This paper proposes a novel Bayesian integrated tracking and communication (ITAC) framework. By consolidating the time of arrival (ToA) and angle of departure (AoD) measurement models, a robust Bayesian filtering framework is introduced for single-target tracking in dynamic and cluttered wireless environments. By incorporating random finite set(RFS) theory, the method jointly estimates the target’s existence probability and its kinematic state within a unified Bayesian recursion, effectively overcoming the limitations of conventional filters, which assume that the target can always be detected. Furthermore, the paper derives the signal-to-interference-plus noise ratio (SINR) for both communication and sensing links. The proposed RFS-based Bayesian filter is implemented using a sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) approach. Numerical simulations demonstrate the framework’s superior performance in maintaining tracking consistency and accuracy even under challenging propagation conditions. Moreover, the results reveal how different network parameters affect the overall communication and tracking performance.

This paper proposes a distributed continuous aperture array (D-CAPA) to support simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) to multiple information users (IUs) and energy users (EUs). Each metasurface supports continuous surface currents that radiate electromagnetic (EM) waves for information and energy transmission to the users. These waves propagate through continuous EM channels characterized by the dyadic Green’s function. We formulate a system power consumption (PC) minimization problem subject to spectral efficiency and energy harvesting quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, where the QoS requirements are derived under the equal power allocation (EPA) scheme. An efficient two-layer optimization algorithm is developed to solve this problem by optimizing the power allocation subject to the QoS violation penalties using augmented Lagrangian transformation. Our numerical results show that well-optimized current distributions over each metasurface in the proposed D-CAPA achieve up to 65% and 61% reductions in overall system PC compared to the EPA and co-located CAPA (C-CAPA) cases, while maintaining the same total aperture size and transmission power.

Remote and resource-constrained Internet-of Things (IoT) deployments often lack terrestrial connectivity for task offloading, motivating non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) with onboard multiaccess edge computing (MEC) capabilities. Nevertheless, in the presence of malicious actors, authentication needs to be performed to avoid non-authorized nodes from draining the computing resources of the NTN nodes. As a solution, we propose a four-layer MEC-enabled NTN with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acting as access nodes, a high altitude platform station (HAPS) acting as coordinator and authenticator, and a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites (LEOSats) acting as remote MEC servers. We consider a tag-based physical-layer authentication (PLA) scheme to authenticate legitimate users, and formulate a joint task offloading decision and resource allocation for the admitted tasks, which is solved via block coordinate descent. Numerical results show that the PLA scheme is efficient and performs better than the benchmark schemes. We also demonstrate that the proposed scheme is robust against malicious attacks even under relaxed false-alarm constraints.

This paper presents an energy-efficient transmission framework for federated learning (FL) in industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments with strict latency and energy constraints. Machinery subnetworks (SNs) collaboratively train a global model by uploading local updates to an edge server (ES), either directly or via neighboring SNs acting as decode-and-forward relays. To enhance communication efficiency, relays perform partial aggregation before forwarding the models to the ES, significantly reducing overhead and training latency. We analyze the convergence behavior of this relay-assisted FL scheme. To address the inherent energy efficiency (EE) challenges, we decompose the original non-convex optimization problem into sub-problems addressing computation and communication energy separately. An SN grouping algorithm categorizes devices into single-hop and two-hop transmitters based on latency minimization, followed by a relay selection mechanism. To improve FL reliability, we further maximize the number of SNs that meet the roundwise delay constraint, promoting broader participation and improved convergence stability under practical IIoT data distributions. Transmit power levels are then optimized to maximize EE, and a sequential parametric convex approximation (SPCA) method is proposed for joint configuration of system parameters. We further extend the EE formulation to the imperfect channel state information (ICSI). Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly enhances convergence speed, reduces outage probability from 10−2in single-hop to 10−6and achieves substantial energy savings, with the SPCA approach reducing energy consumption by at least 2× compared to unaggregated cooperation and up to 6× over single-hop transmission.

Respiratory rate is an important vital sign that can be used to determine human physiological state. In recent years, Wi-Fi-based contactless respiration monitoring has drawn significant attention due to the prevalence of wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure. Most existing approaches to respiration monitoring perform well in controlled environments, without the presence of additional moving individuals in the area of interest. A few recent studies have attempted to reduce the impact of other people moving in the vicinity of the target individual. However, these approaches exhibit notable limitations, such as restricting the number of interfering individuals to one, or requiring a direct wired connection between the Wi-Fi transmitter and receiver for synchronization. To address these issues, in this study, we develop a contactless respiration monitoring system using commodity Wi-Fi devices, which we name RoSense. Through a series of empirical studies, we observe that the channel state information (CSI) for subcarriers is significantly affected by the presence of interfering individuals, but a small subset retain relatively clear signal patterns linked to the target’s respiration. Leveraging these findings, RoSense employs a signal power-based subcarrier selection strategy to identify high-quality subcarriers. The selected subcarriers are then aligned to enhance signal gain and fused to complement the weaker periodic parts. Additionally, RoSense periodically detects the quality of subcarriers, selecting the most effective subcarriers to maximize the contribution of high-quality ones. Extensive experiments were performed in real-world settings with 10 volunteers to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of RoSense. Our results demonstrate that RoSense is able to achieve robust respiration monitoring by suppressing the impact of interfering individuals.

Specific emitter identification (SEI) exploits device-dependent RF fingerprints to distinguish individual transmitters and is important for securing large-scale Internet-of-Things (IoT) deployments. While deep SEI can achieve near-perfect accuracy under same-day evaluation, real deployments rarely satisfy this assumption. At scale, per-day labeling is infeasible; models must therefore generalize from a labeled source day to an unlabeled target day, where day-to-day propagation drift induces distribution shifts and can substantially degrade performance under direct transfer (without adaptation). To address this challenge, we propose a unified unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) framework for cross-day SEI that requires neither hardware calibration nor handcrafted features. The proposed objective integrates adversarial domain alignment, confidence-aware pseudo-labeling to exploit high-confidence target samples safely, and a cross-domain contrastive regularizer to preserve class-discriminative geometry. We further provide an analysis offering insight into how each component contributes to target-domain generalization. Experiments on two public RF benchmarks from different wireless technologies demonstrate robust cross-day performance across diverse transfers. On WiSig–ManySig, our method achieves 99.78% mean cross-day accuracy over six source-to-target day transfers, ranking best in five cases and remaining within 0.04% of the best in the remaining case. On a LoRa benchmark, it achieves 90.64% mean cross-day accuracy over ten day-transfer pairs, validating the framework beyond Wi-Fi and under larger transfer diversity.

This paper explores the energy efficiency (EE) of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems employing massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) techniques to leverage spatial beamforming gains for both communication and sensing. We focus on an mMIMO-ISAC system operating in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing setting with a uniform planar array, zero-forcing downlink transmission, and mono-static radar sensing to exploit multi-carrier channel diversity. By deriving closed-form expressions for the achievable communication rate and Cramér-Rao bounds (CRBs), we are able to determine the overall EE in closed-form. A power allocation problem is then formulated to maximize the system’s EE by balancing communication and sensing efficiency while satisfying communication rate requirements and CRB constraints. Through a detailed analysis of CRB properties, we reformulate the problem into a more manageable form and leverage Dinkelbach’s and successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques to develop an efficient iterative algorithm. A novel initialization strategy is also proposed to ensure high-quality feasible starting points for the iterative optimization process. Extensive simulations demonstrate the significant performance improvement of the proposed approach over baseline approaches. Results further reveal that as communication spectral efficiency rises, the influence of sensing EE on the overall system EE becomes more pronounced, even in sensing-dominated scenarios. Specifically, in the high ω regime of 2 × 10−3, we observe a 16.7% reduction in overall EE when spectral efficiency increases from 4 to 8 bps/Hz, despite the system being sensing-dominated.

This paper considers a practical cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) architecture within an open radio access network, where edge distributed units (EDUs) and user-centric distributed units (UCDUs) collaboratively handle physical-layer functions (e.g., channel estimation, precoding), while the open radio units (ORUs) are responsible for radio-frequency transmission and reception with the user equipment (UE). Based on large-dimensional random matrix theory, we derive a deterministic equivalent (DE) expression for the ergodic sum SE under imperfect statistical channel state information (S-CSI). Thanks to this DE-assisted result, two optimization problems: 1) sum power minimization, and 2) ergodic sum spectral efficiency (SE) maximization, are addressed through regularized parameter tuning in local partial regularized zero-forcing (LP-RZF), and power control with large-scale fading (LSF)-based EDU-ORU deployment and ORU-UE association. Numerical results validate the tightness of the DE-based ergodic sum SE expression and demonstrate the effectiveness of the LP-RZF scheme compared to the benchmark schemes. Meanwhile, the reduced computational complexity is achieved with acceptable performance loss.

Terahertz (THz) frequency band has been widely studied and is recognized as a promising candidate for centimeter-level localization. However, the limited coverage of THz networks may result in localization failures, while a heterogeneous deployment of millimeter-wave (mmWave) and THz radio units (RUs) offers a viable solution to mitigate this issue. This paper presents a theoretical framework for evaluating the performance limits of localization systems in mmWave and THz heterogeneous networks. In this architecture, the mmWave RUs serve as macro base stations (BSs), while the THz RUs function as micro BSs distributed around each mmWave RU. By leveraging the standard tools of stochastic geometry to model the spatial distributions of the RUs and ambient obstacles, the localizability of a target is computed to evaluate the probability of achieving sufficient signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio for localization in both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) conditions. Furthermore, the Cram é r-Rao lower bounds in both LoS and NLoS scenarios are analytically derived to characterize the overall positioning performance. Numerical results demonstrate that the hybrid deployment strategy significantly improves both the network coverage and localization accuracy compared to mmWave-only and THz-only networks.

This paper examines the power consumption (PC) efficiency of a mixed near- and far-field (MF) simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) system underpinned by a hybrid beamforming (HB)-based modular extra-large multiple-input-multiple output (XL-MIMO) array. Multiple information decoding (ID) and energy harvesting (EH) users are served by multiple constituent subarrays in both the near-field (NF) and far-field (FF) region of the transmit array. A novel decision method is proposed for accurate classification of different field users using Frobenius norm-based frequency correlation of the least square (LS) channel estimates. The NF spatial non-stationarities (SnS) effects entail distinct electromagnetic (EM) visibility regions (VRs), which can be customized to employ strategic activation of the constituent XL-MIMO subarrays. We formulate a two-tier joint optimization problem to minimize the overall PC, considering the power allocation (PA) for both ID and EH users in addition to the subarray activation (SA). This challenging mixed-integer problem is transformed into computationally tractable formulations, accompanied by the development of well-optimized algorithms. Our simulation results demonstrate an overall PC reduction for our proposed PA-SA-HB scheme by up to 93% against the equal PA with full array (FA) and up to 18% with respect to the PA-FA-HB case.

Driven by diverse applications in the emerging low-altitude economy, modern aerial networks must inherently cater for highly heterogeneous environments, characterized by communication services under mixed service delay constraints and diverse user equipment (UE) mobility. However, such heterogeneity leads to resource allocation conflicts and imbalances, which undermine communication reliability and may result in network unavailability. To address this, we investigate resource management in uplink low-altitude heterogeneous networks. Specifically, we propose a flying access point (FAP)-coordinated multi-point packet delivery mechanism with a unified resource allocation (URA) scheme to efficiently manage spatial, frequency, and temporal resources. This includes subchannel allocation, time slot partitioning, and pilot length design. Then, we derive a lower bound (LB) on network availability (NA) and reveal that extended heterogeneity significantly degrades the LB due to: (a) resource reduction under URA and (b) the independence in ensuring services under heterogeneity. To mitigate this degradation, we derive a closed-form condition on the required number of FAPs by relaxing the LB, thereby ensuring sufficient spatial resources to achieve the target NA. Meanwhile, we derive closed-form expressions for jointly approximating the optimal number of UEs sharing time-frequency resources and the pilot length. This optimization improves resource efficiency for NA by balancing the post-processing signal-to-noise ratio and its associated thresholds to satisfy reliability requirements under heterogeneous conditions. Numerical results validate the analysis and demonstrate that the proposed resource management strategy achieves the target NA under increased heterogeneity, thereby outperforming existing approaches.

This paper investigates the secrecy performance of a spatially correlated multi-reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system in the presence of imperfect channel state information, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and transceiver hardware impairments (T-HWI). Under these imperfections, we derive the linear minimum mean-square error channel estimate and a closed-form expression for the downlink secrecy sum rate (SSR). We employ artificial noise at each access point (AP) in the downlink data transmission phase to improve the achievable SSR. We deduce several analytical insights from the derived closed-form expressions to validate the system performance. We further formulate a joint optimization problem that maximizes the SSR by optimally allocating the power sharing factor and the RIS phase shift matrix. A closed-form solution for the optimal power sharing factor is obtained using a fixed-point equation method, while the RIS phase shifts are designed through a generative diffusion model. Numerical results validate the derived analytical expressions and reveal a substantial degradation in secrecy performance due to the presence of T-HWI and EMI. Notably, the legitimate user-side hardware impairments have a more detrimental effect on the system performance compared to the AP side. Furthermore, a trade-off is observed between the number of RISs and EMI power in achieving optimal SSR. Moreover, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed joint optimization scheme yields substantial gains in achievable SSR over the individual optimization schemes and the random baseline.

We consider a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) downlink system, where an XL-MIMO array serves two groups of single-antennas users, namely near-field users (NFUEs) and far-field users (FFUEs). FFUEs are subject to blockage, and their communication is facilitated through the RIS. We consider three precoding schemes at the XL-MIMO array, namely central zero-forcing (CZF), local zero-forcing (LZF) and maximum ratio transmission (MRT). Closed-form expressions for the spectral efficiency (SE) of all users are derived for MRT precoding, while statistical-form expressions are obtained for CZF and LZF processing. A heuristic visibility region (VR) selection algorithm is also introduced to help reduce the computational complexity of the precoding scheme. Furthermore, we devise a two-stage phase shifts design and power control algorithm to maximize the sum of weighted minimum SE of two groups of users with CZF, LZF and MRT precoding schemes. The simulation results indicate that, when equal priority is given to NFUEs and FFUEs, the proposed design improves the sum of the weighted minimum SE by 31.9%, 37.8%, and 119.2% with CZF, LZF, and MRT, respectively, compared to the case with equal power allocation and random phase shifts design. CZF achieves the best performance, while LZF offers comparable results with lower complexity. When prioritizing NFUEs or FFUEs, LZF achieves strong performance for the prioritized group, whereas CZF ensures balanced performance between NFUEs and FFUEs.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output is a potential candidate for future networks with pervasive connectivity by utilizing coherent joint transmission and distributed antenna arrays. This paper studies the exploitation of full-duplex communication for a distributed antenna array. Specifically, we derive a closed-form expression for the uplink and downlink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) for a network where the APs can flexibly operate in either the full-duplex or half-duplex mode with linear processing and Rayleigh fading channels. A long-term total SE maximization problem is formulated subject to a network operation model and individual SE requirements with limited power budget. Due to the intrinsic nonconvexity and infeasible circumstances where some UEs might not be able to achieve the rate requirements, we adapt differential evolution to design a low computational complexity algorithm that can attain good power allocation and network operation mode in polynomial time. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our system design and proposed algorithm over state-of-the-art benchmarks with satisfactory service to the majority of UEs, although several ones may be unscheduled under harsh conditions.

We consider a cell-free massive multiple-input and multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) system, where we derive a deterministic equivalent (DE)-form of the ergodic sum spectral efficiency (SE) based on local partial regularized zero-forcing (LP-RZF) precoding with statistical channel state information (S-CSI) by leveraging large-dimensional random matrix theory. Thanks to this derivation, the previously challenging issue of precoding design based on S-CSI is now resolved, particularly in scenarios where CSI is limited to local information at each access point (AP). Moreover, as the central processing unit (CPU) now only needs to transmit an optimized regularization parameter to the APs, the computational overhead can be reduced, which naturally enhances the system scalability. Driven by these advantages, we then introduce a joint user association, power allocation, and precoding design (i.e., regularization parameter optimization) scheme aimed at maximizing the ergodic sum SE and minimizing the sum power consumption. This is achieved through two optimization problems: one for the ergodic sum SE maximization using weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE)-based processing and another for the sum power consumption minimization employing a block coordinate descent (BCD)-based algorithm. Numerical results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed PRO-LPRZF scheme.

wireless communication environment may not experience direct line-of-sight propagation whereas the number of receivers (Rxs) is often limited. We propose the utilization of only non-line-of-sight (NLoS) received signal strength (RSS) measurements observed at a single Rx to locate a target, via a positioning algorithm accounting for data association ambiguity that may occur in a real-world scenario. Considering the stochastic nature of a network geometry, tractable expressions are derived for the probability of acquiring at leastLNLoS RSS measurements during localization. In light of the computational complexity of our solution, we investigate the minimum number of RSS samples required to meet the specified localization accuracy, thereby guiding system design. Furthermore, the probability distribution of the trace of the Cramér-Rao lower bound is obtained analytically, which offers a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental limits of the single-Rx localization scheme without resorting to intensive simulations.

