Extreme-MIMO Field Trials in 7 GHz Band: Unlocking the Potential of New Spectrum for 6G

The frequency range around 7 GHz has emerged as a promising upper mid-band spectrum for 6th generation (6G), offering a practical balance between coverage and capacity. To fully exploit this band, however, future systems require substantially stronger beamforming and spatial multiplexing capability than today's 5G 64-port commercial deployments. This article investigates extreme multiple-input multiple-output (X-MIMO) with 256 digital ports as a practical 6G architecture for 7 GHz operation. First, through system-level simulations, we examine the throughput benefits and design trade-offs of increasing the number of base station (BS) and user equipment (UE) digital antenna ports, including comparisons between 128-port and 256-port configurations. We then present a 256-port 7 GHz BS and UE prototype and report field-trial results obtained in urban outdoor environments. The measurements demonstrate the feasibility of 8-layer downlink single-user MIMO over a 100 MHz bandwidth, achieving more than 3 Gbps for a single user under urban outdoor propagation conditions. Channel analysis based on measured data further suggests how the large digital aperture of X-MIMO supports high-order spatial multiplexing even with limited dominant angular clusters. Finally, we identify key challenges and outline research directions toward practical deployment of 7 GHz X-MIMO systems for 6G.

Performance Analysis and Optimization of FAS-ARIS Communications for 6G: System Modeling and Analytical Insights

This paper introduces a unified analytical and optimization framework for fluid antenna system-active reconfigurable intelligent surface (FAS-ARIS) communications in 6G. By combining the port reconfigurability of FAS with the signal amplification of ARIS, the proposed design enables more flexible control of the propagation environment and enhanced link reliability beyond what passive solutions can offer. We first derive the optimal ARIS amplification gain under a reflection power constraint to maximize the user's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Using a block-diagonal matrix approximation, we obtain a tractable outage expression and a tight independent-antenna equivalent upper-bound. Building on this, we establish the monotonic relationship between outage and effective channel gain, which enables a closed-form solution for ARIS phase optimization under limited channel state information (CSI). To further improve spectral efficiency, we propose a region-partitioned throughput optimization framework that achieves near-optimal performance without exhaustive search, thereby verifying its low computational complexity. Extensive simulations confirm the accuracy of the analysis and demonstrate consistent gains in outage and throughput compared to baselines.

Quantum-PROBE: Rydberg Atomic Receiver-Based Multi-AoA Estimation with RF Lens

This paper presents the Quantum-Power pROfile Based Estimation (PROBE) framework, a Rydberg Atomic Receiver (RARE)-based multi-user angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation approach equipped with a radio-frequency (RF) lens front end. We establish a physics-consistent analytical model showing that magnitude-only RARE measurements, processed via the beam-propagation method (BPM) and snapshot-wise power accumulation, can be rigorously characterized as a nonnegative superposition of AoA-dependent, lens-induced spatial power profiles. This formulation reveals a structured and interpretable power-domain dictionary that enables multi-user AoA recovery without explicit phase reconstruction. Building on this foundation, we develop two complementary recovery strategies: (i) a principled non-negative least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (NN-LASSO)-based solver that estimates a sparse nonnegative angular representation via an accelerated proximal-gradient method followed by cluster-based AoA decoding, and (ii) a low-complexity successive interference cancellation (SIC) algorithm that iteratively identifies and removes dominant power-profile components through cosine-similarity matching. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed Quantum-PROBE framework consistently outperforms representative RARE- and RF-based benchmarks across diverse system configurations, while offering a clear accuracy-complexity tradeoff between the NN-LASSO and SIC variants for practical quantum sensing deployments.

Towards Joint Optimization for UAV-Integrated RIS-Assisted Fluid Antenna Systems

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) integrated into cellular networks face significant challenges from air-to-ground interference. To address this, we propose a downlink UAV communication system that leverages a fluid antenna system (FAS)- assisted reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to enhance signal quality. By jointly optimizing the FAS port positions and RIS phase shifts, we maximize the achievable rate. The resulting nonconvex optimization problem is solved using successive convex approximation (SCA) based on second-order cone programming (SOCP), which reformulates the constraints into a tractable form. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves both outage probability and achievable rate over conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA) schemes, with particularly large gains in large-scale RIS configurations. Moreover, the algorithm converges rapidly, making it suitable for real-time applications

Ampli-Flection for 6G: Active-RIS-Aided Aerial Backhaul with Full 3D Coverage

In this paper, we propose a novel aerial backhaul architecture that employs an aerial active reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to achieve energy-efficient, {full 3D coverage including UAV-BSs and ground users in 6G wireless networks}. Unlike prior aerial-RIS approaches limited to {2D coverage with only servicing ground users} or passive operation, the proposed design integrates an active-RIS onto a high-altitude aerial platform, enabling reliable line-of-sight links and overcoming multiplicative fading through amplification. In a scenario with UAV-BSs deployed to handle sudden traffic surges in urban areas, the aerial-active-RIS both reflects and amplifies backhaul signals to overcome blockage. We jointly optimize the aerial platform placement, array partitioning, and RIS phase configuration to maximize UAV-BS energy-efficiency. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method significantly outperforms benchmarks, demonstrating its strong potential to deliver resilient backhaul connectivity with comprehensive 3D coverage in 6G networks.

