HAPS for 6G Networks: Potential Use Cases, Open Challenges, and Possible Solutions

High altitude platform station (HAPS), which is deployed in the stratosphere at an altitude of 20-50 kilometres, has attracted much attention in recent years due to their large footprint, line-of-sight links, and fixed position relative to the Earth. Compared with existing network infrastructure, HAPS has a much larger coverage area than terrestrial base stations and is much closer than satellites to the ground users. Besides small-cells and macro-cells, a HAPS can offer one mega-cell, which can complement legacy networks in 6G and beyond wireless systems. This paper explores potential use cases and discusses relevant open challenges of integrating HAPS into legacy networks, while also suggesting some solutions to these challenges. The cumulative density functions of spectral efficiency of the integrated network and cell-edge users are studied and compared with terrestrial network. The results show the capacity gains achieved by the integrated network are beneficial to cell-edge users. Furthermore, the advantages of a HAPS for backhauling aerial base stations are demonstrated by the simulation results.

Capacity Region of Asynchronous Multiple Access Channels with FTN

This paper studies the capacity region of asynchronous multiple access channel (MAC) with faster-thanNyquist (FTN) signaling. We first express the capacity region in the frequency domain. Next, we calculate an achievable rate region in time domain and prove that it is identical to the capacity region calculated in the frequency domain. Our analysis confirms that asynchronous transmission and FTN bring in significant gains.

Analysis of a HAPS-Aided GNSS in Urban Areas using a RAIM Algorithm

The global averaged civilian positioning accuracy is still at meter level for all existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs), and the performance is even worse in urban areas. At lower altitudes than satellites, high altitude platform stations (HAPS) offer several benefits, such as lower latency, less pathloss, and likely smaller overall estimation error for the parameters associated in the pseudorange equation. HAPS can support GNSSs in many ways, and in this paper we treat the HAPS as another type of ranging source. In so doing, we examine the positioning performance of a HAPS-aided GPS system in an urban area using both a simulation and physical experiment. The HAPS measurements are unavailable today; therefore, they are modeled in a rather simple but logical manner in both the simulation and physical experiment. We show that the HAPS can improve the horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP), the vertical dilution of precision (VDOP), and the 3D positioning accuracy of GPS in both suburban and dense urban areas. We also demonstrate the applicability of a RAIM algorithm for the HAPS-aided GPS system, especially in the dense urban area.

High Altitude Platform Station -Aided GNSS for Urban Areas

Today the global averaged civilian positioning accuracy is still at meter level for all existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs), and the civilian positioning performance is even worse in regions such as the Arctic region and the urban areas. In this work, we examine the positioning performance of the High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS)-aided GPS system in an urban area via both simulation and physical experiment. HAPS can support GNSS in many ways, herein we treat the HAPS as an additional ranging source. From both simulation and experiment results, we can observe that HAPS can improve the horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP) and the 3D positioning accuracy. The simulated positioning performance of the HAPS-aided GPS system is subject to the estimation accuracy of the receiver clock offset. This work also presents the future work and challenges in modelling the pseudorange of HAPS.

On the Design of Communication-Efficient Federated Learning for Health Monitoring

With the booming deployment of Internet of Things, health monitoring applications have gradually prospered. Within the recent COVID-19 pandemic situation, interest in permanent remote health monitoring solutions has raised, targeting to reduce contact and preserve the limited medical resources. Among the technological methods to realize efficient remote health monitoring, federated learning (FL) has drawn particular attention due to its robustness in preserving data privacy. However, FL can yield to high communication costs, due to frequent transmissions between the FL server and clients. To tackle this problem, we propose in this paper a communication-efficient federated learning (CEFL) framework that involves clients clustering and transfer learning. First, we propose to group clients through the calculation of similarity factors, based on the neural networks characteristics. Then, a representative client in each cluster is selected to be the leader of the cluster. Differently from the conventional FL, our method performs FL training only among the cluster leaders. Subsequently, transfer learning is adopted by the leader to update its cluster members with the trained FL model. Finally, each member fine-tunes the received model with its own data. To further reduce the communication costs, we opt for a partial-layer FL aggregation approach. This method suggests partially updating the neural network model rather than fully. Through experiments, we show that CEFL can save up to to 98.45% in communication costs while conceding less than 3% in accuracy loss, when compared to the conventional FL. Finally, CEFL demonstrates a high accuracy for clients with small or unbalanced datasets.

Bit-Interleaved Coded Energy-Based Modulation with Iterative Decoding

This paper develops a low-complexity near-optimal non-coherent receiver for a multi-level energy-based coded modulation system. Inspired by the turbo processing principle, we incorporate the fundamentals of bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) into the proposed receiver design. The resulting system is called bit-interleaved coded energy-based modulation with iterative decoding (BICEM-ID) and its error performance is analytically studied. Specifically, we derive upper bounds on the average pairwise error probability (PEP) of the non-coherent BICEM-ID system in the feedback-free (FF) and error-free feedback (EFF) scenarios. It is revealed that the definition of the nearest neighbors, which is important in the performance analysis in the FF scenario, is very different from that in the coherent BICM-ID counterpart. The analysis also reveals how the mapping from coded bits to energy levels influences the diversity order and coding gain of the BICEM-ID systems. A design criterion for good mappings is then formulated and an algorithm is proposed to find a set of best mappings for BICEM-ID. Finally, simulation results corroborate the main analytical findings.