Received signal strength (RSS) has been extensively studied for localization purposes, and the distributed nature of cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems offers a new synergistic avenue for achieving high-precision localization. In this work, Open RAN and software-defined radio are used to realize the central and distributed units of a CF-mMIMO system to acquire the RSS measurements. By analyzing the experimental data, it is revealed that the RSS measured from the first-order reflection path can yield a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio for localization, enabling localization even without line-of-sight (LoS) paths. Inspired by this finding, a hybrid localization scheme, that can attain the best accuracy benchmarked by Cramér-Rao lower bound, is proposed to estimate the target position using both LoS and first-order non-line-of-sight RSS measurements. Furthermore, a theoretical framework is established to assess the fundamental limits of RSS-based localization in CF-mMIMO systems, offering a principled guideline for system designers to deploy and design localization systems in real-world scenarios.

This study explores a next-generation multiple access (NGMA) framework for cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) systems enhanced by stacked intelligent metasurfaces (SIMs), aiming to improve simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) performance. A fundamental challenge lies in optimally selecting the operating modes of access points (APs) to jointly maximize the received energy and satisfy spectral efficiency (SE) quality-of-service constraints. Practical system impairments, including a non-linear harvested energy model, pilot contamination (PC), channel estimation errors, and reliance on long-term statistical channel state information (CSI), are considered. We derive closed-form expressions for both the achievable SE and the average sum harvested energy (sum-HE). A mixed-integer non-convex optimization problem is formulated to jointly optimize the SIM phase shifts, APs mode selection, and power allocation to maximize average sum-HE under SE and average harvested energy constraints. To solve this problem, we propose a centralized training, decentralized execution (CTDE) framework based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL), which efficiently handles high-dimensional decision spaces. A Markovian environment and a normalized joint reward function are introduced to enhance the training stability across on-policy and off-policy DRL algorithms. Additionally, we provide a two-phase convex-based solution as a theoretical robust performance. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed DRL-based CTDE framework achieves SWIPT performance comparable to convexification-based solution, while significantly outperforming baselines.

We consider fronthaul-limited generalized zero-forcing-based cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems with multiple-antenna users and multiple-antenna access points (APs) relying on both cooperative beamforming (CB) and user-centric (UC) clustering. The proposed framework is very general and can be degenerated into different special cases, such as pure CB/pure UC clustering, or fully centralized CB/fully distributed beamforming. We comprehensively analyze the spectral efficiency (SE) performance of the system wherein the users use the minimum mean-squared error-based successive interference cancellation (MMSE-SIC) scheme to detect the desired signals. Specifically, we formulate an optimization problem for the user association and power control for maximizing the sum SE. The formulated problem is under per-AP transmit power and fronthaul constraints, and is based on only long-term channel state information (CSI). The challenging formulated problem is transformed into tractable form and a novel algorithm is proposed to solve it using minorization maximization (MM) technique. We analyze the trade-offs provided by the CF-mMIMO system with different number of CB clusters, hence highlighting the importance of the appropriate choice of CB design for different system setups. Numerical results show that for the centralized CB, the proposed power optimization provides nearly 59% improvement in the average sum SE over the heuristic approach, and 312% improvement, when the distributed beamforming is employed.

We propose a hybrid simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) architecture with dynamically switched active and passive elements to support joint localization, communication, and wireless power transfer (WPT). We first pursue a parallel factor analysis with the alternating least squares (PARAFAC-ALS)-based tensor decomposition approach that decouples the base station (BS)-reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and RIS-user channels, thereby enabling low-overhead channel acquisition. Based on this, we formulate a system energy efficiency (EE) maximization problem, subject to the spectral efficiency (SE) requirements of communication users, sensing signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio constraints, and the nonlinear energy harvesting requirements of energy-harvesting users. The optimization problem is nonconvex since the transmit power allocation, STAR-RIS coefficients, and active/passive mode assignments are tightly coupled in both the objective and constraints. We address this issue by alternating between two subproblems, and solving them via fractional programming, successive convex approximation and a multi-seed greedy strategy employed as an initialization step. Numerical results demonstrate that selectively activating a small, well-chosen subset of STAR-RIS elements achieves 1.5 to 3 times EE improvements compared with fully passive/active architectures, while satisfying communication, sensing, and power-transfer requirements.

This paper studies a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) proactive monitoring system in which multiple multi-antenna monitoring nodes (MNs) are assigned to either observe the transmissions from an untrusted transmitter (UT) or to jam the reception at the untrusted receiver (UR). We propose an effective channel state information (CSI) acquisition scheme for the monitoring system. In our approach, the MNs leverage the pilot signals transmitted during the uplink and downlink phases of the untrusted link and estimate the effective channels corresponding to the UT and UR via a minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) estimation scheme. We derive new spectral efficiency (SE) expressions for the untrusted link and the monitoring system. For the latter, the SE is derived for two CSI availability cases at the central processing unit (CPU); namely case-1: imperfect CSI knowledge at both MNs and CPU, case-2: imperfect CSI knowledge at the MNs and no CSI knowledge at the CPU. To improve the monitoring performance, we propose a novel joint mode assignment and jamming power control optimization method to maximize the monitoring success probability (MSP) based on the Bayesian optimization framework. Numerical results show that (a) our CF-mMIMO proactive monitoring system relying on the proposed CSI acquisition and optimization approach significantly outperforms the considered benchmarks; (b) the MSP performance of our CF-mMIMO proactive monitoring system is greater than 0.8, regardless of the number of antennas at the untrusted nodes or the precoding scheme for the untrusted transmission link.

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems are key enablers of future networks but raise significant security concerns. In this realm, the emergence of malicious ISAC systems has amplified the need for authorized parties to legitimately monitor suspicious communication links and protect legitimate targets from potential detection or exploitation by malicious foes. In this paper, we propose a new wireless proactive monitoring paradigm, where a legitimate monitor intercepts a suspicious communication link while performing cognitive jamming to enhance the monitoring success probability (MSP) and simultaneously safeguard the target. To this end, we derive closed-form expressions of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) at the user (UE), sensing access points (S-APs), and an approximating expression of the SINR at the proactive monitor. Moreover, we propose an optimization technique under which the legitimate monitor minimizes the success detection probability (SDP) of the legitimate target, by optimizing the jamming power allocation over both communication and sensing channels subject to total power constraints and monitoring performance requirement. To enhance the monitor’s longevity and reduce the risk of detection by malicious ISAC systems, we further propose an adaptive power allocation scheme aimed at minimizing the total transmit power at the monitor while meeting a pre-selected sensing SINR threshold and ensuring successful monitoring. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithm significantly compromises the sensing and communication performance of malicious ISAC.

This paper presents an application of differential evolution in optimizing the exploitation of full-duplex communication for Cell-Free Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (CF-mMIMO), a potential candidate for 6G networks. This paper proposes a new dynamic network-assisted full-duplex CF-mMIMO network, where access points can operate in either half-duplex or full-duplex mode, and each full-duplex access point can serve uplink and downlink users simultaneously. A long-term total spectral efficiency maximization problem is formulated subject to a network operation model and individual spectral efficiency requirements with a limited power budget. Due to the intrinsic nonconvexity and infeasible circumstances where some users might not achieve the rate requirements, we adapt differential evolution to design a low computational complexity algorithm, attaining good power allocation and network operation mode in polynomial time. We further analytically investigate the number of generations required to reach the optimal solution. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our system design and proposed algorithm over state-of-the-art benchmarks. The network can offer satisfactory service to most users, although several may be unscheduled under harsh conditions.

This paper investigates the secrecy performance of a spatially correlated multi-reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system in the presence of imperfect channel state information, electromagnetic interference (EMI) at each RIS, and transceiver hardware impairments (T-HWI). Under these imperfections, we calculate the linear minimum mean-square error estimation to acquire the channel estimate and derive a closed-form expression for the downlink secrecy sum rate (SSR). We employ artificial noise (AN) at each access point (AP) in the downlink data transmission phase to improve the achievable SSR. Our analysis reveals that, under specific scenarios, hardware distortion at the AP can act as effective AN. Numerical results validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate that the secrecy performance significantly deteriorates due to the impact of T-HWI and EMI. Furthermore, maintaining the secrecy performance under higher EMI power necessitates increased AN power. Additionally, a performance trade-off exists between the number of RISs and the EMI power for achieving an optimal SSR.

Sensing, as an underlying function of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), can, in theory, enable numerous applications, including detection, localization, navigation, etc. However, in sixth generation (6G) and beyond, sensing data could be used in a more effective manner, while environmental mapping is a promising candidate to enhance the sensing capacity. This paper augments the conventional ISAC framework by introducing the concept of integrated localization, mapping, and communication (LMAC), exploring the feasibility of providing mapping services while maintaining localization accuracy. Closedform expressions for the communication and localization signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) are analytically derived to evaluate both the communication performance and the localizability of the localization user and scatterers. Furthermore, the Cramér-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) for localization and mapping services are provided to characterize the fundamental limits of an LMAC system. Numerical results indicate that the proposed performance bounds effectively characterize the system performance and offer valuable insights into how different network configurations influence the performance and realizable potential of LMAC.

In this paper, we exploit the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) architecture to design a physical-layer authentication (PLA) framework that can simultaneously authenticate multiple distributed users across the coverage area. Our proposed scheme remains effective even in the presence of active adversaries attempting impersonation attacks to disrupt the authentication process. Specifically, we introduce a tag-based PLA CF-mMIMO system, wherein the access points (APs) first estimate their channels with the legitimate users during an uplink training phase. Subsequently, a unique secret key is generated and securely shared between each user and the APs. We then formulate a hypothesis testing problem and derive a closed-form expression for the probability of detection for each user in the network. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, demonstrating that it maintains a high detection probability even as the number of users in the system increases.

In this paper, we propose a hybrid beamforming design for multiple target detection in an orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS)-based integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. The proposed hybrid beamformer allows spatial separation of the beams for communication and sensing, thereby eliminating inter-beam interference (IBI), while reducing the number of required radio frequency (RF) chains. More specifically, in addition to the beams allocated for communication users, multiple beams are assigned for target scanning and detection. By applying a combiner to the received echo signals, information about the target's existence, along with its angular, range, and Doppler characteristics, can be directly obtained across different RF chains. To shed light on the system performance, we analyze the signal-to-interference-plusnoise ratio (SINR) and discuss the effect of the beamformer in the on-grid and off-grid cases, respectively. Our simulation results indicate that accurate sensing can be achieved with integer delay and Doppler indices; however, in the cases of fractional delay and Doppler, the sensing accuracy depends on the resolution of these parameters.

Compared to range- and angle-based localization, the importance of received signal strength (RSS)-based positioning is gradually diminishing in beyond 5G networks due to its limited localization accuracy, despite its simplicity. This paper explores the potential of utilizing non-line-of-sight (NLoS) RSS measurements to enhance the localization performance of RSS-based systems. Different from the conventional RSS-based localization, which relies solely on line-of-sight (LoS) RSS measurements, our findings reveal that the NLoS RSS also contains valuable locationrelated information for localization. A simple and efficient localization scheme that attains the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) performance is developed, accounting for measurement misalignment caused by different reflection paths. Furthermore, a tractable expression of the CRLB is analytically derived, which offers insights into how different network parameters, such as the path-loss decay and reflection loss, affect the fundamental limits of the proposed scheme.

This paper investigates the problem of localizing and associating multiple targets in an integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system that employs a multi-static cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output ($\mathbf{C F}-\mathbf{m M I M O}$) architecture. In this system, a large area is covered by a number of distributed access points (APs). The problem of simultaneously detecting and locating multiple targets is considered to be crucial and challenging, particularly in order to avoid interference in the communications functionalities. By using the virtual channel representation of both the sensing and communication channels and the angular estimation method, e.g., estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT), we can first accurately identify specific angular directions from unidentified targets to each receiving (Rx)-AP. Then, we transform the association problem into a clustering problem. We propose a low-complexity approach based on the clustering algorithm to solve this association problem. The proposed method yields robust communication performance while simultaneously achieving outstanding association and localization performance.

This paper investigates the impact of hardware impairments in terms of low-cost radio frequency (RF) chains and dynamic-resolution analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog converters (ADCsIDACs) over a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) enhanced cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system. We aim to model a practical scenario by considering phase noise and spatial correlation at the RIS. We utilize the well-known linear minimum mean square error estimation to obtain the channel estimates and present a closed-form expression for the downlink spectral efficiency (SE). To reduce the fronthaul load, we implement an access point (AP) selection strategy that assigns each user to a specific set of APs rather than all the APs. Our analysis reveals that i) the SE with RIS-aided links is significant in scenarios with low transmit power, especially when the direct link is weak, ii) the effect of ADCslDACs imperfection is more acute than RF impairments at higher transmit power levels, iii) the energy efficiency shows minimal impact at lower impairment levels but becomes significantly affected as the impairment level increases, and iv) dynamic-resolution ADCslDACs playa vital role on the system performance.

Joint unicast and multicast transmissions are becoming increasingly important in practical wireless systems, such as Internet of Things networks. This paper investigates a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system that simultaneously supports both transmission types, with multicast serving multiple groups. Exact closed-form expressions for the achievable downlink spectral efficiency (SE) of both unicast and multicast users are derived for zero-forcing and maximum ratio precoding designs. Accordingly, a weighted sum SE (SSE) maximization problem is formulated to jointly optimize the access point (AP) selection and power allocation. The optimization framework accounts for practical constraints, including the maximum transmit power per AP, fronthaul capacity limitations between APs and the central processing unit, and quality-of-service requirements for all users. The resulting non-convex optimization problem is reformulated into a tractable structure, and an accelerated projected gradient (APG)-based algorithm is developed to efficiently obtain near-optimal solutions. As a performance benchmark, a successive convex approximation (SCA)-based algorithm is also implemented. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed joint optimization approach significantly enhances the SSE across various system setups and precoding strategies. In particular, the APG-based algorithm achieves substantial complexity reduction while maintaining competitive performance, making it well-suited for large-scale practical deployments.

We consider a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system, where each access point (AP) serves all the users with the aid of the RIS. We practically model the system by considering imperfect instantaneous channel state information (CSI) and employing imperfect successive interference cancellation at the users’ end. We first obtain the channel estimates using linear minimum mean square error approach considering the spatial correlation at the RIS and then derive a closed-form downlink spectral efficiency (SE) expression using the statistical CSI. We next formulate a joint optimization problem to maximize the sum SE of the system. We first introduce a novel successive Quadratic Transform (successive-QT) algorithm to optimize the transmit power coefficients using the concept of block optimization along with quadratic transform and then use the particle swarm optimization technique to design the RIS phase shifts. Note that most of the existing works on RIS-aided cell-free systems are specific instances of the general scenario studied in this work. We numerically show that i) the RIS-assisted link is more advantageous at lower transmit power regions where the direct link between AP and user is weak, ii) NOMA outperforms orthogonal multiple access schemes in terms of SE, and iii) the proposed joint optimization framework significantly improves the sum SE of the system.

We consider a downlink (DL) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, where different users have different mobility profiles. To support this system, we categorize the users into two disjoint groups according to their mobility profile and implement a hybrid orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS)/orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation scheme. Building upon this framework, two precoding designs, namely full-pilot zero-forcing (FZF) precoding and partial zero-forcing (PZF) precoding are considered. To shed light on the system performance, the spectral efficiency (SE) with a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE)-successive interference cancellation (SIC) detector is investigated. Closed-form expressions for the SE are obtained using some tight mathematical approximations. To improve fairness among different users, we consider max-min power control for both precoding schemes based on the closed-form SE expression. However, by noting the large performance gap for different groups of users with PZF precoding, the per-user SE will be compromised when pursuing overall fairness. Therefore, we propose a weighted max-min power control scheme. By introducing a weighting coefficient, the trade-off between the per-user performance and fairness can be enhanced. Our numerical results confirm the theoretical analysis and reveal that with mobility-based grouping, the proposed hybrid OTFS/OFDM modulation significantly outperforms the conventional OFDM modulation for high-mobility users.

Cell-free (CF) architectures and full-duplex (FD) communication are leading candidates for next-generation wireless networks. The CF framework removes cell boundaries in traditional cell-based systems, thereby mitigating the inter-cell interference and improving the coverage probability. In contrast, FD communication allows simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency-time resources, effectively doubling the spectral efficiency (SE). The integration of these technologies, known as CF FD communication, leverages the advantages of both approaches to enhance the spectral and energy efficiency in wireless networks. CF FD communication is particularly promising due to the low-power and cost-effective FD-enabled access points (APs), which are ideal for short-range transmissions between APs and users. Despite its potential, a comprehensive survey or tutorial on CF FD communication has been notably absent. This paper aims to address this gap in the literature. It begins with an overview of FD communication fundamentals, self-interference cancellation techniques, and CF technology principles, including their implications for current wireless networks. The discussion then moves to the integration and compatibility of CF and FD technologies, focusing on channel estimation, performance analysis, and resource allocation in CF FD massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) networks, supported by an extensive literature review and case studies. The potential of combining a sub-category of CF architecture—network-assisted CF technology—with FD technology is also explored, including a detailed case study on fundamentals, performance analysis, AP operation, and mode assignments. Finally, emerging CF FD paradigms, like millimeter-wave communications, unmanned aerial vehicles, and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, are discussed, highlighting existing contributions and unresolved issues.