RIS-aided ISAC with $K$-Rydberg Atomic Receivers

In this paper, we investigate a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) framework equipped with multiple Rydberg atomic receiver (RAR)-aided users. By leveraging the reference-assisted reception mechanism of RARs, we develop a unified signal model that jointly captures downlink multi-user communication with RARs and monostatic radar sensing. To explicitly balance communication performance and sensing accuracy, we formulate a Cramer-Rao bound (CRB)-constrained utility maximization problem. To address these challenges, we propose a joint optimization framework that combines fractional programming (FP), majorization-minimization (MM), and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed framework consistently outperforms the conventional approach over a wide range of system environments, thereby highlighting the importance of the proposed framework in unlocking the potential of RARs for 6G.

Reimagining Wireless Connectivity: The FAS-RIS Synergy for 6G Smart Cities

Fluid antenna system (FAS) represents the concept of treating antenna as a reconfigurable physical-layer resource to broaden system design and network optimization and inspire next-generation reconfigurable antennas. FAS can unleash new degree of freedom (DoF) via antenna reconfigurations for novel spatial diversity. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) on the other hand can reshape wireless propagation environments but often face limitations from double path-loss and minimal signal processing capability when operating independently. This article envisions a transformative FAS-RIS integrated architecture for future smart city networks, uniting the adaptability of FAS with the environmental control of RIS. The proposed framework has five key applications: FAS-enabled base stations (BSs) for large-scale beamforming, FAS-equipped user devices with finest spatial diversity, and three novel RIS paradigms -- fluid RIS (FRIS) with reconfigurable elements, FAS-embedded RIS as active relays, and enormous FAS (E-FAS) exploiting surface waves on facades to re-establish line-of-sight (LoS) communication. A two-timescale control mechanism coordinates network-level beamforming with rapid, device-level adaptation. Applications spanning from simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) to integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), with challenges in co-design, channel modeling, and optimization, are discussed. This article concludes with simulation results demonstrating the robustness and effectiveness of the FAS-RIS system.

Symbol Distributions in Semantic Communications: A Source-Channel Equilibrium Perspective

Semantic communication systems often use an end-to-end neural network to map input data into continuous symbols. These symbols, which are essentially neural network features, usually have fixed dimensions and heavy-tailed distributions. However, due to the end-to-end training nature of the neural network encoder, the underlying reason for the symbol distribution remains underexplored. We propose a new explanation for the semantic symbol distribution: an inherent trade-off between source coding and communications. Specifically, the encoder balances two objectives: allocating power for minimum \emph{effective codelength} (for source coding) and maximizing mutual information (for communications). We formalize this trade-off via an information-theoretic optimization framework, which yields a Student's $t$-distribution as the resulting symbol distribution. Through extensive studies on image-based semantic systems, we find that our formulation models the learned symbols and predicts how the symbol distribution's shape parameter changes with respect to (i) the use of variable-length coding and (ii) the dataset's entropy variability. Furthermore, we demonstrate how introducing a regularizer that enforces a target symbol distribution, which guides the encoder towards a target prior (e.g., Gaussian), improves training convergence and supports our hypothesis.

Accelerating vRAN and O-RAN with SIMD: Architectural Perspectives and Performance Evaluation

The evolution of radio access networks (RANs) toward virtualization and openness creates new opportunities for flexible, cost-effective, and high-performance deployments. Achieving real-time and energy-efficient baseband processing on commercial off-the-shelf platforms, however, remains a critical challenge. This article explores how single instruction multiple data (SIMD) architectures can accelerate RAN workloads. We first outline why key physical-layer functions, such as channel estimation, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detection, and forward error correction, are well aligned with SIMD's data-level parallelism. We then present practical design guidelines and prototype results, showing significant improvements in throughput and energy efficiency compared to conventional CPU-only processing, while retaining programmability and ease of integration. Finally, we discuss open challenges in workload balancing and hardware heterogeneity, and highlight the role of SIMD as an enabling technology for flexible, efficient, and sustainable 6G-ready RANs.

Secure ISAC with Fluid Antenna Systems: Joint Precoding and Port Selection

This paper presents a novel framework for enhancing physical-layer security in integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems by leveraging the reconfigurability of fluid antenna systems (FAS). We propose a joint precoding and port selection (JPPS) strategy that maximizes the sum secrecy rate while simultaneously ensuring reliable radar sensing. The problem is formulated using fractional programming (FP) and solved through an iterative algorithm that integrates FP transformations with successive convex approximation (SCA). To reduce computational complexity, we further develop low-complexity schemes based on zero-forcing (ZF) precoding, combined with greedy port selection and trace-inverse minimization. Simulation results demonstrate substantial improvements in both secrecy performance and sensing accuracy compared to conventional baselines, across a wide range of FAS ports, user loads, and sensing targets. These findings highlight the critical importance of FAS geometry optimization in enabling secure and efficient joint communication-sensing for next-generation wireless networks.