Rydberg atomic quantum receivers (RAQRs) have emerged as highly sensitive receivers for future communication and sensing systems. However, conventional RAQRs are primarily effective for single-carrier and narrowband reception, typically with an operational bandwidth of only a few hundred kilohertz. To enable the reception of multi-carrier signals with larger bandwidth, we propose a multi-carrier Rydberg atomic quantum receiver (MC-RAQR) architecture based on a five-level quantum system model. We analyze the amplitude and phase of the output laser in MC-RAQR and extract the baseband electrical signal for signal processing. Furthermore, we quantify the performance of MC-RAQR in multi-carrier communication and sensing by studying the channel capacity and distance estimation, respectively. Numerical results show that the MC-RAQR is capable of achieving a bandwidth of $7.2$ MHz, which is an order of magnitude larger than conventional RAQRs. Besides, compared to conventional receivers, MC-RAQR can improve the capacity and distance estimation by $18$-fold and $10^3$-fold, respectively. This validates the superiority of MC-RAQR in receiving multi-carrier signal, and demonstrates its compatibility in detecting waveforms such as orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing.

The significant progress of quantum sensing technologies offer numerous radical solutions for measuring a multitude of physical quantities at an unprecedented precision. Among them, Rydberg atomic quantum receivers (RAQRs) emerge as an eminent solution for detecting the electric field of radio frequency (RF) signals, exhibiting great potential in assisting classical wireless communications and sensing. So far, most experimental studies have aimed for the proof of physical concepts to reveal its promise, while the practical signal model of RAQR-aided wireless communications and sensing remained under-explored. Furthermore, the performance of RAQR-based wireless receivers and their advantages over classical RF receivers have not been fully characterized. To fill these gaps, we introduce the RAQR to the wireless community by presenting an end-to-end reception scheme. We then develop a corresponding equivalent baseband signal model relying on a realistic reception flow. Our scheme and model provide explicit design guidance to RAQR-aided wireless systems. We next study the performance of RAQR-aided wireless systems based on our model, and compare them to classical RF receivers. The results show that Doppler broadening-free RAQRs are capable of achieving a substantial received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain of over 27 decibel (dB) and 40 dB in the photon shot limit and standard quantum limit regimes, respectively.

Rydberg atomic quantum receivers exhibit great potential in assisting classical wireless communications due to their outstanding advantages in detecting radio frequency signals. To realize this potential, we integrate a Rydberg atomic quantum receiver into a classical multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme to form a multi-user Rydberg atomic quantum MIMO (RAQ-MIMO) system for the uplink. To study this system, we first construct an equivalent baseband signal model, which facilitates convenient system design, signal processing and optimizations. We then study the ergodic achievable rates under both the maximum ratio combining (MRC) and zero-forcing (ZF) schemes by deriving their tight lower bounds. We next compare the ergodic achievable rates of the RAQ-MIMO and the conventional massive MIMO schemes by offering a closed-form expression for the difference of their ergodic achievable rates, which allows us to directly compare the two systems. Our results show that RAQ-MIMO allows the average transmit power of users to be$>25 \text{d B m}$lower than that of the conventional massive MIMO. Viewed from a different perspective, an extra$\sim 8.8$bits/s/Hz/user rate becomes achievable by ZF RAQ-MIMO.

Cooperative reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are promising technologies for 6 G networks to support a great number of users. Compared with the fixed RISs, the properly deployed RISs may improve the communication performance with less communication energy consumption, thereby improving the energy efficiency. In this paper, we consider a cooperative unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted RISs (UAV-RISs)-assisted cellular network, where multiple RISs are carried and enhanced by UAVs to serve multiple ground users (GUs) simultaneously such that achieving the three-dimensional (3D) mobility and opportunistic deployment. Specifically, we formulate an energy-efficient communication problem based on multi-objective optimization framework (EEComm-MOF) to jointly consider the beamforming vector of base station (BS), the location deployment and the discrete phase shifts of UAV-RIS system so as to simultaneously maximize the minimum available rate over all GUs, maximize the total available rate of all GUs, and minimize the total energy consumption of the system, while the transmit power constraint of BS is considered. To comprehensively solve EEComm-MOF which is an NP-hard and non-convex problem with constraints, a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II with a continuous solution processing mechanism, a discrete solution processing mechanism, and a complex solution processing mechanism (INSGA-II-CDC) is proposed. Simulations results demonstrate that the proposed INSGA-II-CDC can solve EEComm-MOF effectively and outperforms other benchmarks under different parameter settings. Moreover, the stability of INSGA-II-CDC and the effectiveness of the improved mechanisms are verified. Finally, the implementability analysis of the algorithm is given.