We investigate the integration of beyond-diagonal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (BD-RISs) into cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems to enhance simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). To simultaneously support two groups of users—energy receivers (ERs) and information receivers (IRs)— without sacrificing time-frequency resources, a subset of access points (APs) is dedicated to serving ERs with the aid of a BD-RIS, while the remaining APs focus on supporting IRs. A protective partial zero-forcing precoding technique is implemented at the APs to manage the non-coherent interference between the ERs and IRs. Subsequently, closed-form expressions for the spectral efficiency of the IRs and the average sum of harvested energy (HE) at the ERs are leveraged to formulate a comprehensive optimization problem. This problem jointly optimizes the AP selection, AP power control, and scattering matrix design at the BD-RIS, all based on long-term statistical channel state information. This challenging problem is then effectively transformed into more tractable forms. To solve these sub-problems, efficient algorithms are proposed, including a heuristic search for the scattering matrix design, as well as successive convex approximation and deep reinforcement learning methods for the joint AP mode selection and power control design. Numerical results show that a BD-RIS with a group- or fully-connected architecture achieves significant EH gains over the conventional diagonal RIS, especially delivering up to a 7-fold increase in the average sum of HE when a heuristic-based scattering matrix design is employed.

We present an overview of ongoing research endeavors focused on in-band full-duplex (IBFD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems and their applications. In response to the unprecedented demands for mobile traffic in concurrent and upcoming wireless networks, a paradigm shift from conventional cellular networks to distributed communication systems becomes imperative. Cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) emerges as a practical and scalable implementation of distributed/network MIMO systems, serving as a crucial physical layer technology for the advancement of next-generation wireless networks. This architecture inherits benefits from co-located massive MIMO and distributed systems and provides the flexibility for integration with the IBFD technology. We delineate the evolutionary trajectory of cellular networks, transitioning from conventional half-duplex multi-user MIMO networks to IBFD CF-mMIMO. The discussion extends further to the emerging paradigm of network-assisted IBFD CF-mMIMO (NAFD CF-mMIMO), serving as an energy-efficient prototype for asymmetric uplink and downlink communication services. This novel approach finds applications in dual-functionality scenarios, including simultaneous wireless power and information transmission, wireless surveillance, and integrated sensing and communications. We highlight various current use case applications, discuss open challenges, and outline future research directions aimed at fully realizing the potential of NAFD CF-mMIMO systems to meet the evolving demands of future wireless networks.

We investigate reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) Internet of Things (IoT) networks, where energy-limited IoT devices are overlaid with cellular information users (IUs). IoT devices are wirelessly powered by a RIS-assisted massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) base station (BS), which is simultaneously serving a group of IUs. By leveraging a two-timescale transmission scheme, precoding at the BS is developed based on the instantaneous channel state information (CSI), while the passive beamforming at the RIS is adapted to the slowly-changing statistical CSI. We derive closed-form expressions for the achievable spectral efficiency of the IUs and average harvested energy at the IoT devices, taking the channel estimation errors and pilot contamination into account. Then, a non-convex max-min fairness optimization problem is formulated subject to the power budget at the BS and individual quality of service requirements of IUs, where the transmit power levels at the BS and passive RIS reflection coefficients are jointly optimized. Our simulation results show that the average harvested energy at the IoT devices can be improved by 132% with the proposed resource allocation algorithm. Interestingly, IoT devices benefit from the pilot contamination, leading to a potential doubling of the harvested energy in certain network configurations.

We propose reflection pattern modulation-aided reconfigurable intelligent surface (RPM-RIS)-assisted cell-free massive multiple-input-multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) schemes for green uplink transmission. In our RPM-RIS-assisted CF-mMIMO system, extra information is conveyed by the indices of the active RIS blocks, exploiting the joint benefits of both RIS-assisted CF-mMIMO transmission and RPM. Since only part of the RIS blocks are active, our proposed architecture strikes a flexible energy vs. spectral efficiency (SE) trade-off. We commence with introducing the system model by considering spatially correlated channels. Moreover, we conceive a channel estimation scheme subject to the linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) constraint, yielding sufficient information for the subsequent signal processing steps. Then, upon exploiting a so-called large-scale fading decoding (LSFD) scheme, the uplink signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) is derived based on the RIS ON/OFF statistics, where both maximum ratio (MR) and local minimum mean-square error (L-MMSE) combiners are considered. By invoking the MR combiner, the closed-form expression of the uplink SE is formulated based only on the channel statistics. Furthermore, we derive the total energy efficiency (EE) of our proposed RPM-RIS-assisted CF-mMIMO system. Additionally, we propose a chaotic sequence-based adaptive particle swarm optimization (CSA-PSO) algorithm to maximize the total EE by designing the RIS phase shifts. Specifically, the initial particle diversity is promoted by invoking chaotic sequences, and an adaptive time-varying inertia weight is developed to improve its particle search performance. Furthermore, the particle mutation and reset steps are appropriately selected to enable the algorithm to escape from local optima. Finally, our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed RPM-RIS-assisted CF-mMIMO architecture strikes an attractive SE vs. EE trade-off, while the CSA-PSO algorithm is capable of attaining a significant EE performance gain compared to conventional solutions.

We propose a distributed implementation of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) underpinned by a massive multiple input multiple output (CF-mMIMO) architecture without cells. Distributed multi-antenna access points (APs) simultaneously serve communication users (UEs) and emit probing signals towards multiple specified zones for sensing. The APs can switch between communication and sensing modes, and adjust their transmit power based on the network settings and sensing and communication operations’ requirements. By considering local partial zero-forcing and maximum-ratio-transmit precoding at the APs for communication and sensing, respectively, we first derive closed-form expressions for the spectral efficiency (SE) of the UEs and the mainlobe-to-average-sidelobe ratio (MASR) of the sensing zones. Then, a joint operation mode selection and power control design problem is formulated to maximize the SE fairness among the UEs, while ensuring specific levels of MASR for sensing zones. The complicated mixed-integer problem is relaxed and solved via a successive convex approximation approach. We further propose a low-complexity design, where the AP mode selection is designed through a greedy algorithm and then power control is designed based on this chosen mode. Our findings reveal that the proposed scheme can consistently ensure a sensing success rate of 100% for different network setups with a satisfactory fairness among all UEs.

This paper studies cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems that underpin simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) for separate information users (IUs) and energy users (EUs) in Internet of Things (IoT) networks. We propose a joint access point (AP) operation mode selection and power control design, wherein certain APs are designated for energy transmission to EUs, while others are dedicated to information transmission to IUs. The performance of the system, from both a spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) perspective, is comprehensively analyzed. Specifically, we formulate two mixed-integer nonconvex optimization problems for maximizing the average sum-SE and EE, under realistic power consumption models and constraints on the minimum individual SE requirements for individual IUs, minimum HE for individual EUs, and maximum transmit power at each AP. The challenging optimization problems are solved using successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques. The proposed framework design is further applied to the average sum-HE maximization and energy harvesting fairness problems. Our numerical results demonstrate that the proposed joint AP operation mode selection and power control algorithm can achieve EE performance gains of up to 4-fold and 5-fold over random AP operation mode selection, with and without power control respectively.

Simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS)-aided cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems are investigated under spatially correlated fading channels using realistic imperfect hardware. Specifically, the transceiver distortions, time-varying phase noise, and RIS phase shift errors are considered. Upon considering imperfect hardware and pilot contamination, we derive a linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion-based cascaded channel estimator. Moreover, a closed-form expression of the downlink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) is derived based on maximum ratio (MR) based transmit precoding and channel statistics, where both a finite number of access points (APs) and STAR-RIS elements as well as imperfect hardware are considered. Furthermore, by exploiting the ergodic signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) among user equipment (UE), a max-min fairness problem is formulated for the joint optimization of the passive transmitting and reflecting beamforming (BF) at the STAR-RIS as well as of the power control coefficients. An alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is proposed for solving the resultant problems, where iterative adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) and bisection methods are proposed for circumventing the non-convexity of the RIS passive BF and the quasi-concave power control sub-problems, respectively. Our simulation results illustrate that the STAR-RIS-aided CF-mMIMO system attains higher SE than its RIS-aided counterpart. The performance of different hardware parameters is also evaluated. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the SE of the worst UE can be significantly improved by exploiting the proposed AO-based algorithm compared to conventional solutions associated with random passive BF and equal-power scenarios.

Traditional centralized direct localization methods require the transmission of the complete baseband signal to the fusion center (FC) for target localization. Due to the limited communication bandwidth as well as energy required in transmission, this centralized framework is not suitable for largescale sensor networks. This paper proposes an information-driven decentralized direct localization framework. Firstly, a maximum-likelihood position estimator, based on the Gauss-Newton method, is derived. Then, a decentralized implementation framework is constructed. At its core, there is no dedicated FC while the sensors transmit information to their neighboring nodes only through single hops, achieving target localization through iterative processes based on the concept of consensus. Simulation results confirm the stability and robustness of the proposed method in different scenarios.

This paper explores a discrete energy state transition model for energy harvesting (EH) in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) networks. Multiple-antenna access points (APs) provide wireless power and information to single-antenna UE equipment (UEs). The harvested energy at the UEs is used for both uplink (UL) training and data transmission. We investigate the energy transition probabilities based on the energy differential achieved in each coherence interval. A Markov chain-based stochastic process is introduced to characterize the evolving UE energy status. A detailed statistical model is developed for a non-linear EH circuit at the UEs, using the derived closed-form expressions for the mean and variance of the harvested energy. More specifically, simulation results confirm that the proposed Gamma distribution approximation can accurately capture the statistical behavior of the harvested energy. Furthermore, the energy state transitions are evaluated using the proposed Markov chain-based framework, while mathematical expressions for the self, positive and negative transition probabilities of the discrete energy states are also presented. Our numerical results depict that increasing the number of APs with a constant number of service antennas provides significant improvement in the positive energy state transition and reduces the negative transition probabilities of the overall network.

We consider a joint orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO) system with limited fronthaul capacity. In this system, some users (UEs) are grouped to be served by access points (APs) in NOMA mode, while other UEs are served in OMA mode. We formulate a mixed-integer nonconvex problem of optimizing the power control and AP-group association to maximize the sum spectral efficiency (SE) in the considered system. This problem is subject to minimum SE requirements of each UE, per-AP transmit power, and limited fronthaul capacity. We propose an algorithm based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) optimization technique to obtain a stationary-point solution for the formulated problem. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed joint optimization approach increases significantly sum SE compared to other heuristic baseline schemes, especially under a tight fronthaul capacity limitation. Also, the joint OMA-NOMA CFmMIMO system provides remarkably higher 95%-likelihood sum SE compared to a CFmMIMO system using only the OMA scheme, especially up to 42% when the coherence interval is short.

This paper considers a simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STARRIS)-aided cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) system, accounting for imperfect hardware in spatially correlated fading channels. Specifically, we consider the hardware impairments and phase noise at transceivers, as well as the phase shift errors generated within the STAR-RIS. We commence by introducing the STAR-RIS signal model, channel model, and imperfect hardware components. Then, the linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) channel estimate is derived with pilot contamination, which provides sufficient information for sequential data processing. Moreover, a channel capacity lower bound is derived in the case of a finite number of RIS elements and access points (APs), while a closed-form expression for the downlink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) for maximum ratio (MR) precoding is also deduced, where only the channel statistics are used. Our numerical results demonstrate that the STAR-RIS-aided CF-mMIMO system achieves higher SE compared to the conventional CF-mMIMO system, even with imperfect hardware.

This paper derives an achievable rate for centralized uplink cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) networks when using superimposed pilots in combination with advanced combining schemes. This rate relies on a novel channel estimation technique that uncorrelates the combiner applied to any given information symbol from the channel estimate and its corresponding channel estimation error. The performance of powerful combining strategies such as minimum mean square error (MMSE) or zero-forcing (ZF) can then be assessed in the context of superimposed pilot transmission. Results show that despite superimposed training might be suitable when using the simple maximum ratio combining (MRC) technique, its performance when compared with regular pilot transmission falls short when advanced combining strategies are used.

In this paper, we investigate joint power control and AP selection scheme in a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMIO) system under an active eaves-dropping attack, where an eavesdropper tries to overhear the signal sent to one of the legitimate users by contaminating the uplink channel estimation. We formulate a joint optimization problem to minimize the eavesdropping spectral efficiency (SE) while guaranteeing a given SE requirement at legitimate users. The challenging formulated problem is converted into a more tractable form and an efficient low-complexity accelerated pro-jected gradient (APG)-based approach is proposed to solve it. Our findings reveal that the proposed joint optimization approach significantly outperforms the heuristic approaches in terms of secrecy SE (SSE). For instance, the 50% likely SSE performance of the proposed approach is 265 % higher than that of equal power allocation and random AP selection scheme.

Extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) is a transformative technology to achieve spectral-efficient and energy-saving wireless communication. However, XL-MIMO leads to the near-field propagation becoming dominant. In this paper, we examine a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted XL-MIMO communication system to serve two distinct groups of users, namely near-field users (NFUEs), directly served by the XL-MIMO, and far-field users (FFUEs), served with the assistance of a RIS. We derive the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) expressions for whole-array-based precoders, including maximum-ratio transmission (MRT), and zero-forcing (ZF). Moreover, we take into account the spatially, non-stationary channel characteristics, indicating that user terminals may only have visibility of a specific portion of the array, referred to as the visibility region (VR). To further leverage the VR for complexity reduction, we propose a heuristic algorithm designed to determine the VR, while also guaranteeing the individual SINR requirements for both NFUEs and FFUEs. Simulation results indicate that utilizing VR with our proposed heuristic algorithm yields performance comparable to a benchmark utilizing the whole-array, albeit with a notable reduction in the number of antennas and computational complexity.

This paper investigates the integration of beyond-diagonal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (BD-RISs) into cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems, focusing on applications involving simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). The system supports concurrently two user groups: information users (IUs) and energy users (EUs). A BD-RIS is employed to enhance the wireless power transfer (WPT) directed towards the EUs. To comprehensively evaluate the system's performance, we present an analytical framework for the spectral efficiency (SE) of IUs and the average harvested energy (HE) of EUs in the presence of spatial correlation among the BD-RIS elements and for a non-linear energy harvesting circuit. Our findings offer important insights into the transformative potential of BD- RIS, setting the stage for the development of more efficient and effective SWIPT networks. Finally, incorporating a heuristic scattering matrix design at the BD-RIS results in a substantial improvement compared to the scenario with random scattering matrix design.

An orthogonal time sequency multiplexing (OTSM) scheme using practical signaling functions is proposed under strong phase noise (PHN) scenarios. By utilizing the transform relationships between the delay-sequency (DS), time-frequency (TF) and time-domains, we first conceive the DS-domain input-output relationship of our OTSM system, where the conventional zero-padding is discarded to increase the spectral efficiency. Then, the unconditional pairwise error probability is derived, followed by deriving the bit error ratio (BER) upper bound in closed-form. Moreover, we compare the BER performance of our OTSM system based on several practical signaling functions. Our simulation results demonstrate that the upper bound derived accurately predicts the BER performance in the case of moderate to high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), while harnessing practical window functions is capable of attaining an attractive out-of-band emission (OOBE) vs. BER trade-off.

Both space and ground communications have been proven effective solutions under different perspectives in Internet of Things (IoT) networks. This article investigates multiple-access scenarios, where plenty of IoT users are cooperatively served by a satellite in space and access points (APs) on the ground. Available users in each coherence interval are split into scheduled and unscheduled subsets to optimize limited radio resources. We compute the uplink ergodic throughput of each scheduled user under imperfect channel state information (CSI) and nonorthogonal pilot signals. As maximum-radio combining is deployed locally at the ground gateway and the APs, the uplink ergodic throughput is obtained in a closed-form expression. The analytical results explicitly unveil the effects of channel conditions and pilot contamination on each scheduled user. By maximizing the sum throughput, the system can simultaneously determine scheduled users and perform power allocation based on either a model-based approach with alternating optimization or a learning-based approach with the graph neural network. Numerical results manifest that integrated satellite-terrestrial cell-free massive multiple-input-multiple-output systems can significantly improve the sum ergodic throughput over coherence intervals. The integrated systems can schedule the vast majority of users; some might be out of service due to the limited power budget.

This work proposes novel approaches that jointly design user equipment (UE) association and power control (PC) in a downlink user-centric cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO) network, where each UE is only served by a set of access points (APs) for reducing the fronthaul signalling and computational complexity. In order to maximize the sum spectral efficiency (SE) of the UEs, we formulate a mixed-integer nonconvex optimization problem under constraints on the per-AP transmit power, quality-of-service rate requirements, maximum fronthaul signalling load, and maximum number of UEs served by each AP. In order to efficiently solve the formulated problem, we propose two different schemes according to the different sizes of the CFmMIMO systems. For small-scale CFmMIMO systems, we present a successive convex approximation (SCA) method to obtain a stationary solution and also develop a learning-based method (JointCFNet) to reduce the computational complexity. For large-scale CFmMIMO systems, we propose a low-complexity suboptimal algorithm using accelerated projected gradient (APG) techniques. Numerical results show that our JointCFNet can yield similar performance and significantly decrease the run time compared with the SCA algorithm in small-scale systems. The presented APG approach is confirmed to run much faster than the SCA algorithm in large-scale systems while obtaining an SE performance close to that of the SCA approach. Moreover, the median sum SE of the APG method is up to about 2.8 fold higher than that of the heuristic baseline scheme.

