin Zhuang, Yafei Wang 0003, Hongwei Hou, Yu Han 0004, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002 |
GLOBECOM | 3 |
| 2025 | Polar-Coded Tensor-Based Unsourced Random Access With Soft DecodingabstractThe unsourced random access (URA) has emerged as a viable scheme for supporting the massive machine-type communications (mMTC) in the sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. Notably, the tensor-based URA (TURA), with its inherent tensor structure, stands out by simultaneously enhancing performance and reducing computational complexity for the multi-user separation, especially in mMTC networks with a large number of active devices. However, current TURA scheme lacks the soft decoder, thus precluding the incorporation of existing advanced coding techniques. In order to fully explore the potential of the TURA, this paper investigates the Polar-coded TURA (PTURA) scheme and develops the corresponding iterative Bayesian receiver with feedback (IBR-FB). Specifically, in the IBR-FB, we propose the Grassmannian modulation-aided Bayesian tensor decomposition (GM-BTD) algorithm under the variational Bayesian learning (VBL) framework, which leverages the property of the Grassmannian modulation to facilitate the convergence of the VBL process, and has the ability to generate the required soft information without the knowledge of the number of active devices. Furthermore, based on the soft information produced by the GM-BTD, we design the soft Grassmannian demodulator in the IBR-FB. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed PTURA in conjunction with the IBR-FB surpasses the existing state-of-the-art unsourced random access scheme in terms of accuracy and computational complexity. Jiaqi Fang, Gangle Sun, Hongwei Hou, Yafei Wang 0003, Li You 0001, Wenjin Wang 0001 |
IEEE Trans. Commun. | 4 |
| 2025 | Joint Channel Estimation and Prediction for Massive MIMO With Frequency Hopping SoundingabstractIn massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, the downlink transmission performance heavily relies on accurate channel state information (CSI). Constrained by the transmitted power, user equipment always transmits sounding reference signals (SRSs) to the base station through frequency hopping, which will be leveraged to estimate uplink CSI and subsequently predict downlink CSI. This paper aims to investigate joint channel estimation and prediction (JCEP) for massive MIMO with frequency hopping sounding (FHS). Specifically, we present a multiple-subband (MS) delay-angle-Doppler (DAD) domain channel model with off-grid basis to tackle the energy leakage problem. Furthermore, we formulate the JCEP problem with FHS as a multiple measurement vector (MMV) problem, facilitating the sharing of common CSI across different subbands. To solve this problem, we propose an efficient Off-Grid-MS hybrid message passing (HMP) algorithm under the constrained Bethe free energy (BFE) framework. Aiming to address the lack of prior CSI in practical scenarios, the proposed algorithm can adaptively learn the hyper-parameters of the channel by minimizing the corresponding terms in the BFE expression. To alleviate the complexity of channel hyper-parameter learning, we leverage the approximations of the off-grid matrices to simplify the off-grid hyper-parameter estimation. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively mitigate the energy leakage issue and exploit the common CSI across different subbands, acquiring more accurate CSI compared to state-of-the-art counterparts. Jiawei Zhuang, Gangle Sun, Hongwei Hou, Li You 0001, Wenjin Wang 0001 |
IEEE Trans. Commun. | 4 |
| 2025 | Toward Unified AI Models for MU-MIMO Communications: A Tensor Equivariance FrameworkabstractIn this paper, we propose a unified framework based on equivariance for the design of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies in multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. We first provide definitions of multidimensional equivariance, high-order equivariance, and multidimensional invariance (referred to collectively as tensor equivariance). On this basis, by investigating the design of precoding and user scheduling, which are key techniques in MU-MIMO systems, we delve deeper into revealing tensor equivariance of the mappings from channel information to optimal precoding tensors, precoding auxiliary tensors, and scheduling indicators, respectively. To model mappings with tensor equivariance, we propose a series of plug-and-play tensor equivariant neural network (TENN) modules, where the computation involving intricate parameter sharing patterns is transformed into concise tensor operations. Building upon TENN modules, we propose the unified tensor equivariance framework that can be applicable to various communication tasks, based on which we easily accomplish the design of corresponding AI-assisted precoding and user scheduling schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed methods achieve near-optimal performance with significantly lower complexity and strong generalization across multiple dimensions. For instance, the NN trained for precoding with 8 users provides satisfactory performance in a 10-user scenario. This validates the superiority of TENN modules and the unified framework. Yafei Wang 0003, Hongwei Hou, Xinping Yi, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. | 2 |
| 2024 | Joint Beam Alignment and Doppler Estimation for Fast Time-Varying Wideband mmWave ChannelsabstractThis paper investigates the joint beam alignment and Doppler estimation (BADE) for fast time-varying wideband millimeter-wave channels, which is essential for subsequent data transmission. In such scenarios, the non-negligible Doppler frequencies significantly impact the beam alignment performance and reference signal overhead, calling for accurate time variation modeling and efficient transceiver design. Toward this end, we leverage the angle, Doppler frequency, and delay sparsity, thus formulating the joint BADE problem as a sparse signal recovery problem in the angle-Doppler-delay domain. The feasibility of the formulated problem strongly depends on the transmitter codebook and the receiver algorithm, which motivates our design. For the transmitter codebook, we characterize the design criterion aiming at maximal identifiable paths, which facilitates precise path parameter estimations and is not satisfied by existing deterministic codebooks. Following this, we provide a new deterministic codebook generation algorithm to meet the necessary conditions of the proposed criterion. For the receiver algorithm, we propose the greedy-based multi-path parameter extraction algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, the hierarchical refinement dictionaries with extended refinement range are employed, balancing the BADE performance and computational complexity. The numerical simulations demonstrate the superiority of the proposed transceiver over benchmarks on the joint BADE problem. Hongwei Hou, Yafei Wang 0003, Xinping Yi, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. | 1 |