Envisioned as one of the most promising technologies, holographic multiple-input multiple-output (H-MIMO) recently attracts notable research interests for its great potential in expanding wireless possibilities and achieving fundamental wireless limits. Empowered by the nearly continuous, large and energy-efficient surfaces with powerful electromagnetic (EM) wave control capabilities, H-MIMO opens up the opportunity for signal processing in a more fundamental EM-domain, paving the way for realizing holographic imaging level communications in supporting the extremely high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency in future networks. In this article, we propose a generalized EM-domain near-field channel modeling and study its capacity limit of point-to-point H-MIMO systems that equips arbitrarily placed surfaces in a line-of-sight (LoS) environment. Two effective and computational-efficient channel models are established from their integral counterpart, where one is with a sophisticated formula but showcases more accurate, and another is concise with a slight precision sacrifice. Furthermore, we unveil the capacity limit using our channel model, and derive a tight upper bound based upon an elaborately built analytical framework. Our result reveals that the capacity limit grows logarithmically with the product of transmit element area, receive element area, and the combined effects of 1/d2mn, 1/d4mn, and 1/d6mnover all transmit and receive antenna elements, wheredmnindicates the distance between each transmit elementnand receive elementm. Particularly, 1/d6mndominates in the near-field region whereas 1/d2mndominates in the far-field region. Numerical evaluations validate the effectiveness of our channel models, and showcase the slight disparity between the upper bound and the exact capacity, which is beneficial for predicting practical system performance.

Abstract Near-field technology is increasingly recognized due to its transformative potential in communication systems, establishing it as a critical enabler for sixth-generation (6G) telecommunication development. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of recent advancements in near-field technology research. First, we explore the near-field propagation fundamentals by detailing definitions, transmission characteristics, and performance analysis. Next, we investigate various near-field channel models—deterministic, stochastic, and electromagnetic information theory based models, and review the latest progress in near-field channel testing, highlighting practical performance and limitations. With evolving channel models, traditional mechanisms such as channel estimation, beamtraining, and codebook design require redesign and optimization to align with near-field propagation characteristics. We then introduce innovative beam designs enabled by near-field technologies, focusing on non-diffractive beams (such as Bessel and Airy) and orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, addressing both hardware architectures and signal processing frameworks, showcasing their revolutionary potential in near-field communication systems. Additionally, we highlight progress in both engineering and standardization, covering the primary 6G spectrum allocation, enabling technologies for near-field propagation, and network deployment strategies. Finally, we conclude by identifying promising future research directions for near-field technology development that could significantly impact system design. This comprehensive review provides a detailed understanding of the current state and potential of near-field technologies.

To support the extremely high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency requirements, and emerging applications of future wireless communications, holographic multiple-input multiple-output (H-MIMO) technology is envisioned as one of the most promising enablers. It can potentially bring extra degrees-of-freedom for communications and signal processing, including spatial multiplexing in line-of-sight (LoS) channels and electromagnetic (EM) field processing performed using specialized devices, to attain the fundamental limits of wireless communications. In this context, EM-domain channel modeling is critical to harvest the benefits offered by H-MIMO. Existing EM-domain channel models are built based on the tensor Green function, which require prior knowledge of the global position and/or the relative distances and directions of the transmit/receive antenna elements. Such knowledge may be difficult to acquire in real-world applications due to extensive measurements needed for obtaining this data. To overcome this limitation, we propose a transmit-receive parameter separable channel model method-ology in which the EM-domain (or holographic) channel can be simply acquired from the distance/direction measured between the center-points between the transmit and receive surfaces, and the local positions between the transmit and receive elements, thus avoiding extensive global parameter measurements. Analysis and numerical results showcase the effectiveness of the proposed channel modeling approach in approximating the H-MIMO channel, and achieving the theoretical channel capacity.

In this paper, we investigate the hybrid beamforming design for the full-duplex (FD) millimeter-wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, aiming to maximize the overall spectral efficiency (SE) and cancel the self-interference (SI) simultaneously. The coupling transmit power constraints, unit-modulus constraints, and strong SI make the problem under study highly nonconvex. To solve the complicated problem, we first transform it into an equivalent yet more tractable weighted minimum mean square error minimization problem and then propose an effective two-stage hybrid beam-forming design. In the first stage, we propose to extend the known matrix approximation method to the FD scenario to obtain the initial hybrid beamforming design. In the second stage, we propose to use the block coordinate descent method to update the digital beamformers and combiners while retaining the obtained analog solutions, which sufficiently exploits the easily adjustable property of digital solutions to cancel the residual SI and compensate for the SE loss. We further analyze the computational complexity of the proposed design. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed two-stage hybrid beamforming design is superior to conventional related methods.

Compressive subspace learning (CSL) with the exploitation of space diversity has found a potential performance improvement for wideband spectrum sensing (WBSS). However, previous works mainly focus on either exploiting antenna auto-correlations or adopting a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel without considering the spatial correlations, which will degrade their performances. In this paper, we consider a spatially correlated MIMO channel and propose two CSL algorithms (i.e., mCSLSACC and vCSLACC) which exploit antenna cross-correlations, where the mCSLSACC utilizes an antenna averaging temporal decomposition, and the vCSLACC uses a spatial-temporal joint decomposition. For both algorithms, the conditions of statistical covariance matrices (SCMs) without noise corruption are derived. Through establishing the singular value relation of SCMs in statistical sense between the proposed and traditional CSL algorithms, we show the superiority of the proposed CSL algorithms. By further depicting the receiving correlation matrix of MIMO channel with the exponential correlation model, we give important closed-form expressions for the proposed CSL algorithms in terms of the amplification of singular values over traditional CSL algorithms. Such expressions provide a possibility to determine optimal algorithm parameters for high system performances in an analytical way. Simulations validate the correctness of this work and its performance improvement over existing works in terms of WBSS performance.