A cell-free massive multiple-input-multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) system is considered for enhancing the monitoring performance of wireless surveillance, where a large number of distributed multiantenna aided legitimate monitoring nodes (MNs) proactively monitor multiple distributed untrusted communication links. We consider two types of MNs whose task is to either observe the untrusted transmitters or jam the untrusted receivers. We first analyze the performance of CF-mMIMO surveillance relying on both maximum ratio (MR) and partial zero-forcing (PZF) combining schemes and derive closed-form expressions for the monitoring success probability (MSP) of the MNs. We then propose a joint optimization technique that designs the MN mode assignment, power control, and MN-weighting coefficient control to enhance the MSP based on the long-term statistical channel state information knowledge. This challenging problem is effectively transformed into tractable forms and efficient algorithms are proposed for solving them. Numerical results show that our proposed CF-mMIMO surveillance system considerably improves the monitoring performance with respect to a full-duplex co-located massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) proactive monitoring system. More particularly, when the untrusted pairs are distributed over a wide area and use the MR combining, the proposed solution provides nearly a thirty-fold improvement in the minimum MSP over the co-located massive MIMO baseline, and forty-fold improvement, when the PZF combining is employed.

This paper considers compensation issues within cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems, under the in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI). Both access points (APs) and users are equipped with multiple antennas. We conduct an analysis into the impact of IQI and propose an efficient IQI compensation scheme to overcome the effects of IQI. Analytical expressions for the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) estimation and the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) of each user are derived, both with and without IQI compensation. In addition, to characterize the IQI effect in the massive MIMO regime, we analyze the asymptotic performance of cell-free massive MIMO when the number of APs goes to infinity. The results of our analysis demonstrate that, when the number of APs grows large, a cell-free system with perfect I/Q matching will allow the SE to increase without bound. However, if IQI is present, the system performance will saturate even if the number of APs becomes very large. The introduction of a compensation technique at the APs, that requires only an estimation of the IQI coefficients, is successful in removing this performance limit, hence significantly enhancing the system performance.

To meet the unprecedented mobile traffic demands of future wireless networks, a paradigm shift from conventional cellular networks to distributed communication systems is imperative. Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) represents a practical and scalable embodiment of distributed/network MIMO systems. It inherits not only the key benefits of co-located massive MIMO systems but also the macro-diversity gains from distributed systems. This innovative architecture has demonstrated significant potential in enhancing network performance from various perspectives, outperforming co-located mMIMO and conventional small-cell systems. Moreover, CF-mMIMO offers flexibility in integration with emerging wireless technologies such as full-duplex (FD), nonorthogonal transmission schemes, millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications, ultrareliable low-latency communication (URLLC), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided communication, and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs). In this article, we provide an overview of current research efforts on CF-mMIMO systems and their promising future application scenarios. We then elaborate on new requirements for CF-mMIMO networks in the context of these technological breakthroughs. We also present several current open challenges and outline future research directions aimed at fully realizing the potential of CF-mMIMO systems in meeting the evolving demands of future wireless networks.

Ultradense cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-MMIMO) has emerged as a promising technology expected to meet the future ubiquitous connectivity requirements and ever-growing data traffic demands in sixth generation (6G). This article provides a contemporary overview of ultradense CF-MMIMO networks and addresses important unresolved questions on their future deployment. We first present a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research on CF-MMIMO and ultradense networks. Then, we discuss the key challenges of CF-MMIMO under ultradense scenarios such as low-complexity architecture and processing, low-complexity/scalable resource allocation, fronthaul limitation, massive access, synchronization, and channel acquisition. Finally, we answer key open questions, considering different design comparisons and discussing suitable methods dealing with the key challenges of ultradense CF-MMIMO. The discussion aims to provide a valuable roadmap for interesting future research directions in this area, facilitating the development of CF-MMIMO for 6G.

The channel hardening effect is less pronounced in the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) system compared to its cellular counterpart, making it necessary to estimate the downlink effective channel gains to ensure decent performance. However, the downlink training inadvertently creates an opportunity for adversarial nodes to launch pilot spoofing attacks (PSAs). First, we demonstrate that adversarial distributed access points (APs) can severely degrade the achievable downlink rate. They achieve this by estimating their channels to users in the uplink training phase and then precoding and sending the same pilot sequences as those used by legitimate APs during the downlink training phase. Then, the impact of the downlink PSA is investigated by rigorously deriving a closed-form expression of the per-user achievable downlink rate. By employing the min-max criterion to optimize the power allocation coefficients, the maximum per-user achievable rate of downlink transmission is minimized from the perspective of adversarial APs. As an alternative to the downlink PSA, adversarial APs may opt to precode random interference during the downlink data transmission phase in order to disrupt legitimate communications. In this scenario, the achievable downlink rate is derived, and then power optimization algorithms are also developed. We present numerical results to showcase the detrimental impact of the downlink PSA and compare the effects of these two types of attacks.

We study secure communications in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems with multi-antenna access points (APs) and protective partial zero-forcing (PPZF) precoding. In particular, we consider an active eavesdropping attack, where an eavesdropper contaminates the uplink channel estimation phase by sending an identical pilot sequence with a legitimate user of interest. We formulate an optimization problem for maximizing the received signal-to-noise ratio (SINR) at the legitimate user, subject to a maximum allowable SINR at the eavesdropper and maximum transmit power at each AP, while guaranteeing specific SINR requirements on other legitimate users. The optimization problem is solved using a path-following algorithm. We also propose a large-scale-based greedy AP selection scheme to improve the secrecy spectral efficiency (SSE). Finally, we propose a simple method for identifying the presence of an eavesdropper within the system. Our findings show that PPZF can substantially outperform the conventional maximum-ratio transmission (MRT) scheme by providing around 2-fold improvement in the SSE compared to the MRT scheme. More importantly, for PPZF precoding scheme, our proposed AP selection can achieve a remarkable SSE gain of up to 220%, while our power optimization approach can provide an additional gain of up to 55% compared with a CF-mMIMO system with equal power allocation.

This research exploits the applications of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems, specifically addressing the enhancement of communication reliability with modulated signals. Specifically, we first derive the analytical downlink symbol error rate (SER) of each user as a multivariate function of both the phase-shift and beamforming vectors. The analytical SER enables us to obtain insights into the synergistic dynamics between the RIS and MIMO communication. We then introduce a novel average SER minimization problem subject to the practical constraints of the transmitted power budget and phase shift coefficients, which is NP-hard. By incorporating the differential evolution (DE) algorithm as a pivotal tool for optimizing the intricate active and passive beamforming variables in RIS-assisted communication systems, the non-convexity of the considered SER optimization problem can be effectively handled. Furthermore, an efficient local search is incorporated into the DE algorithm to overcome the local optimum, and hence offer low SER and high communication reliability. Monte Carlo simulations validate the analytical results and the proposed optimization framework, indicating that the joint active and passive beamforming design is superior to the other benchmarks.

With its privacy preservation and communication efficiency, federated learning (FL) has emerged as a promising learning framework for beyond 5G wireless networks. It is anticipated that future wireless networks will jointly serve both FL and downlink non-FL user groups in the same time-frequency resource. While in the downlink of each FL iteration, both groups simultaneously receive data from the base station in the same time-frequency resource, the uplink of each FL iteration requires bidirectional communication to support uplink transmission for FL users and downlink transmission for non-FL users. To overcome this challenge, we present half-duplex (HD) and full-duplex (FD) communication schemes to serve both groups. More specifically, we adopt the massive multiple-input multiple-output technology and aim to maximize the minimum effective rate of non-FL users under a quality of service (QoS) latency constraint for FL users. Since the formulated problem is nonconvex, we propose a power control algorithm based on successive convex approximation to find a stationary solution. Numerical results show that the proposed solutions perform significantly better than the considered baselines schemes. Moreover, the FD-based scheme outperforms the HD-based counterpart in scenarios where the self-interference is small or moderate and/or the size of FL model updates is large.

Arrays with a large number of antennas can achieve outstanding performance for both communication and radar sensing. This motivates us to investigate the transmit beamforming design for massive multiple-input multiple-output integrated sensing and communications (mMIMO-ISAC) systems. Inspired by the facts that linear precoding methods can provide very good performance in mMIMO and that a dual-function ISAC transmit beamformer should be suitable for both communication and radar sensing, we propose an implementation-friendly mMIMO-ISAC transmit beamformer as a weighted combination of a linear precoder and a pre-designed array beamformer. The weights are selected and adjusted through the powers allocated to the beamformers, while the design problem is formulated as a total transmit power minimization, while satisfying the requirements for both sensing and communication. Leveraging the use-and-then-forget strategy, simplified performance metrics for communication and sensing under the proposed mMIMO-ISAC transmit model are derived, which yields linear programming (LP) problems for the design. It is shown that analytical solutions can be obtained and, hence, the proposed design is computationally very attractive. Simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed methods.

In this paper, we investigate the secure transmission in the downlink of a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) system that relies on rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA). We specifically evaluate the impact of hardware impairments (HWIs) originating from non-ideal access points (APs), user equipments (UEs), and Eavesdroppers (Eves) on the system’s secrecy performance. The investigation encompasses scenarios with both colluding and non-colluding Eves orchestrating pilot spoofing attacks against a designated UE, subsequently intercepting transmissions from both common and private streams. By taking into account a spatially correlated Ricean fading channel model and imperfect channel state information, we derive closed-form expressions for both legitimate and secrecy rates. The secrecy performance is scrutinized across different system configurations, including varying HWI levels, power splitting ratios, AP/Eve transmission powers, spatial correlations, line-of-sight components, and the presence of colluding versus non-colluding Eves. To enhance the secrecy rate for the compromised UE, we propose a secure power control strategy for adjusting the downlink transmission powers of the common and private streams. A sequential convex approximation-based algorithm is introduced to iteratively address this non-convex problem. Through comprehensive simulations, we validate our theoretical propositions and extract pivotal insights for system design.

This paper studies multiple-access scenarios where users are cooperatively served by the satellite and terrestrial access points (APs). We derive the uplink ergodic throughput of scheduled users under practical conditions where maximum-radio combining is exploited locally at the ground gateway and the APs. The analytical result explicitly unveils the effects of pilot contamination and channel conditions on the achievable throughput of each scheduled user in the uplink data transmission. The system can explicitly define the scheduled users and perform the power allocation by maximizing the sum throughput using either model-based or learning-based approaches. Numerical results demonstrate that the cooperation between space and ground systems brings superior throughput improvements over either space or ground networks. Even though most users can be simultaneously served, some may not be scheduled in each coherence interval due to limited radio resources.

In this paper, we consider a downlink (DL) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, where different users have different mobility profiles. To support this system, we propose to use a hybrid orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS)/orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation scheme, where OTFS is applied for high-mobility users and OFDM is used for low-mobility users. Two precoding designs, namely full zero-forcing (FZF) precoding and partial zero-forcing (PZF) precoding, are considered and analyzed in terms of per-user spectral efficiency (SE). With FZF, interference among users is totally eliminated at the cost of high computational complexity, while PZF can be used to provide a trade-off between complexity and performance. To apply PZF precoding, users are grouped into two disjoint groups according to their mobility profile or channel gain. Then, zero-forcing (ZF) is utilized for high-mobility or strong channel gain users to completely cancel the inter-group interference, while maximum ratio transmission (MRT) is applied for low-mobility users or users with weak channel gain. To shed light on the system performance, the SE for high-mobility and low-mobility users with a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE)-successive interference cancellation (SIC) detector is investigated. Our numerical results reveal that the PZF precoding with channel gain grouping can guarantee a similar quality of service for all users. In addition, with mobility-based grouping, the hybrid OTFS/OFDM modulation outperforms the conventional OFDM modulation for high-mobility users.

In this paper, we consider the problem of transmit beamforming design for massive multiple-input multiple-output integrated sensing and communications (MMIMO-ISAC) systems. Different from the existing designs for regular MIMO-ISAC systems, which directly optimize the dual-function beamformer matrix and are computationally expensive especially for large-scale antenna arrays, we propose to construct the beamformer as a weighted sum of the maximum ratio precoder and a desired sensing beamformer. This is motivated by the fact that maximum ratio precoding schemes are simple, and performs well in MMIMO systems. The weights involved in the beamformer are adjusted via optimizing the powers allocated to the users and sensing. A linear programming (LP) problem, which minimizes the total transmit power subject to the performance constraints of communication and sensing, is thus formulated. It is shown that the LP problem can be analytically solved. Therefore, the proposed transmit beamforming design has very low computational complexity. Its effectiveness and performance are illustrated by simulations.

Wireless surveillance, in which untrusted communications links are proactively monitored by legitimate agencies, has started to garner a lot of interest for enhancing the national security. In this paper, we propose a new cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) wireless surveillance system, where a large number of distributed multi-antenna aided legitimate monitoring nodes (MNs) embark on either observing or jamming untrusted communication links. To facilitate concurrent observing and jamming, a subset of the MNs is selected for monitoring the untrusted transmitters (UTs), while the remaining MNs are selected for jamming the untrusted receivers (URs). We analyze the performance of CF-mMIMO wireless surveillance and derive a closed-form expression for the monitoring success probability of MNs. We then propose a greedy algorithm for the observing vs, jamming mode assignment of MNs, followed by the conception of a jamming transmit power allocation algorithm for maximizing the minimum monitoring success probability concerning all the UT and UR pairs based on the associated long-term channel state information knowledge. In conclusion, our proposed CF-mMIMO system is capable of significantly improving the performance of the MNs compared to that of the state-of-the-art baseline. In scenarios of a mediocre number of MNs, our proposed scheme provides an 11-fold improvement in the minimum monitoring success probability compared to its colocated mMIMO benchmarker.

This paper studies cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems incorporating simultane-ous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) for separate information users (IUs) and energy users (EUs) in Internet of Things (IoT) networks. To optimize both the spectral efficiency (SE) of IUs and harvested energy (HE) of EUs, we propose a joint access point (AP) operation mode selection and power control design, wherein certain APs are designated for energy transmission to EUs, while others are dedicated to information transmission to IUs. We investigate the problem of maximizing the total HE for EUs, considering constraints on SE for individual IUs and minimum HE for individual EUs. Our numerical results showcase that the proposed AP operation mode selection algorithm can provide up to 76% and 130% performance gains over random AP operation mode selection with and without power control, respectively,

We consider a reflecting intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system to facilitate simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) towards two groups of information users (IUs) and energy users (EUs) over Rician fading channels. By considering partial zero-forcing (PZF) precoding at the base station (BS), we derive closed-from expressions for the achievable downlink spectral efficiency (SE) of the IUs and average harvested energy at the EUs. Our results rigorously demonstrate the impact of various system parameters on the actual performance. We next propose a maxmin fairness transmit power allocation which seeks to maximize the minimum harvested power by EUs, subject to quality-of-service constraints at all IUs, relying on statistical channel state information (CSI) and a realistic non-linear energy harvesting (EH) model for the EUs. Our numerical results reveal that the interplay between the RIS and massive MIMO can significantly boost the performance of SWIPT in wireless networks.

We consider a cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) system with multi-antenna access points (APs) and distributed protective partial zero-forcing (PPZF) precoding, which is prone to an active eavesdropping attack during uplink training. We develop a tractable analytical framework to derive a novel closed-form expression for the spectral efficiency (SE) at the users and eavesdropper (Eve), and, hence, the secrecy SE. These closed-form expressions are of particular importance for enabling further system design. Our findings show that PPZF can substantially outperform the conventional maximum-ratio transmission (MRT) scheme especially when the ratio of number of AP antennas to the number of users is high. Moreover, the secrecy enhancement obtained by using a higher number of AP antennas is more pronounced when Eve is located farther away from the legitimate user. Finally, simulation results validate the accuracy of the derived theoretical analysis.

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) play an important role in extending the connectivity and improving the data rate of future wireless communication systems. However, the conventional (passive) RISs have their limitations and, thus, a hybrid-relay RIS (HR-RIS) architecture is proposed to reap the benefits of relaying systems with high power consumption but higher throughput, and passive RIS systems with cascaded fading effects but low complexity. In this paper, we investigate the performance of HR-RISs in a massive multiple-input multiple-output (M-MIMO) system with zero-forcing (ZF) processing, where channel state information (CSI) is unavailable. We first model the uplink/downlink channels and derive the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimate of the effective channels. We, then, derive a closed-form expression for the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) and spectral efficiency (SE). Finally, we provide some useful engineering insights with our asymptotic analysis and numerical results.

We consider network-assisted full-duplex (NAFD) cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems, where full-duplex (FD) transmission is virtually realized via half-duplex (HD) hardware devices. The HD access points (APs) operating in uplink (UL) mode and those operating in downlink (DL) mode simultaneously serve DL and UL user equipments (UEs) in the same frequency bands. We comprehensively analyze the performance of NAFD CF-mMIMO from both a spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) perspectives. Specifically, we propose a joint optimization approach that designs the AP mode assignment, power control, and large-scale fading (LSFD) weights to improve the sum SE and EE of NAFD CF-mMIMO systems. We formulate two mixed-integer nonconvex optimization problems of maximizing the sum SE and EE, under realistic power consumption models, and the constraints on minimum individual SE requirements, maximum transmit power at each DL AP and UL UE. The challenging formulated problems are transformed into tractable forms and two novel algorithms are proposed to solve them using successive convex approximation techniques. More importantly, our approach can be applied to jointly optimize power control and LSFD weights for maximizing the sum SE and EE of HD and FD CF-mMIMO systems, which, to date, has not been studied. Numerical results show that: (a) our joint optimization approach significantly outperforms the heuristic approaches in terms of both sum SE and EE; (b) in CF-mMIMO systems, the NAFD scheme can provide approximately 30% SE gains, while achieving a remarkable EE gain of up to 200% compared with the HD and FD schemes.