Distributed Massive MIMO for LEO Satellite Networks

The ultra-dense deployment of interconnected satellites will characterize future low Earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellations. Exploiting this towards a more efficient satellite network (SatNet), this paper proposes a novel LEO SatNet architecture based on distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (DM-MIMO) technology allowing ground user terminals to be connected to a cluster of satellites. To this end, we investigate various aspects of DM-MIMO-based satellite network design, the benefits of using this architecture, the associated challenges, and the potential solutions. In addition, we propose a distributed joint power allocation and handover management (D-JPAHM) technique that jointly optimizes the power allocation and handover management processes in a cross-layer manner. This framework aims to maximize the network throughput and minimize the handover rate while considering the quality-of-service (QoS) demands of user terminals and the power capabilities of the satellites. Moreover, we devise an artificial intelligence (AI)-based solution to efficiently implement the proposed D-JPAHM framework in a manner suitable for real-time operation and the dynamic SatNet environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to introduce and study DM-MIMO technology in LEO SatNets. Extensive simulation results reveal the superiority of the proposed architecture and solutions compared to conventional approaches in the literature.

VHetNets for AI and AI for VHetNets: An Anomaly Detection Case Study for Ubiquitous IoT

Vertical heterogenous networks (VHetNets) and artificial intelligence (AI) play critical roles in 6G and beyond networks. This article presents an AI-native VHetNets architecture to enable the synergy of VHetNets and AI, thereby supporting varieties of AI services while facilitating automatic and intelligent network management. Anomaly detection in Internet of Things (IoT) is a major AI service required by many fields, including intrusion detection, state monitoring, device-activity analysis, security supervision and so on. Conventional anomaly detection technologies mainly consider the anomaly detection as a standalone service that is independent of any other network management functionalities, which cannot be used directly in ubiquitous IoT due to the resource constrained end nodes and decentralized data distribution. In this article, we develop an AI-native VHetNets-enabled framework to provide the anomaly detection service for ubiquitous IoT, whose implementation is assisted by intelligent network management functionalities. We first discuss the possibilities of VHetNets used for distributed AI model training to provide anomaly detection service for ubiquitous IoT, i.e., VHetNets for AI. After that, we study the application of AI approaches in helping provide automatic and intelligent network management functionalities for VHetNets, i.e., AI for VHetNets, whose aim is to facilitate the efficient implementation of anomaly detection service. Finally, a case study is presented to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed AI-native VHetNets-enabled anomaly detection framework.

Coordinate Interleaved Faster-than-Nyquist Signaling

Faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling is an attractive transmission technique which accelerates data symbols beyond the Nyquist rate to improve the spectral efficiency; however, at the expense of higher computational complexity to remove the introduced intersymbol interference (ISI). In this work, we introduce a novel FTN signaling transmission technique, named coordinate interleaved FTN (CI-FTN) signaling that exploits the ISI at the transmitter to generate constructive interference for every pair of the counter-clockwise rotated binary phase shift keying (BPSK) data symbols. In particular, the proposed CI- FTN signaling interleaves the in-phase (I) and the quadrature (Q) components of the counter-clockwise rotated BPSK symbols to guarantee that every pair of consecutive symbols has the same sign, and hence, has constructive ISI. At the receiver, we propose a low-complexity detector that makes use of the constructive ISI introduced at the transmitter. Simulation results show the merits of the CI-FTN signaling and the proposed low-complexity detector compared to conventional Nyquist and FTN signaling.

Power Allocation for a HAPS-Enabled MIMO-NOMA System with Spatially Correlated Channels

High-altitude platform station (HAPS) systems are considered to have great promise in the multi-tier architecture of the sixth generation (6G) and beyond wireless networks. A HAPS system can be used as a super macro base station (SMBS) to communicate with users directly since there is a significant line-of-sight (LoS) link between a HAPS and terrestrial users. One of the problems that HAPS SMBS systems face, however, is the high spatial correlation between the channel gain of adjacent users, which is due to the LoS link between the HAPS and terrestrial users. In this paper, in addition to utilizing the spatial correlation of channel gain between multiple users to improve user services, we consider correlated channel gain for each user. In the proposed method, terrestrial users with a high spatial correlation between their LoS channel gain are grouped into NOMA clusters. Next, an algorithm is proposed to allocate power among terrestrial users to maximize the total rate while satisfying the quality-of-service (QoS) and successive interference cancellation (SIC) conditions. Simulation results show that a HAPS SMBS has superior data rate and energy efficiency in comparison to a terrestrial BS.