| 2024 | Soft Demodulator for Symbol-Level Precoding in Coded Multiuser MISO SystemsabstractIn this paper, we consider symbol-level precoding (SLP) in channel-coded multiuser multi-input single-output (MISO) systems. It is observed that the received SLP signals do not always follow Gaussian distribution, rendering the conventional soft demodulation with the Gaussian assumption unsuitable for the coded SLP systems. It, therefore, calls for novel soft demodulator designs for non-Gaussian distributed SLP signals with accurate log-likelihood ratio (LLR) calculation. To this end, we first investigate the non-Gaussian characteristics of both phase-shift keying (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) received signals with existing SLP schemes and categorize the signals into two distinct types. The first type exhibits an approximate-Gaussian distribution with the outliers extending along the constructive interference region (CIR). In contrast, the second type follows some distribution that significantly deviates from the Gaussian distribution. To obtain accurate LLR, we propose the modified Gaussian soft demodulator and Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-expectation-maximization (EM) soft demodulators to deal with two types of signals respectively. Subsequently, to further reduce the computational complexity and pilot overhead, we put forward a novel neural network named pilot feature extraction network (PFEN) to replace the EM algorithm, leveraging the transformer mechanism in deep learning. Simulation results show that the proposed soft demodulators dramatically improve the throughput of existing SLPs for both PSK and QAM transmission in coded systems. Yafei Wang 0003, Hongwei Hou, Wenjin Wang 0001, Xinping Yi, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. | 2 |
| 2024 | Robust Symbol-Level Precoding for Massive MIMO Communication Under Channel AgingabstractThis paper investigates the robust design of symbol-level precoding (SLP) for multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink transmission with imperfect channel state information (CSI) caused by channel aging. By utilizing thea posteriorichannel model based on the widely adopted jointly correlated channel model, the imperfect CSI is modeled as the statistical CSI incorporating the channel mean and channel variance information with spatial correlation. With the signal model in the presence of channel aging, we formulate the signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) balancing and minimum mean square error (MMSE) problems for robust SLP design. The former targets to maximize the minimum SINR across users, while the latter minimizes the mean square error between the received signal and the target constellation point. When it comes to massive MIMO scenarios, the increment in the number of antennas poses a computational complexity challenge, limiting the deployment of SLP schemes. To address such a challenge, we simplify the objective function of the SINR balancing problem and further derive a closed-form SLP scheme. Besides, by approximating the matrix involved in the computation, we modify the proposed algorithm and develop an MMSE-based SLP scheme with lower computation complexity. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed schemes over the state-of-the-art SLP schemes. Yafei Wang 0003, Xinping Yi, Hongwei Hou, Wenjin Wang 0001, Shi Jin 0002 |
IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. | 3 |
| 2023 | Robust Symbol-Level Precoding for MIMO Downlink Transmission With Channel AgingabstractThis paper investigates the robust design of symbollevel precoding (SLP) for multiuser multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) downlink transmission with imperfect channel state information (CSI) caused by channel aging. By utilizing the a posteriori channel model based on the widely adopted jointly correlated channel model, the imperfect CSI is modeled as the statistical CSI incorporating the channel mean and channel variance information with spatial correlation. With the signal model in the presence of channel aging, we formulate the signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) balancing problem for robust SLP design, which targets to maximize the minimum SINR and can be transformed into a typical max-min fractional programming (MMFP). In the scenario of massive MIMO, we simplify the objective function of the SINR balancing problem and further derive a low-complexity SLP scheme. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed schemes over the state-of-the-art SLP schemes. Yafei Wang 0003, Xinping Yi, Hongwei Hou, Wenjin Wang 0001 |
GLOBECOM | 3 |
| 2022 | Application of Artificial Intelligence Technology Optimized by Deep Learning to Rural Financial Development and Rural GovernanceabstractThe aim of this article is to promote the development of rural finance and the further informatization of rural banks. Based on DL (deep learning) and artificial intelligence technology, data pre-processing and feature selection are conducted on the customer information of rural banks in a certain region, including the historical deposit and loan, transaction record, and credit information. Besides, four DL models are proposed with a precision of more than 87% by test to improve the simulation effect and explore the application of DL. The BLSTM-CNN (Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory-Convolutional Neural Network) model with a precision of 95.8%, which integrates RNN (Recurrent Neural Network) and CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) in parallel, solves the shortcomings of RNN and CNN separately. The research result can provide a more reasonable prediction model for rural banks, and ideas for the development of rural informatization and promoting rural governance. Hongwei Hou, Kunzhi Tang |
J. Glob. Inf. Manag. | 1 |