Terahertz (THz) communication is widely deemed the next frontier of wireless networks owing to the abundant spectrum resources in the THz band. Whilst THz signals suffer from severe propagation losses, a massive antenna array can be deployed at the base station (BS) to mitigate those losses through beamforming. Nevertheless, a very large number of antennas increases the BS’s hardware complexity and power consumption, and hence it can lead to poor energy efficiency (EE). To surmount this fundamental problem, we propose a novel array design based on superdirectivity and nonuniform inter-element spacing. Specifically, we exploit the mutual coupling between closely spaced elements to form superdirective pairs. A unique property of them is that all require the same excitation amplitude, and thus can be driven by a single radio frequency chain akin to conventional phased arrays. Moreover, they facilitate multi-port impedance matching, which ensures maximum power transfer for any beamforming angle. After addressing the implementation issues of superdirectivity, we show that the number of BS antennas can be effectively reduced without sacrificing the achievable rate. Simulation results demonstrate that our design offers huge EE gains compared to uncoupled arrays with uniform spacing, and hence could be a radical solution for future THz systems.

In this paper, we investigate a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system with both access points and user equipments equipped with multiple antennas over the Weichselberger Rayleigh fading channel. We study the uplink spectral efficiency (SE) for the fully centralized processing scheme and large-scale fading decoding (LSFD) scheme. To further improve the SE performance, we design the uplink precoding schemes based on the weighted sum SE maximization. Since the weighted sum SE maximization problem is not jointly over all optimization variables, two efficient uplink precoding schemes based on Iteratively Weighted sum-Minimum Mean Square Error (I-WMMSE) algorithms, which rely on the iterative minimization of weighted Mean Square Error (MSE), are proposed for two processing schemes investigated. Furthermore, with maximum ratio combining applied in the LSFD scheme, we derive novel closed-form achievable SE expressions and optimal precoding schemes. Numerical results validate the proposed results and show that the I-WMMSE precoding schemes can achieve excellent sum SE performance with a large number of UE antennas.

Driven by the stringent demands of future ultra reliable and low latency communication (URLLC), we provide a comprehensive study for a coherent and non-coherent multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) uplink system in the finite blocklength regime. The independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian codebook is assumed for each user. To be more specific, the base station (BS) first uses two popular linear processing schemes to combine the signals transmitted from all users, namely maximum-ratio combining (MRC) and zero-forcing (ZF). Following it, the matched maximum-likelihood (ML) and mismatched nearest-neighbour (NN) decoding metric for the coherent and non-coherent cases are respectively employed at the BS. Under these conditions, the refined third-order achievable coding rate, expressed as a function of the blocklength, average error probability, and the third-order term of the information density (called as the channel perturbation), is derived. With this result in hand, a detailed performance analysis is then pursued, through which, we derive the asymptotic results of the channel perturbation, achievable coding rate, channel capacity, and the channel dispersion. These theoretical results enable us to obtain a number of interesting insights related to the impact of the finite blocklength: i) in our system setting, massive MIMO helps to reduce the channel perturbation of the achievable coding rate, which can even be discarded without affecting the performance with just a small-to-moderate number of BS antennas and number of blocks; ii) under the non-coherent case, even with massive MIMO, the channel estimation errors cannot be eliminated unless the transmit powers in both the channel estimation and data transmission phases for each user are made inversely proportional to the square root of the number of BS antennas; iii) in the non-coherent case and for fixed total blocklength, the scenarios with longer coherence intervals and smaller number of blocks will offer higher achievable coding rate.

A cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) system can provide uniform spectral efficiency (SE) with simple signal processing. On the other hand, a recently introduced technology called hybrid relay-reflecting intelligent surface (HR-RIS) can customize the physical propagation environment by simultaneously reflecting and amplifying radio waves in preferred directions. Thus, it is natural that incorporating HR-RIS into CF mMIMO can be a symbiotic convergence of these two technologies for future wireless communications. This motivates us to consider an HR-RIS-aided CF mMIMO system to utilize their combined benefits. We first model the uplink/downlink channels and derive the minimum-mean-square-error estimate of the effective channels. We then present a comprehensive analysis of SE performance of the considered system. Specifically, we derive closed-form expressions for the uplink and downlink SE. The results reveal important observations on the performance gains achieved by HR-RISs compared to conventional systems. The presented analytical results are also valid for conventional CF mMIMO systems and those aided by passive reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Such results play an important role in designing new transmission strategies and optimizing HR-RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems. Finally, we provide extensive numerical results to verify the analytical derivations and the effectiveness of the proposed system design under various settings.

Dense arrays can facilitate the integration of multiple antennas into finite volumes. In addition to the compact size, sub-wavelength spacing enables superdirectivity for endfire operation, a phenomenon that has been mainly studied for isotropic and infinitesimal radiators. In this work, we focus on linear dipoles of arbitrary yet finite length. Specifically, we first introduce an array model that accounts for the sinusoidal current distribution (SCD) on very thin dipoles. Based on the SCD, the loss resistance of each dipole antenna is precisely determined. Capitalizing on the derived model, we next investigate the maximum achievable rate under a fixed power constraint. The optimal design entails conjugate power matching along with maximizing the array gain. Our theoretical analysis is corroborated by the method of moments under the thin-wire approximation, as well as by full-wave simulations. Numerical results showcase that a super-gain is attainable with high radiation efficiency when the dipole antennas are not too short and thin.

We provide a performance evaluation of orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation in cell-free massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) systems. By leveraging the inherent sparsity of the delay-Doppler (DD) representation of time-varying channels, we apply the embedded pilot-aided channel estimation method with reduced guard intervals and derive the minimum mean-square error estimate of the channel gains from received uplink pilots at the access points (APs). Each AP applies conjugate beamforming to transmit data to the users. We derive a closed-form expression for the individual user downlink throughput as a function of the numbers of APs, users and DD channel estimate parameters. We compare the OTFS performance with that of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) at high-mobility conditions. Our findings reveal that with uncorrelated shadowing, cell-free massive MIMO with OTFS modulation achieves up to 35% gain in 95%-likely per-user throughput, compared with the OFDM counterpart. Finally, the increase in the per user throughput is more pronounced at the median rates over the correlated shadowing scenarios.

We consider in this work a cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) system where multiple hybrid relay-reflecting intelligent surfaces (HR-RIS) are deployed to assist communication between access points and users. We first present the signal model and derive the minimum-mean-square-error estimate of the effective channels. We then present a comprehensive analysis for the considered HR-RIS-aided CF mMIMO system, where the closed-form expression of the downlink throughput is derived. The presented analytical results are also valid for conventional CF mMIMO systems, i.e., CF mMIMO systems with and without passive reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Finally, the analytical derivations are verified by extensive numerical results.

In this paper, we investigate a cell-free massive MIMO system with both access points and user equipments equipped with multiple antennas over the Weichselberger Rayleigh fading channel. We study the uplink spectral efficiency (SE) based on a two-layer decoding structure with maximum ratio (MR) or local minimum mean-square error (MMSE) combining applied in the first layer and optimal large-scale fading decoding method implemented in the second layer, respectively. To maximize the weighted sum SE, an uplink precoding structure based on an Iteratively Weighted sum-MMSE (I-WMMSE) algorithm using only channel statistics is proposed. Furthermore, with MR combining applied in the first layer, we derive novel achievable SE expressions and optimal precoding structures in closed-form. Numerical results validate our proposed results and show that the I-WMMSE precoding can achieve excellent sum SE performance.

This paper considers orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS)-based uplink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems in the ultra-reliable-and-low-latency communication (URLLC) space. The maximum-ratio-combining (MRC) scheme is first applied at the base station (BS) to combine all the received symbols and then the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding metric is employed to decode the intended symbols. To better characterize the system performance, we consider the ideal pulse shape functions at both users and BS side while the effect of fractional delay and Doppler shift (FDDS) is also taken into account. Based on this, we first derive the theoretical refined achievable coding rate under short-packet transmission for both joint and individual decoding at the BS. Subsequently, the corresponding asymptotic results under massive MIMO are presented. Capitalizing on these results, we draw a series of interesting insights: i) when the sampling resolution along the delay domain is not high enough, the achievable coding rate is more accurate than the channel capacity as the performance metric; ii) almost no diversity gain is obtained for the FDDS under the case considered in this paper; iii) the achievable coding rate is agnostic to the users' speed.

This paper considers uplink multiple-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, in which multiple single-antenna users transmit signals to a multiple-antenna base station (BS) simultaneously. The maximum-ratio-combining (MRC) detection scheme is applied at the BS. Our main focus is on the non-asymptotic concentration of measure analysis for the instantaneous rate. Firstly, the tail probability of the instantaneous rate is derived, from which, a trade-off function is proposed and optimized. Our solution determines the coefficient included in the tail probability and reveals a trade-off between the tail probability and the offset of the instantaneous rate from its mean value. Subsequently, based on the tail probability, a narrow interval that the instantaneous rate falls within with high probability is provided. We show that this narrow interval shrinks with the number of BS antennas. Finally, we use our non-asymptotic results to theoretically characterize the outage probability.

Due to its communication efficiency and privacy-preserving capability, federated learning (FL) has emerged as a promising framework for machine learning in 5G-and-beyond wireless networks. Of great interest is the design and optimization of new wireless network structures that support the stable and fast operation of FL. Cell-free massive multiple-input–multiple-output (CFmMIMO) turns out to be a suitable candidate, which allows each communication round in the iterative FL process to be stably executed within a large-scale coherence time. Aiming to reduce the total execution time of the FL process in CFmMIMO, this article proposes choosing only a subset of available users to participate in FL. An optimal selection of users with favorable link conditions would minimize the execution time of each communication round while limiting the total number of communication rounds required. Toward this end, we formulate a joint optimization problem of user selection, transmit power, and processing frequency, subject to a predefined minimum number of participating users to guarantee the quality of learning. We then develop a new algorithm that is proven to converge to the neighborhood of the stationary points of the formulated problem. Numerical results confirm that our proposed approach significantly reduces the FL total execution time over baseline schemes. The time reduction is more pronounced when the density of access point deployments is moderately low.

We provide the first-ever performance evaluation of orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. To investigate the trade-off between performance and overhead, we apply embedded pilot-aided and superimposed pilot-based channel estimation methods. We then derive a closed-form expression for the individual user downlink and uplink spectral efficiencies (SEs) as a function of the numbers of APs, users and delay-Doppler domain channel estimate parameters. Based on these analytical results, we also present new scaling laws that the AP’s and user’s transmit power should satisfy, to sustain a desirable quality of service. It is found that when the number of APs,$M_{a}$, grows without bound, we can reduce the transmit power of each user and AP proportionally to$1/M_{a}$and$1/M_{a}^{2}$, respectively, during the uplink and downlink phases. We compare the OTFS performance with that of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) at high-mobility conditions. Our findings reveal that, OTFS modulation with embedded pilot-based channel estimation provides up to 20-fold gain over the OFDM counterpart in terms of 95%-likely per-user downlink SE. Finally, with superimposed pilot-based channel estimation, the increase in the uplink sum SE is more pronounced when the channel delay spread is increased.

This paper considers a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output network (cfm-MIMO) with a massive number of access points (APs) distributed across an area to deliver information to multiple users. Based on only local channel state information, conjugate beamforming is used under both proper and improper Gaussian signalings. To accomplish the mission of cfm-MIMO in providing fair service to all users, the problem of power allocation to maximize the geometric mean (GM) of users’ rates (GM-rate) is considered. A new scalable algorithm, which iterates linear-complex closed-form expressions and thus is practical regardless of the scale of the network, is developed for its solution. The problem of quality-of-service (QoS) aware network energy-efficiency is also addressed via maximizing the ratio of the GM-rate and the total power consumption, which is also addressed by iterating linear-complex closed-form expressions. Intensive simulations are provided to demonstrate the ability of the GM-rate based optimization to achieve multiple targets such as a uniform QoS, a good sum rate, and a fair power allocation to the APs.

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key technology for improving the spectral and energy efficiency in 5G-and-beyond wireless networks. For a tractable analysis, most of the previous works on Massive MIMO have been focused on the system performance with complex Gaussian channel impulse responses under rich-scattering environments. In contrast, this paper investigates the uplink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) of each user under the double scattering channel model. We derive a closed-form expression of the uplink ergodic SE by exploiting the maximum ratio (MR) combining technique based on imperfect channel state information. We further study the asymptotic SE behaviors as a function of the number of antennas at each base station (BS) and the number of scatterers available at each radio channel. We then formulate and solve a total energy optimization problem for the uplink data transmission that aims at simultaneously satisfying the required SEs from all the users with limited data power resource. Notably, our proposed algorithms can cope with the congestion issue appearing when at least one user is served by lower SE than requested. Numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of the closed-form ergodic SE over Monte-Carlo simulations. Besides, the system can still provide the required SEs to many users even under congestion.

Cell-Free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are two promising technologies for application to beyond-5G networks. This paper considers Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems with the assistance of an RIS for enhancing the system performance under the presence of spatial correlation among the engineered scattering elements of the RIS. Distributed maximum-ratio processing is considered at the access points (APs). We introduce anaggregated channelestimation approach that provides sufficient information for data processing with the main benefit of reducing the overhead required for channel estimation. The considered system is studied by using asymptotic analysis which lets the number of APs and/or the number of RIS elements grow large. A lower bound for the channel capacity is obtained for a finite number of APs and engineered scattering elements of the RIS, and closed-form expressions for the uplink and downlink ergodic net throughput are formulated in terms of only the channel statistics. Based on the obtained analytical frameworks, we unveil the impact of channel correlation, the number of RIS elements, and the pilot contamination on the net throughput of each user. In addition, a simple control scheme for optimizing the configuration of the engineered scattering elements of the RIS is proposed, which is shown to increase the channel estimation quality, and, hence, the system performance. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system design and performance analysis. In particular, the performance benefits of using RISs in Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems are confirmed, especially if the direct links between the APs and the users are of insufficient quality with high probability.

This paper considers the fundamental power allocation problem in cell-free massive mutiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems which aims at maximizing the total energy efficiency (EE) under a sum power constraint at each access point (AP) and a quality-of-service (QoS) constraint at each user. Existing solutions for this optimization problem are based on solving a sequence of second-order cone programs (SOCPs), whose computational complexity scales dramatically with the network size. Therefore, they are not implementable for practical large-scale cell-free massive MIMO systems. To tackle this issue, we propose an iterative power control algorithm based on the frame work of an accelerated projected gradient (APG) method. In particular, each iteration of the proposed method is done by simple closed-form expressions, where a penalty method is applied to bring constraints into the objective in the form of penalty functions. Finally, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is analytically proved and numerically compared to the known solution based on SOCP. Simulations results demonstrate that our proposed power control algorithm can achieve the same EE as the existing SOCPs-based method, but more importantly, its run time is much lower (one to two orders of magnitude reduction in run time, compared to the SOCPs-based approaches).

This paper considers Cell-Free Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems with the assistance of an RIS for enhancing the system performance. Distributed maximum-ratio combining (MRC) is considered at the access points (APs). We introduce an aggregated channel estimation method that provides sufficient information for data processing. The considered system is studied by using asymptotic analysis which lets the number of APs and/or the number of RIS elements grow large. A lower bound for the channel capacity is obtained for a finite number of APs and engineered scattering elements of the RIS, and closed-form expression for the uplink ergodic net throughput is formulated. In addition, a simple scheme for controlling the configuration of the RIS scattering elements is proposed. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed system design and the benefits of using RISs in Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems are quantified.

With its privacy preservation and communication efficiency, federated learning (FL) has emerged as a learning framework that suits beyond 5G and towards 6G systems. This work looks into a future scenario in which there are multiple groups with different learning purposes and participating in different FL processes. We give energy-efficient solutions to demonstrate that this scenario can be realistic. First, to ensure a stable operation of multiple FL processes over wireless channels, we propose to use a massive multiple-input multiple-output network to support the local and global FL training updates, and let the iterations of these FL processes be executed within the same large-scale coherence time. Then, we develop asynchronous and synchronous transmission protocols where these iterations are asynchronously and synchronously executed, respectively, using the downlink unicasting and conventional uplink transmission schemes. Zero-forcing processing is utilized for both uplink and downlink transmissions. Finally, we propose an algorithm that optimally allocates power and computation resources to save energy at both base station and user sides, while guaranteeing a given maximum execution time threshold of each FL iteration. Compared to the baseline schemes, the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the energy consumption, especially when the number of base station antennas is large.

This paper considers a massive MIMO system under the double scattering channels. We derive a closed-form expression of the uplink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) by exploiting the maximum-ratio combining technique with imperfect channel state information. We then formulate and solve a total uplink data power optimization problem that aims at simultaneously satisfying the required SEs from all the users with limited power resources. We further propose algorithms to cope with the congestion issue appearing when at least one user is served by lower SE than requested. Numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed power optimization. More importantly, our proposed congestion-handling algorithms can guarantee the required SEs to many users under congestion, even when the SE requirement is high.

Straggler effect is the main bottleneck in realizing federated learning (FL) in wireless networks. This work proposes a novel user (UE) selection approach to mitigate this effect with UE sampling in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output networks. Our proposed approach selects only a small subset of UEs for participating in one FL process. Importantly, since the UEs are selected before any FL process is executed, the performance of FL during the executing time is not affected by our method. Here, we select UEs by solving an FL transmission time minimization problem that jointly optimizes UE selection, power control, and data rate. The problem is formulated to capture the complex interactions among the FL training time, UE selection, and straggler effect. This mixed-integer mixed-timescale stochastic nonconvex problem is constrained by the minimum number of UEs to guarantee the quality of learning. By employing online successive convex approximation, we propose a novel algorithm to solve the formulated problem with guaranteed convergence to the neighbourhood of their stationary points. Our approach can significantly reduce the FL transmission time over baseline approaches, especially in the networks that experience serious straggler effect due to the moderately low density of access points.

We consider the problem of max-min fairness for uplink cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output which is a potential technology for beyond 5G networks. More specifically, we aim to maximize the minimum spectral efficiency of all users subject to the per-user power constraint, assuming linear receive combining technique at access points. The considered problem can be further divided into two subproblems: the receiver filter coefficient design and the power control problem. While the receiver coefficient design turns out to be a generalized eigenvalue problem and thus admits a closed-form solution, the power control problem is numerically troublesome. To solve the power control problem, existing approaches rely on geometric programming (GP) which is not suitable for large-scale systems. To overcome the high-complexity issue of the GP method, we first reformulate the power control problem into a convex program, and then apply a smoothing technique in combination with an accelerated projected gradient method to solve it. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution can achieve almost the same objective but in much lesser time than the existing GP-based method.

Abstract The fifth generation (5G) wireless communication networks are being deployed worldwide from 2020 and more capabilities are in the process of being standardized, such as mass connectivity, ultra-reliability, and guaranteed low latency. However, 5G will not meet all requirements of the future in 2030 and beyond, and sixth generation (6G) wireless communication networks are expected to provide global coverage, enhanced spectral/energy/cost efficiency, better intelligence level and security, etc. To meet these requirements, 6G networks will rely on new enabling technologies, i.e., air interface and transmission technologies and novel network architecture, such as waveform design, multiple access, channel coding schemes, multi-antenna technologies, network slicing, cell-free architecture, and cloud/fog/edge computing. Our vision on 6G is that it will have four new paradigm shifts. First, to satisfy the requirement of global coverage, 6G will not be limited to terrestrial communication networks, which will need to be complemented with non-terrestrial networks such as satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication networks, thus achieving a space-air-ground-sea integrated communication network. Second, all spectra will be fully explored to further increase data rates and connection density, including the sub-6 GHz, millimeter wave (mmWave), terahertz (THz), and optical frequency bands. Third, facing the big datasets generated by the use of extremely heterogeneous networks, diverse communication scenarios, large numbers of antennas, wide bandwidths, and new service requirements, 6G networks will enable a new range of smart applications with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies. Fourth, network security will have to be strengthened when developing 6G networks. This article provides a comprehensive survey of recent advances and future trends in these four aspects. Clearly, 6G with additional technical requirements beyond those of 5G will enable faster and further communications to the extent that the boundary between physical and cyber worlds disappears.

Terahertz (THz) communication is widely considered as a key enabler for future 6G wireless systems. However, THz links are subject to high propagation losses and inter-symbol interference due to the frequency selectivity of the channel. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) along with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can be used to deal with these problems. Nevertheless, when the propagation delay across the base station (BS) antenna array exceeds the symbol period, the spatial response of the BS array varies over the OFDM subcarriers. This phenomenon, known as beam squint, renders narrowband combining approaches ineffective. Additionally, channel estimation becomes challenging in the absence of combining gain during the training stage. In this work, we address the channel estimation and hybrid combining problems in wideband THz massive MIMO with uniform planar arrays. Specifically, we first introduce a low-complexity beam squint mitigation scheme based on true-time-delay. Next, we propose a novel variant of the popular orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm to accurately estimate the channel with low training overhead. Our channel estimation and hybrid combining schemes are analyzed both theoretically and numerically. Moreover, the proposed schemes are extended to the multi-antenna user case. Simulation results are provided showcasing the performance gains offered by our design compared to standard narrowband combining and OMP-based channel estimation.

This paper investigates the performance of limited-fronthaul cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) taking account the fronthaul quantization and imperfect channel acquisition. Three cases are studied, which we refer to as Estimate & Quantize, Quantize & Estimate, and Decentralized, according to where channel estimation is performed and exploited. Maximum-ratio combining (MRC), zero-forcing (ZF), and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) receivers are considered. The Max algorithm and the Bussgang decomposition are exploited to model optimum uniform quantization. Exploiting the optimal step size of the quantizer, analytical expressions for spectral and energy efficiencies are presented. Finally, an access point (AP) assignment algorithm is proposed to improve the performance of the decentralized scheme. Numerical results investigate the performance gap between limited fronthaul and perfect fronthaul cases, and demonstrate that exploiting relatively few quantization bits, the performance of limited-fronthaul cell-free massive MIMO closely approaches the perfect-fronthaul performance.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is a promising architecture for next generation wireless systems by deploying a very large number of distributed access points (APs), which simultaneously serve a smaller number of user equipments (UEs) over the same time-frequency resources. It guarantees uniformly good service at high spectral efficiency with simple linear precoding techniques and max-min power control. In this article, we propose a new joint maximum-ratio and zero-forcing (JMRZF) precoding scheme, where part of APs are combined to perform centralized zero-forcing (ZF), while other APs apply simple maximum-ratio transmission (MRT). Our proposed precoder offers an adaptable trade-off between the spectral efficiency and front-haul signalling overhead. A corresponding AP subset selection scheme is also proposed which is based on large-scale fading coefficients. A closed-form expression for the achievable spectral efficiency of our proposed scheme is derived, which represents a generalized result including both fully distributed MRT and fully centralized ZF cases. Based on this closed-form expression, max-min power control is formulated and solved via the second order cone and first order methods. The former can obtain the global optimal solution, but its computational complexity is very high. On the other hand, the latter technique is sub-optimal, yet, it has very low computational complexity. Hence, it is suitable for large-scale cell-free massive MIMO systems with hundreds or thousands of APs and users. Numerical results show that our proposed JMRZF scheme can substantially outperform the local precoding schemes, even when a small part of APs are combined to deploy ZF and is implementable even when each AP has very few antennas. In addition, it is shown that our max-min power controls improves the spectral efficiency significantly, compared to the uniform power control scheme.

We consider utility maximization problems in the downlink cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) whereby a large number of access points (APs) simultaneously serve a group of users. Four fundamental maximization objectives are of interest: (i) average spectral efficiency (SE), (ii) proportional fairness, (iii) harmonic-rate, and (iv) minimum SE of all users, subject to a sum power constraint at each AP. As considered problems are non-convex, existing solutions normally rely on successive convex approximation (SCA) and use off-the-shelf convex solvers, which implement an interior-point algorithm, to solve derived convex problems. The complexity of such methods scales quickly with the problem size. Therefore, we propose an accelerated projected gradient method to solve the considered problems. Particularly, each iteration of the proposed solution is given in a closed form and only requires the first order oracle of the objective, rather than the Hessian matrix as in known solutions, and thus is much more memory efficient. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed solution achieves the same utility performance but with far less run-time, compared to the SCA method. Simulation results show that large-scale cell-free massive MIMO has the intrinsic user fairness, i.e. the four utility functions can deliver nearly uniformed services to all users.

In cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) the fluctuations of the channel gain from the access points to a user are large due to the distributed topology of the system. Because of these fluctuations, data decoding schemes that treat the channel as deterministic perform inefficiently. A way to reduce the channel fluctuations is to design a precoding scheme that equalizes the effective channel gain seen by the users. Conjugate beamforming (CB) poorly contributes to harden the effective channel at the users. In this work, we propose a variant of CB dubbed enhanced normalized CB (ECB), in that the precoding vector consists of the conjugate of the channel estimate normalized by its squared norm. For this scheme, we derive an exact closed-form expression for an achievable downlink spectral efficiency (SE), accounting for channel estimation errors, pilot reuse and user's lack of channel state information (CSI), assuming independent Rayleigh fading channels. We also devise an optimal max-min fairness power allocation based only on large-scale fading quantities. ECB greatly boosts the channel hardening enabling the users to reliably decode data relying only on statistical CSI. As the provided effective channel is nearly deterministic, acquiring CSI at the users does not yield a significant gain.

In this paper, we consider a wireless communication system, where a full-duplex hybrid access point (HAP) transmits to a set of cellular users (CUs) in the downlink channel, while receiving data from a set of energy-constrained communication devices like user equipments (UEs) in the uplink channel. The HAP has a massive antenna array, while all CUs and UEs nodes are equipped with single antenna each. Time switching protocol is adopted, where channel estimation, wireless power transfer, and information transfer between UEs, CUs and full-duplex HAP are performed in two phases. By adopting maximum ratio combining/maximum ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) and zero-forcing (ZF) processing at the HAP, the uplink and downlink achievable rate expressions in the large-antenna limit and approximate results that hold for any finite number of antennas are derived. Moreover, the optimum energy beamformer and time-split parameter at the HAP are found to maximize the downlink sum-rate under a constraint on uplink sum-rate. Our findings reveal that our proposed energy beamforming with ZF and MRC/MRT processing for information transfer achieves up to 47% and 14% average sum rate gains as compared with the suboptimum energy beamformer, respectively.

Massive MIMO systems are vulnerable to pilot spoofing attacks (PSAs) since the estimated channel state information can be contaminated by the eavesdropping link, thus incurring severe information leakage in downlink transmission. To safeguard legitimate communications, this paper proposes a PSA detection method which relies on pilot manipulation. Specifically, users randomly partition pilot sequences into two parts, where the first part remains unchanged and the second one is multiplied with a diagonal matrix. Although a malicious node may follow the same way to send pilots, this makes it more likely to be detected. According to the principle of the likelihood-ratio test, the proposed detector is designed based on a decision metric that does not include the legitimate channel. This feature differentiates our scheme from existing ones and remarkably improves the detection accuracy. Besides, the possibility of performance enhancement by joint detection is discussed. Furthermore, based on pilot manipulation, a jamming-resistant receiver is designed. The key of this receiver is a new channel estimator that is robust to the PSA. Finally, extensive simulations are carried out to validate our proposed algorithms.

This paper considers cell-free massive MIMO (cfm-MIMO) for downlink ultra reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC). At the time of writing, cfm-MIMO has only been considered for communication in the long blocklength regime (LBR), whose throughput is determined by the Shannon capacity with the interference treated as Gaussian noise. Conjugate beamforming (CB) is often used as it requires only local channel state information (CSI) for implementation but its design is based on a large-scale nonconvex problem, which is computationally intractable. The rate function in URLLC is much more complex than the Shannon rate function. The paper proposes a special class of CB, which admits a low-scale optimization formulation for computational tractability. Accordingly, a new path-following algorithm, which generates a sequence of better feasible points and converges at least to a locally optimal solution, is developed for optimizing URLLC rates and cfm-MIMO energy efficiency. Furthermore, the paper also develops improper Gaussian signaling to improve both the Shannon rate and URLLC rate.

We consider a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where the channel estimates and the received signals are quantized at the access points (APs) and forwarded to a central processing unit (CPU). Zero-forcing technique is used at the CPU to detect the signals transmitted from all users. To solve the non-convex sum rate maximization problem, a heuristic sub-optimal scheme is proposed to convert the problem into a geometric programme (GP). Exploiting a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) allows us to determine both a mapping from the large-scale fading (LSF) coefficients and the optimal power by solving the optimization problem using the quantized channel. Depending on how the optimization problem is solved, different power control schemes are investigated; i) small-scale fading (SSF)-based power control; ii) LSF use-and-then-forget (UatF)-based power control; and iii) LSF deep learning (DL)-based power control. The SSF-based power control scheme needs to be solved for each coherence interval of the SSF, which is practically impossible in real time systems. Numerical results reveal that the proposed LSF-DL-based scheme significantly increases the performance compared to the practical and well-known LSF-UatF-based power control.

We study the uplink performance of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) when users are equipped with multiple antennas. To this end, we consider a generalized channel model that accounts for line-of-sight propagation and spatially correlated multipath fading. Most importantly, we employ the Weichselberger correlation model, which has been shown to alleviate the deficiencies of the popular Kronecker model. The main contribution of this paper is a rigorous closed-form expression for the uplink spectral efficiency using maximum-ratio combining and minimum mean square error channel estimation. Our result is a non-trivial generalization of previous results on massive MIMO with spatially correlated channels, thereby enabling us to have suitable designs for future massive MIMO systems. Numerical simulations corroborate our analysis and provide useful insights on how different propagation conditions affect system performance.

The concept of large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communication has recently attracted increasing research attention, where a LIS is considered as an antenna array whose entire surface area is available for radio signal transmission and reception. In order to provide a fundamental understanding of LIS-based communication, this paper studies the uplink performance of LIS-based communication with matched filtering in the presence of a line-of-sight channel. We first study the new features introduced by LIS. In particular, the array gain, spatial resolution, and the capability of interference suppression are theoretically presented and characterized. Then, we study two possible LIS system layouts, i.e., centralized LIS (C-LIS) and distributed LIS (D-LIS), and propose a user association scheme aiming to maximize the minimum user spectral efficiency (SE). Simulation results compare the achievable SE between two system layouts. We observe that the proposed user association algorithm significantly improves the performance of D-LIS, and with the help of it, the per-user achievable SE in D-LIS outperforms that in C-LIS in most considered scenarios.

We consider the downlink of a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where large number of access points (APs) simultaneously serve a group of users. Two fundamental problems are of interest, namely (i) to maximize the total spectral efficiency (SE), and (ii) to maximize the minimum SE of all users. As the considered problems are non-convex, existing solutions rely on successive convex approximation to find a sub-optimal solution. The known methods use off-the-shelf convex solvers, which basically implement an interior-point algorithm, to solve the derived convex problems. The main issue of such methods is that their complexity does not scale favorably with the problem size, limiting previous studies to cell-free massive MIMO of moderate scales. Thus the potential of cell-free massive MIMO has not been fully understood. To address this issue, we propose an accelerated projected gradient method to solve the considered problems. Particularly, the proposed solution is found in closed-form expressions and only requires the first order information of the objective, rather than the Hessian matrix as in known solutions, and thus is much more memory efficient. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed solution achieves far less run-time, compared to other second-order methods.

The increasing demand for green wireless communications and the benefits of the promising cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) systems towards their optimal energy efficiency (EE) are the focal points of this work. Specifically, despite previous works assuming a uniform placement for the access points (APs), we consider that their locations follow a Poisson point process (PPP) which approaches their opportunistic spatial randomness. Based on stochastic geometry, we derive a lower bound on the average spectral efficiency, and under a realistic power consumption model for CF mMIMO systems, we formulate an EE maximization problem achieving to obtain in closed form the optimal EE per unit area in terms of the pilot reuse factor and the AP density. Note that we have defined the EE per unit area and not just the EE to characterize the energy in systems with multi-point transmission. Thus, we provide important design insights for energy-efficient CF mMIMO systems.

A cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uplink is considered, where quantize-and-forward (QF) refers to the case where both the channel estimates and the received signals are quantized at the access points (APs) and forwarded to a central processing unit (CPU) whereas in combine-quantize-and-forward (CQF), the APs send the quantized version of the combined signal to the CPU. To solve the non-convex sum rate maximization problem, a heuristic sub-optimal scheme is exploited to convert the power allocation problem into a standard geometric programme (GP). We exploit the knowledge of the channel statistics to design the power elements. Employing large-scale-fading (LSF) with a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) enables us to determine a mapping from the LSF coefficients and the optimal power through solving the sum rate maximization problem using the quantized channel. Four possible power control schemes are studied, which we refer to as i) small-scale fading (SSF)-based QF; ii) LSF-based CQF; iii) LSF use-and-then-forget (UatF)-based QF; and iv) LSF deep learning (DL)-based QF, according to where channel estimation is performed and exploited and how the optimization problem is solved. Numerical results show that for the same fronthaul rate, the throughput significantly increases thanks to the mapping obtained using DCNN.

The downlink (DL) of a non-orthogonal-multiple-access (NOMA)-based cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is analyzed, where the channel state information (CSI) is estimated using pilots. It is assumed that the users are grouped into multiple clusters. The same pilot sequences are assigned to the users within the same clusters whereas the pilots allocated to all clusters are mutually orthogonal. First, a user's bandwidth efficiency (BE) is derived based on his/her channel statistics under the assumption of employing successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the users' end with no DL training. Next, the classic max-min optimization framework is invoked for maximizing the minimum BE of a user under per-access point (AP) power constraints. The max-min user BE of NOMA-based cell-free massive MIMO is compared to that of its orthogonal multiple-access (OMA) counter part, where all users employ orthogonal pilots. Finally, our numerical results are presented and an operating mode switching scheme is proposed based on the average per-user BE of the system, where the mode set is given by Mode = { OMA, NOMA }. Our numerical results confirm that the switching point between the NOMA and OMA modes depends both on the length of the channel's coherence time and on the total number of users.

This paper presents an analytical framework which lays the foundation for distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) supported wireless power transfer for wearable devices. In our approach, we consider multiple users, each wearing a number of wireless sensors along with one body worn hub which acts as a relay to forward information from the on-body sensors to nearby access points (APs). Each AP is equipped with a large number of antennas and is not only responsible for receiving data sent from the hubs, but also supplying wireless power to them. Interaction between hubs and APs is not exclusive to a single pairing, with APs assigned to supply energy to and receive data from more than one hub. More precisely, APs perform the downlink energy transmission and the uplink data transmission using maximum-ratio combining. Analytical approximations of the outage probability and spectral efficiency are derived. Based on these analytical results, two modes of operation are investigated. These are outage probability prioritized and spectral efficiency prioritized. For each mode, max-min power controls are proposed to ensure a uniformly good service throughout the area of coverage. By contrasting with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard, the numerical results illustrate that while using collocated massive MIMO may provide unsatisfactory performance, the distributed setting shows much promise for enabling wireless power transfer for wearable devices.

This paper studies a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where its access points (APs) and users are equipped with multiple antennas. Two transmission protocols are considered. In the first transmission protocol, there are no downlink pilots, while in the second transmission protocol, downlink pilots are proposed in order to improve the system performance. In both transmission protocols, the users use the minimum mean-squared error-based successive interference cancellation (MMSE-SIC) scheme to detect the desired signals. For the analysis, we first derive a general spectral efficiency formula with arbitrary side information at the users. Then analytical expressions for the spectral efficiency of different transmission protocols are derived. To improve the spectral efficiency (SE) of the system, max-min fairness power control (PC) is applied for the first protocol by using the closed-form expression of its SE. Due to the computation complexity of deriving the closed-form performance expression of SE for the second protocol, we apply the optimal power coefficients of the first protocol to the second protocol. Numerical results show that two protocols combining with multi-antenna users are prerequisites to achieve the sub-optimal SE regardless of the number of user in the system.

The concept of large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communication has recently raised research attention, in which a LIS is regarded as an antenna array whose entire surface area can be used for radio signal transmission and reception. To provide a fundamental understanding of LIS-based communication, this paper studies the uplink (UL) performance of LIS-based communication with matched filtering. We first investigate the new properties introduced by LIS. In particular, the array gain, spatial resolution, and the capability of interference suppression are theoretically presented and characterized. Then, we study two possible LIS system layouts in terms of UL, i.e., centralized LIS (C-LIS) and distributed LIS (D-LIS). Our analysis showcases that a centralized system has strong capability of interference suppression; in fact, interference can nearly be eliminated if the surface area is sufficient large or the frequency band is sufficient high. For D-LIS, we propose a series of resource allocation algorithms, including user association scheme, orientation control, and power control, to extend the coverage area of a distributed system. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms significantly improve the system performance, and even more importantly, we observe that D-LIS outperforms C-LIS in microwave bands, while C-LIS is superior to D-LIS in mmWave bands. These observations serve as useful guidelines for practical LIS deployments.

We propose a novel deep energy autoencoder (EA) for noncoherent multicarrier multiuser single-input multipleoutput (MU-SIMO) systems under fading channels.In particular, a single-user noncoherent EA-based (NC-EA) system, based on the multicarrier SIMO framework, is first proposed, where both the transmitter and receiver are represented by deep neural networks (DNNs), known as the encoder and decoder of an EA.Unlike existing systems, the decoder of the NC-EA is fed only with the energy combined from all receive antennas, while its encoder outputs a real-valued vector whose elements stand for the subcarrier power levels.Using the NC-EA, we then develop two novel DNN structures for both uplink and downlink NC-EA multiple access (NC-EAMA) schemes, based on the multicarrier MU-SIMO framework.Note that NC-EAMA allows multiple users to share the same sub-carriers, thus enables to achieve higher performance gains than noncoherent orthogonal counterparts.By properly training, the proposed NC-EA and NC-EAMA can efficiently recover the transmitted data without any channel state information estimation.Simulation results clearly show the superiority of our schemes in terms of reliability, flexibility and complexity over baseline schemes.

This paper proposes a novel scheme for cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO) networks to support any federated learning (FL) framework. This scheme allows each instead of all the iterations of the FL framework to happen in a large-scale coherence time to guarantee a stable operation of an FL process. To show how to optimize the FL performance using this proposed scheme, we consider an existing FL framework as an example and target FL training time minimization for this framework. An optimization problem is then formulated to jointly optimize the local accuracy, transmit power, data rate, and users' processing frequency. This mixed-timescale stochastic nonconvex problem captures the complex interactions among the training time, and transmission and computation of training updates of one FL process. By employing the online successive convex approximation approach, we develop a new algorithm to solve the formulated problem with proven convergence to the neighbourhood of its stationary points. Our numerical results confirm that the presented joint design reduces the training time by up to 55% over baseline approaches. They also show that CFmMIMO here requires the lowest training time for FL processes compared with cell-free time-division multiple access massive MIMO and collocated massive MIMO.

In this paper, a joint multi-user constellation is proposed for energy detection-based non-coherent massive multiple-input multiple-output system. This is motivated by the simple design and high energy efficiency it entails for both the transmitter and receiver. First, the orthogonal codes is employed to suppress the multi-user interference. However, this comes at the price of consuming more communications resources. In this study, the key to reduce code redundancy is the design of a joint constellation since it makes energy detection applicable when multiple users employ the same orthogonal codes. Although it is unsolvable initially, our analysis indicates that through minimizing the symbol-error rate (SER), the joint constellation design becomes feasible. Concretely, two analytical expressions of SER based on Gamma and Gaussian distributions are derived. Via minimizing the error probability, an important result that the joint constellation should satisfy is obtained. Accordingly, an isometric constellation design is proposed to find constellations that enable non-coherent reception with multiple users, and reduce SER simultaneously. In addition, decoding regions of symbol decision are optimized to further improve the error performance. In the end, numerical simulations are carried out to highlight the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

To support the ever increasing number of devices in massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) systems, an excessive amount of overhead is required for conventional orthogonal pilot-based channel estimation schemes. To circumvent this fundamental constraint, we design a machine learning (ML)-based time-division duplex scheme in which channel state information (CSI) can be obtained by leveraging the temporal channel correlation. The presence of the temporal channel correlation is due to the stationarity of the propagation environment across time. The proposed ML-based predictors involve a pattern extraction implemented via a convolutional neural network, and a CSI predictor realized by an autoregressive (AR) predictor or an autoregressive network with exogenous inputs recurrent neural network. Closed-form expressions for the user uplink and downlink achievable spectral efficiency and average per-user throughput are provided for the ML-based time division duplex schemes. Our numerical results demonstrate that the proposed ML-based predictors can remarkably improve the prediction quality for both low and high mobility scenarios, and offer great performance gains on the per-user achievable throughput.

In this paper, non-orthogonal-multiple-access (NOMA)-based cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is investigated, where the users are grouped into multiple clusters. Exploiting conjugate beamforming, the bandwidth efficiency (BE) of the system is derived while the assumption that the users performing realistic successive interference cancellation (SIC) based on only the knowledge of channel statistics. The max-min fairness problem of maximizing the lowest user BE is investigated and an iterative bisection method is developed to determine the optimal solution to the max-min BE problem. Numerical results are presented for validating the proposed design's performance, and a mode switching scheme is conceived for selecting a specific Mode = {OMA, NOMA} that maximizes the system's BE.

We investigate the energy efficiency performance of cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), where the access points (APs) are connected to a central processing unit (CPU) via limited-capacity links. Thanks to the distributed maximum ratio combining (MRC) weighting at the APs, we propose that only the quantized version of the weighted signals are sent back to the CPU. Considering the effects of channel estimation errors and using the Bussgang theorem to model the quantization errors, an energy efficiency maximization problem is formulated with per-user power and backhaul capacity constraints as well as with throughput requirement constraints. To handle this non-convex optimization problem, we decompose the original problem into two sub-problems and exploit a successive convex approximation (SCA) to solve original energy efficiency maximization problem. Numerical results confirm the superiority of the proposed optimization scheme.

This work studies a novel full-duplex (FD) cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, where a very large number of multiple-antenna access points (APs) simultaneously serve many single-antenna uplink and downlink users in the same frequency band. The APs operate in the FD mode while the users in the half-duplex (HD) mode. The APs apply a simple conjugate beamforming/matched filtering scheme with the channel state information acquired via the uplink training with orthogonal pilots transmitted from the users. By an analysis with a large number of APs, residual self-interference (RI) is proved to be the main limitation of the cell-free massive MIMO systems. A simple power control method to mitigate this limitation is also proposed. The closedform expressions of uplink and downlink achievable rates are derived with a finite number of APs and the channel estimation error taken into account. Under considered parameter settings, numerical results show that when the RI is sufficiently low, the FD mode can achieve a spectral efficiency gain of 140% over the HD mode in the cell-free massive MIMO system. They also confirm that the FD cell-free massive MIMO systems outperform the FD collocated massive MIMO systems in terms of spectral efficiency.

In this paper, a joint multi-user constellation is proposed for energy detection-based non-coherent massive multiple-input multiple-output system. This is motivated by the simple design and high energy efficiency it entails for both the transmitter and receiver. Although it is unsolvable initially, our analysis indicates through minimizing the symbol-error rate (SER), the joint constellation design becomes feasible. Concretely, two analytical expressions of SER based on Gamma and Gaussian distributions are derived. Via minimizing the error probability, an important result that the joint constellation must satisfy is obtained. Accordingly, an isometric constellation design is proposed to find constellations that enable non-coherent reception with multiple users, and achieve the minimum SER simultaneously. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to highlight the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

In this paper, we analyze and compare the performance of conventional maximum-ratio (MR) precoding to a proposed alternative scheme, when applied to a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with multiple-antenna users. In the proposed MR precoding scheme, each channel vector is divided by its norm square to increase the degree of hardening of the effective channel gains at the users. We derive closed-form expressions for the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) of both the conventional and proposed precoding schemes. These closed-form expressions are very simple and useful for further system design. For instance, for both precoding schemes, our results justify the motivation for additional user antennas since significant performance improvements are observed. The proposed scheme produces greater performance when compared to the conventional one across a range of system set-ups. More specifically, the proposed scheme is most effective in systems where the numbers of users and user antennas are kept small.

Cell-free massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) is considered, where distributed access points (APs) multiply the received signal by the conjugate of the estimated channel, and send back a quantized version of this weighted signal to a central processing unit (CPU). For the first time, we present a performance comparison between the case of perfect fronthaul links, the case when the quantized version of the estimated channel and the quantized signal are available at the CPU, and the case when only the quantized weighted signal is available at the CPU. The Bussgang decomposition is used to model the effect of quantization. The max-min problem is studied, where the minimum rate is maximized with the power and fronthaul capacity constraints. To deal with the non-convex problem, the original problem is decomposed into two sub-problems (referred to as receiver filter design and power allocation). Geometric programming (GP) is exploited to solve the power allocation problem whereas a generalized eigenvalue problem is solved to design the receiver filter. An iterative scheme is developed and the optimality of the proposed algorithm is proved through uplink-downlink duality. A user assignment algorithm is proposed which significantly improves the performance. The numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed schemes.

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) avails of simple transceiver design which can tackle many drawbacks of relay systems in terms of complicated signal processing, latency, and noise amplification. However, the cost and circuit complexity of having one radio frequency (RF) chain dedicated to each antenna element are prohibitive in practice. In this paper, we address this critical issue in amplify-and-forward (AF) relay systems using a hybrid analog and digital (A/D) transceiver structure. More specifically, leveraging the channel long-term properties, we design the analog beamformer which aims to minimize the channel estimation error and remain invariant over a long timescale. Then, the beamforming is completed by simple digital signal processing, i.e., maximum ratio combining/maximum ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) or zero forcing (ZF) in the baseband domain. We present analytical bounds on the achievable spectral efficiency taking into account the spatial correlation and imperfect channel state information at the relay station. Our analytical results reveal that the hybrid A/D structure with ZF digital processor exploits spatial correlation and offers a higher spectral efficiency compared to the hybrid A/D structure with MRC/MRT scheme. Our numerical results show that the hybrid A/D beamforming design captures nearly 95% of the spectral efficiency of a fully digital AF relaying topology even by removing half of the RF chains. It is also shown that the hybrid A/D structure is robust to coarse quantization, and even with 2-bit resolution, the system can achieve more than 93% of the spectral efficiency offered by the same hybrid A/D topology with infinite resolution phase shifters.

A cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output system is considered using a max-min approach to maximize the minimum user rate with per-user power constraints. First, an approximated uplink user rate is derived based on channel statistics. Then, the original max-min signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio problem is formulated for the optimization of receiver filter coefficients at a central processing unit and user power allocation. To solve this max-min non-convex problem, we decouple the original problem into two sub-problems, namely, receiver filter coefficient design and power allocation. The receiver filter coefficient design is formulated as a generalized Eigenvalue problem, whereas the geometric programming (GP) is used to solve the user power allocation problem. Based on these two sub-problems, an iterative algorithm is proposed, in which both problems are alternately solved while one of the design variables is fixed. This iterative algorithm obtains a globally optimum solution, whose optimality is proved through establishing an uplink-downlink duality. Moreover, we present a novel sub-optimal scheme which provides a GP formulation to efficiently and globally maximize the minimum uplink user rate. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme substantially outperforms the existing schemes in the literature.

Cell-free Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) refers to a distributed Massive MIMO system where all the access points (APs) cooperate to coherently serve all the user equipments (UEs), suppress inter-cell interference and mitigate the multiuser interference. Recent works demonstrated that, unlike co-located Massive MIMO, the channel hardening is, in general, less pronounced in cell-free Massive MIMO, thus there is much to benefit from estimating the downlink channel. In this study, we investigate the gain introduced by the downlink beamforming training, extending the previously proposed analysis to non-orthogonal uplink and downlink pilots. Assuming single-antenna APs, conjugate beamforming and independent Rayleigh fading channel, we derive a closed-form expression for the per-user achievable downlink rate that addresses channel estimation errors and pilot contamination both at the AP and UE side. The performance evaluation includes max-min fairness power control, greedy pilot assignment methods, and a comparison between achievable rates obtained from different capacity-bounding techniques. Numerical results show that downlink beamforming training, although increases pilot overhead and introduces additional pilot contamination, improves significantly the achievable downlink rate. Even for large number of APs, it is not fully efficient for the UE relying on the statistical channel state information for data decoding.

We consider a multi-pair two-way massive multiple-input multiple-out (MIMO) relaying system over Rician fading channels, where multi-pair users exchange their information via the amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying equipped with large number of antenna arrays. Hardware impairments at the relay and imperfect channel state information (CSI) are taken into account. More specifically, we derive a new linear minimum mean- square error (MMSE) channel estimator for the proposed system. It is demonstrated that normalized mean square error (NMSE) is a constant when the pilot power grows to infinity. Moreover, the asymptotic spectral efficiency with maximum ratio processing is presented in closed-form and the power scaling laws are analyzed. Simulation results indicates that massive MIMO is capable of compensating the loss caused by hardware impairments, estimation error and Rician fading.

We consider a multi-cell Massive MIMO system in a line-of-sight (LoS) propagation environment, for which each user is served by one base station, with no cooperation among the base stations. Each base station knows the channel between its service antennas and its users, and uses these channels for precoding and decoding. Under these assumptions we derive explicit downlink and uplink effective SINR formulas for maximum-ratio (MR) processing and zero-forcing (ZF) processing. We also derive formulas for power control to meet pre-determined SINR targets. A numerical example demonstrating the usage of the derived formulas is provided.

In this paper, we consider the max-min signal-to- interference plus noise ratio (SINR) problem for the uplink transmission of a cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. Assuming that the central processing unit (CPU) and the users exploit only the knowledge of the channel statistics, we first derive a closed-form expression for uplink rate. In particular, we enhance (or maximize) user fairness by solving the max-min optimization problem for user rate, by power allocation and choice of receiver coefficients, where the minimum uplink rate of the users is maximized with available transmit power at the particular user. Based on the derived closed-form expression for the uplink rate, we formulate the original user max-min problem to design the optimal receiver coefficients and user power allocations. However, this max-min SINR problem is not jointly convex in terms of design variables and therefore we decompose this original problem into two sub- problems, namely, receiver coefficient design and user power allocation. By iteratively solving these sub-problems, we develop an iterative algorithm to obtain the optimal receiver coefficient and user power allocations. In particular, the receiver coefficients design for a fixed user power allocation is formulated as generalized eigenvalue problem whereas a geometric programming (GP) approach is utilized to solve the power allocation problem for a given set of receiver coefficients. Numerical results confirm a three-fold increase in system rate over existing schemes in the literature.

We consider a cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system and investigate the system performance for the case when the quantized version of the estimated channel and the quantized received signal are available at the central processing unit (CPU), and the case when only the quantized version of the combined signal with maximum ratio combining (MRC) detector is available at the CPU. Next, we study the max-min optimization problem, where the minimum user uplink rate is maximized with backhaul capacity constraints. To deal with the max-min non-convex problem, we propose to decompose the original problem into two sub-problems. Based on these sub- problems, we develop an iterative scheme which solves the original max-min user uplink rate. Moreover, we present a user assignment algorithm to further improve the performance of cell-free Massive MIMO with limited backhaul links.

This paper considers a decode-and-forward (DF) multi-way massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay system where many users exchange their data with the aid of a relay station equipped with a massive antenna array. We propose a new transmission protocol which leverages successive cancelation decoding and zero-forcing (ZF) at the users. By using properties of massive MIMO, a tight analytical approximation of the spectral efficiency is derived. We show that our proposed scheme uses only half of the time-slots required in the conventional scheme (in which the number of time-slots is equal to the number of users [1]), to exchange data across different users. As a result, the sum spectral efficiency of our proposed scheme is nearly double the one of the conventional scheme, thereby boosting the performance of multi-way massive MIMO to unprecedented levels. To improve the network energy efficiency, we also propose a power allocation scheme which maximizes the energy efficiency under a given peak power constraint at each user and the relay.

We consider a massive multiple-input multiple- output system with minimum-mean-squared-error processing on the uplink. A novel analytical framework is proposed to approximate the instantaneous signal-to-interference-plus-noise- ratio (SINR) of an arbitrary user terminal, as well as, the system sum spectral efficiency. Unlike previous studies, our methodology considers spatially correlated Ricean fading, with unequal Ricean K-factors, spatial correlation matrices and link gains across all terminals. Under this fully heterogeneous setting, we demonstrate that the SINR of a terminal can be tightly approximated by a linear combination of non-central chi-squared random variables, where the scaling depends on the individual link gains, K-factors, and eigenvalues of the terminal specific correlation matrices. Our approximations remain tight across the considered spatial correlation models, K-factor models, average uplink signal-to-noise-ratios and number of receive antennas. Leveraging the general form of the SINR and sum spectral efficiency, an analytical method to approximate their statistical moments is presented utilizing the moment generating function. The generality of the aforementioned analytical results is demonstrated via several special cases of practical relevance.

This paper considers a massive MIMO network that includes one multiple-antenna base station, one multiple-antenna eavesdropper, and K single-antenna users. The eavesdropper operates in passive mode and tries to overhear the confidential information from one of the users in the down-link transmission. In order to secure the confidential information, two artificial noise (AN)-aiding schemes are proposed. In the first scheme, AN is injected into the downlink training signals to prevent the eavesdropper from obtaining the correct channel state information of the eavesdropping link. In the second scheme, AN is deployed in both downlink training phase and payload data transmission phase to further degrade the eavesdropping channel. Analytical expressions and tight approximations of the achievable secrecy rate of the considered systems are derived with taking imperfect channel estimation and two types of precoding, i.e., maximum-ratio-transmission and zero-forcing, into consideration. Optimization algorithms for power allocation are proposed to enhance the secrecy performance of the proposed AN-aiding schemes. The results reveal that deploying AN in the downlink training phase of massive MIMO networks does not affect the downlink channel estimation process at users while enabling the system to suppress the downlink channel estimation process at eavesdropper. As a consequence, the proposed AN-aided schemes improve the system performance significantly. Furthermore, implementing AN in both phases allows the considered system having a flexible solution to maximize its secrecy performance at the price of higher complexity.

We consider a multi-way decode-and-forward relaying network with very large antenna arrays at the relay station. In this system, each user and the relay operate in half-duplex and time-division duplexing modes. To exchange information among all users, we propose a new transmission protocol which combines massive multiple-input multiple-output technology with linear processing, self-interference cancelation, and successive cancelation decoding. Our proposed transmission protocol reduces the number of time-slots for data exchange among users by approximately 2 times, compared with the conventional data transmission protocol. For this new topology, we derive a very tight approximation of the spectral efficiency in closed-form assuming perfect channel state information (CSI). Then, a CSI acquisition method at the relay and the users is provided and analyzed. We show via numerical simulations, that the performance gap between imperfect and perfect CSI cases is small. The closed-form expression of the spectral efficiency enables us to design two power allocation schemes. In the first power allocation scheme, we choose the transmit powers at the users and the relay to maximize the sum spectral efficiency, subject to a given quality-of-service requirement for each user. In the second power allocation scheme, the objective is the energy efficiency taking into account the hardware power consumption. Both power allocation schemes can be efficiently executed by iteratively solving a sequence of convex problems. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed transmission protocol and the power allocation schemes compared with the state of the art.

This paper studies the security aspect of a recently introduced “cell-free massive MIMO” network under a pilot spoofing attack. First, a simple method to recognize the presence of this type of an active eavesdropping attack to a particular user is shown. In order to deal with this attack, we consider the problem of maximizing the achievable data rate of the attacked user or its achievable secrecy rate. The corresponding problems of minimizing the power consumption subject to security constraints are also considered in parallel. Path-following algorithms are developed to solve the posed optimization problems under different power allocation to access points (APs). Under equip-power allocation to APs, these optimization problems admit closed-form solutions. Numerical results show their efficiency.

In order to enhance secrecy performance of protecting scenarios, understanding the illegitimate side is crucial. In this paper, from the perspective of the illegitimate side, the security attack from a full-duplex cyber-weapon equipped with massive antenna arrays is considered. To evaluate the behavior of the proposed cyber-weapon, we develop a closed-form, a tight approximation, and asymptotic expressions of the achievable ergodic secrecy rate with taking into consideration imperfect channel estimation at the cyber-weapon. The results show that even under some disadvantage conditions, i.e., imperfect channel estimation and self-interference, the full-duplex massive array cyber-weapon can disable traditional physical layer protecting schemes, i.e., increasing the transmit power and the number of antennas at the legitimate transmitter. In addition, when a transmit power optimization scheme for maximizing the difference between the eavesdropping rate and the legitimate rate is applied at the full-duplex cyber-weapon, the malicious attack is even more dangerous. The results also reveal that when the legitimate side faces an advance adversary, it is essential to prevent important information in the training phases exposing to the illegitimate side.

A Cell-Free Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) system comprises a very large number of distributed access points (APs), which simultaneously serve a much smaller number of users over the same time/frequency resources based on directly measured channel characteristics. The APs and users have only one antenna each. The APs acquire channel state information through time-division duplex operation and the reception of uplink pilot signals transmitted by the users. The APs perform multiplexing/de-multiplexing through conjugate beamforming on the downlink and matched filtering on the uplink. Closed-form expressions for individual user uplink and downlink throughputs lead to max-min power control algorithms. Max-min power control ensures uniformly good service throughout the area of coverage. A pilot assignment algorithm helps to mitigate the effects of pilot contamination, but power control is far more important in that regard. Cell-Free Massive MIMO has considerably improved performance with respect to a conventional small-cell scheme, whereby each user is served by a dedicated AP, in terms of both 95%-likely per-user throughput and immunity to shadow fading spatial correlation. Under uncorrelated shadow fading conditions, the cell-free scheme provides nearly fivefold improvement in 95%-likely per-user throughput over the small-cell scheme, and tenfold improvement when shadow fading is correlated.

We consider the Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output downlink with maximum-ratio and zero-forcing processing and time-division duplex operation. To decode, the users must know their instantaneous effective channel gain. Conventionally, it is assumed that by virtue of channel hardening, this instantaneous gain is close to its average and hence that users can rely on knowledge of that average (also known as statistical channel information). However, in some propagation environments, such as keyhole channels, channel hardening does not hold. We propose a blind algorithm to estimate the effective channel gain at each user, that does not require any downlink pilots. We derive a capacity lower bound of each user for our proposed scheme, applicable to any propagation channel. Compared with the case of no downlink pilots (relying on channel hardening), and compared with training-based estimation using downlink pilots, our blind algorithm performs significantly better. The difference is especially pronounced in environments that do not offer channel hardening.

In this paper, we analyze the benefits of including downlink pilots in a cell- free massive MIMO system. We derive an approximate per-user achievable downlink rate for conjugate beamforming processing, which takes into account both uplink and downlink channel estimation errors, and power control. A performance comparison is carried out, in terms of per-user net throughput, considering cell-free massive MIMO operation with and without downlink training, for different network densities. We take also into account the performance improvement provided by max-min fairness power control in the downlink. Numerical results show that, exploiting downlink pilots, the performance can be considerably improved in low density networks over the conventional scheme where the users rely on statistical channel knowledge only. In high density networks, performance improvements are moderate.

We consider the massive MIMO downlink with time-division duplex (TDD) operation and conjugate beamforming transmission. To reliably decode the desired signals, the users need to know the effective channel gain. In this paper, we propose a blind channel estimation method which can be applied at the users and which does not require any downlink pilots. We show that our proposed scheme can substantially outperform the case where each user has only statistical channel knowledge, and that the difference in performance is particularly large in certain types of channel, most notably keyhole channels. Compared to schemes that rely on downlink pilots (e.g., [1]), our proposed scheme yields more accurate channel estimates for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios and avoid spending time-frequency resources on pilots.

We consider a multipair relay channel, where multiple sources communicate with multiple destinations with the help of a full-duplex (FD) relay station (RS). All sources and destinations have a single antenna, while the RS is equipped with massive arrays. We assume that the RS estimates the channels by using training sequences transmitted from sources and destinations. Then, it uses maximum-ratio combining/maximum-ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) to process the signals. To significantly reduce the loop interference (LI) effect, we propose two massive MIMO processing techniques: i) using a massive receive antenna array; or ii) using a massive transmit antenna array together with very low transmit power at the RS. We derive an exact achievable rate in closed-form and evaluate the system spectral efficiency. We show that, by doubling the number of antennas at the RS, the transmit power of each source and of the RS can be reduced by 1.5 dB if the pilot power is equal to the signal power and by 3 dB if the pilot power is kept fixed, while maintaining a given quality-of-service. Furthermore, we compare FD and half-duplex (HD) modes and show that FD improves significantly the performance when the LI level is low.

This work studies the uplink of a cellular network with zero-forcing (ZF) receivers under imperfect channel state information at the base station. More specifically, apart from the pilot contamination, we investigate the effect of time variation of the channel due to the relative users' movement with regard to the base station. Our contributions include analytical expressions for the sum-rate with finite number of BS antennas, and also the asymptotic limits with infinite power and number of BS antennas, respectively. The numerical results provide interesting insights on how the user mobility degrades the system performance which extends previous results in the literature.

We consider a multipair decode-and-forward relay channel, where multiple sources transmit simultaneously their signals to multiple destinations with the help of a full-duplex relay station. We assume that the relay station is equipped with massive arrays, while all sources and destinations have a single antenna. The relay station uses channel estimates obtained from received pilots and zero-forcing (ZF) or maximum-ratio combining/maximum-ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) to process the signals. To significantly reduce the loop interference effect, we propose two techniques: i) using a massive receive antenna array; or ii) using a massive transmit antenna array together with very low transmit power at the relay station. We derive an exact achievable rate expression in closed-form for MRC/MRT processing and an analytical approximation of the achievable rate for ZF processing. This approximation is very tight, particularly for a large number of relay station antennas. These closed-form expressions enable us to determine the regions where the full-duplex mode outperforms the half-duplex mode, as well as to design an optimal power allocation scheme. This optimal power allocation scheme aims to maximize the energy efficiency for a given sum spectral efficiency and under peak power constraints at the relay station and sources. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the optimal power allocation scheme. Furthermore, we show that, by doubling the number of transmit/receive antennas at the relay station, the transmit power of each source and of the relay station can be reduced by 1.5 dB if the pilot power is equal to the signal power, and by 3 dB if the pilot power is kept fixed, while maintaining a given quality of service.

We consider a multi-pair relay channel where multiple sources simultaneously communicate with destinations using a relay. Each source or destination has only a single antenna, while the relay is equipped with a very large antenna array. We investigate the power efficiency of this system when maximum ratio combining/maximal ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) or zero-forcing (ZF) processing is used at the relay. Using a very large array, the transmit power of each source or relay (or both) can be made inversely proportional to the number of relay antennas while maintaining a given quality-of-service. At the same time, the achievable sum rate can be increased by a factor of the number of source-destination pairs. We show that when the number of antennas grows to infinity, the asymptotic achievable rates of MRC/MRT and ZF are the same if we scale the power at the sources. Depending on the large scale fading effect, MRC/MRT can outperform ZF or vice versa if we scale the power at the relay.

A multiplicity of autonomous terminals simultaneously transmits data streams to a compact array of antennas. The array uses imperfect channel-state information derived from transmitted pilots to extract the individual data streams. The power radiated by the terminals can be made inversely proportional to the square-root of the number of base station antennas with no reduction in performance. In contrast if perfect channel-state information were available the power could be made inversely proportional to the number of antennas. Lower capacity bounds for maximum-ratio combining (MRC), zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) detection are derived. An MRC receiver normally performs worse than ZF and MMSE. However as power levels are reduced, the cross-talk introduced by the inferior maximum-ratio receiver eventually falls below the noise level and this simple receiver becomes a viable option. The tradeoff between the energy efficiency (as measured in bits/J) and spectral efficiency (as measured in bits/channel use/terminal) is quantified for a channel model that includes small-scale fading but not large-scale fading. It is shown that the use of moderately large antenna arrays can improve the spectral and energy efficiency with orders of magnitude compared to a single-antenna system.

We consider multicell multiuser MIMO systems with a very large number of antennas at the base station (BS). We assume that the channel is estimated by using uplink training. We further consider a physical channel model where the angular domain is separated into a finite number of distinct directions. We analyze the so-called pilot contamination effect discovered in previous work, and show that this effect persists under the finite-dimensional channel model that we consider. In particular, we consider a uniform array at the BS. For this scenario, we show that when the number of BS antennas goes to infinity, the system performance under a finite-dimensional channel model with P angular bins is the same as the performance under an uncorrelated channel model with P antennas. We further derive a lower bound on the achievable rate of uplink data transmission with a linear detector at the BS. We then specialize this lower bound to the cases of maximum-ratio combining (MRC) and zero-forcing (ZF) receivers, for a finite and an infinite number of BS antennas. Numerical results corroborate our analysis and show a comparison between the performances of MRC and ZF in terms of sum-rate.

This paper considers multicell multiuser MIMO systems with very large antenna arrays at the base station. We propose an eigenvalue-decomposition-based approach to channel estimation, that estimates the channel blindly from the received data. The approach exploits the asymptotic orthogonality of the channel vectors in very large MIMO systems. We show that the channel to each user can be estimated from the covariance matrix of the received signals, up to a remaining scalar multiplicative ambiguity. A short training sequence is required to resolve this ambiguity. Furthermore, to improve the performance of our approach, we combine it with the iterative least-square with projection (ILSP) algorithm. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of our channel estimation approach.

The distributed Alamouti space-time code in two-way fixed gain amplify-and-forward (AF) relay is proposed in this paper. In particular, closed-form expressions for approximated ergodic sum-rate and exact pairwise error probability (PWEP) are derived for Nakagami-m fading channels. To reveal further insights into array and diversity gains, an asymptotic PWEP is also obtained. Finally, numerical results are provided to corroborate the proposed theoretical analysis.

The delay constraints imposed by future wireless applications require a suitable metric for assessing their impact on the overall system performance. Since the classical Shannon's ergodic capacity fails to do so, the so-called effective rate was recently established as a rigorous alternative. While prior relevant works have improved our knowledge on the effective rate characterization of communication systems, an analytical framework encompassing several fading models of interest is not yet available. In this paper, we pursue a detailed effective rate analysis of Nakagami-m, Rician and generalized-K multiple-input single-output (MISO) fading channels by deriving new, analytical expressions for their exact effective rate. Moreover, we consider the asymptotically low and high signal-to-noise regimes, for which tractable, closed-form effective rate expressions are presented. These results enable us to draw useful conclusions about the impact of system parameters on the effective rate of different MISO fading channels. All the theoretical expressions are validated via Monte-Carlo simulations.

We consider multicell multiuser MIMO systems with a very large number of antennas at the base station. We assume that the channel is estimated by using uplink training sequences, and we consider a physical channel model where the angular domain is separated into a finite number of directions. We analyze the so-called pilot contamination effect discovered in previous work, and show that this effect persists under the finite-dimensional channel model that we consider. We further derive closed-form bounds on the achievable rate of uplink data transmission with maximum-ratio combining, for a finite and an infinite number of base station antennas.

We compute the random coding error exponent for linear multihop amplify-and-forward (AF) relay channels. Instead of considering only the achievable rate or the error probability as a performance measure separately, the error exponent results can give us insight into the fundamental tradeoff between the information rate and communication reliability in these channels. This measure enables us to determine what codeword length that is required to achieve a given level of communication reliability at a rate below the channel capacity. We first derive a general formula for the random coding exponent of general multihop AF relay channels. Then we present a closed-form expression of a tight upper bound on the random coding error exponent for the case of Rayleigh fading. From the exponent expression, the capacity of these channels is also deduced. The effect of the number of hops on the performance of linear multihop AF relay channels from the error exponent point of view is studied. As an application of the random coding error exponent analysis, we then find the optimal number of hops which maximizes the communication reliability (i.e., the random coding error exponent) for a given data rate. Numerical results verify our analysis, and show the tightness of the proposed bound.

In a two-way relay network, two terminals exchange information over a shared wireless half-duplex channel with the help of a relay. Due to its fundamental and practical importance, there has been an increasing interest in this channel. However, there has been little work that characterizes the fundamental tradeoff between the communication reliability and transmission rate across all signal-to-noise ratios. In this paper, we consider amplify-and-forward (AF) two-way relaying due to its simplicity. We first derive the random coding error exponent for the link in each direction. From the exponent expression, the capacity and cutoff rate for each link are also deduced. We then put forth the notion of bottleneck error exponent, which is the worst exponent decay between the two links, to give us insight into the fundamental tradeoff between the rate pair and information-exchange reliability in the two-way relay network. As applications of the error exponent analysis to design a reliable AF two-way relay network, we present two optimization framework to maximize the bottleneck error exponent, namely: i) the optimal rate allocation under a sum-rate constraint and its closed-form quasi-optimal solution that requires only knowledge of the capacity and cutoff rate of each link; and ii) the optimal power allocation under a total power constraint and perfect global channel state information, which is shown equivalently to a quasi-convex optimization problem. Numerical results verify our analysis and the effectiveness of the optimal rate and power allocations in maximizing the bottleneck error exponent, i.e. the network information-exchange reliability.

In a two-way relay network, two terminals exchange information over a shared wireless half-duplex channel with the help of a relay. Due to its fundamental and practical importance, there has been an increasing interest in this channel. However, surprisingly, there has been little work that characterizes the fundamental tradeoff between the communication reliability and transmission rate across all signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ratios. In this paper, we consider amplify-and-forward (AF) two-way relaying due to its simplicity. We first derive the random coding error exponent for the link in each direction. From the exponent expression, the capacity and cutoff rate for each link are also deduced. We then put forth the notion of the bottleneck error exponent, which is the worst exponent decay between the two links, to give us insight into the fundamental tradeoff between the rate pair and information-exchange reliability of the two terminals.