Flexible Cylindrical Array-Aided Secure Wireless Communications

Flexible-geometry arrays based on movable antennas have shown considerable potential for improving wireless communication performance. In this letter, we investigate a multiuser multiple-input single-output (MU-MISO) downlink secure communication system aided by a flexible cylindrical array (FCLA) and artificial noise (AN), where each antenna element rotates along circular tracks while the circular slices move along a vertical axis. To guarantee transmission security, we aim to maximize the achievable sum rate at multiple legitimate information receivers by jointly optimizing transmit beamforming, AN covariance matrix, and antenna placement under secrecy constraints for an eavesdropper. While the resulting problem is intractable to solve, we develop a block coordinate descent (BCD)-based framework that combines the Lagrangian dual transform, tight semidefinite relaxation (SDR), and Nesterov-accelerated projected gradient descent (PGD). Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm converges rapidly and achieves significant sum-rate gains over benchmark schemes by exploiting the geometry flexibility of the array.

Rotatable Antenna-Empowered Wireless Networks: A Tutorial

Non-fixed flexible antenna architectures, such as fluid antenna system (FAS), movable antenna (MA), and pinching antenna, have garnered significant interest in recent years. Among them, rotatable antenna (RA) has emerged as a promising technology for enhancing wireless communication and sensing performance through flexible antenna orientation/boresight rotation. By enabling mechanical or electronic boresight adjustment without altering physical antenna positions, RA introduces additional spatial degrees of freedom (DoFs) beyond conventional beamforming. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive tutorial on the fundamentals, architectures, and applications of RA-empowered wireless networks. Specifically, we begin by reviewing the historical evolution of RA-related technologies and clarifying the distinctive role of RA among flexible antenna architectures. Then, we establish a unified mathematical framework for RA-enabled systems, including general antenna/array rotation models, as well as channel models that cover near- and far-field propagation characteristics, wideband frequency selectivity, and polarization effects. Building upon this foundation, we investigate antenna/array rotation optimization in representative communication and sensing scenarios. Furthermore, we examine RA channel estimation/acquisition strategies encompassing orientation scheduling mechanisms and signal processing methods that exploit multi-view channel observations. Beyond theoretical modeling and algorithmic design, we discuss practical RA configurations and deployment strategies. We also present recent RA prototypes and experimental results that validate the practical performance gains enabled by antenna rotation. Finally, we highlight promising extensions of RA to emerging wireless paradigms and outline open challenges to inspire future research.

3-D Trajectory Optimization for Robust Direction Sensing in Movable Antenna Systems

This paper presents a novel wireless sensing system where a movable antenna (MA) continuously moves and receives sensing signals within a three-dimensional (3-D) region to enhance sensing performance compared with conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA)-based sensing. We show that the performance of direction vector estimation for a target is fundamentally related to the 3-D MA trajectory in terms of the mean square angular error lower-bound (MSAEB), which is adopted as a coordinate-invariant performance metric. In particular, the closed-form expression of the MSAEB is derived as a function of the trajectory covariance matrix. Theoretical analysis shows that two-dimensional (2-D) antenna movement suffers from performance divergence for target direction close to the endfire direction of the 2-D MA plane, whereas 3-D movement can achieve isotropic sensing performance over the entire angular region. To achieve robust sensing performance, we formulate a min-max optimization problem to minimize the maximum (worst-case) MSAEB over a given continuous angular region wherein the target is located. An efficient successive convex approximation (SCA) algorithm is developed to optimize the 3-D MA trajectory and obtain a locally optimal solution. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed 3-D MA sensing scheme is able to significantly reduce the worst-case mean square angular error (MSAE) compared with conventional arrays with FPAs and MA systems with 2-D movement only, thus achieving more accurate and robust direction estimation over the entire angular region.

Movable Antenna Enhanced MIMO Communications with Spatial Modulation

Movable antenna (MA) has demonstrated great potential in enhancing wireless communication performance. In this paper, we investigate an MA-enabled multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system with spatial modulation (SM), which improves communication performance by utilizing flexible MA placement while reducing the cost of RF chains. To this end, we propose a joint transceiver design framework aimed at minimizing the bit error rate (BER) based on the maximum minimum distance (MMD) criterion. To address the intractable problem, we develop an efficient iterative algorithm based on alternating optimization (AO) and successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves rapid convergence performance and significantly outperforms the existing benchmark schemes.

Movable Antenna for Integrating Near-field Channel Estimation and Localization

Movable antenna (MA) introduces a new degree of freedom for future wireless communication systems by enabling the adaptive adjustment of antenna positions. Its large-range movement renders wireless channels transmission into the near-field region, which brings new performance enhancement for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC). This paper proposes a novel multi-stage design framework for broadband near-field ISAC assisted by MA. The framework first divides the MA movement area into multiple subregions, and employs the Newtonized orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm (NOMP) to achieve high-precision angle estimation in each subregion. Subsequently, a method called near-field localization via subregion ray clustering (LSRC) is proposed for identifying the positions of scatterers. This method finds the coordinates of each scatterer by jointly processing the angle estimates across all subregions. Finally, according to the estimated locations of the scatterers, the near-field channel estimation (CE) is refined for improving communication performance. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly enhance MA sensing accuracy and CE, providing an efficient solution for MA-aided near-field ISAC.

6D Movable Antenna Enhanced Cell-free MIMO: Two-timescale Decentralized Beamforming and Antenna Movement Optimization

This paper investigates a six-dimensional movable antenna (6DMA)-aided cell-free multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system. In this system, each distributed access point (AP) can flexibly adjust its array orientation and antenna positions to adapt to spatial channel variations and enhance communication performance. However, frequent antenna movements and centralized beamforming based on global instantaneous channel state information (CSI) sharing among APs entail extremely high signal processing delay and system overhead, which is difficult to be practically implemented in high-mobility scenarios with short channel coherence time. To address these practical implementation challenges and improve scalability, a two-timescale decentralized optimization framework is proposed in this paper to jointly design the beamformer, antenna positions, and array orientations. In the short timescale, each AP updates its receive beamformer based on local instantaneous CSI and global statistical CSI. In the long timescale, the central processing unit optimizes the antenna positions and array orientations at all APs based on global statistical CSI to maximize the ergodic sum rate of all users. The resulting optimization problem is non-convex and involves highly coupled variables, thus posing significant challenges for obtaining efficient solutions. To address this problem, a constrained stochastic successive convex approximation algorithm is developed. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed 6DMA-aided cell-free system with decentralized beamforming significantly outperforms other antenna movement schemes with less flexibility and even achieves a performance comparable to that of the centralized beamforming benchmark.

Fundamental Models and Signal Processing for Movable Antenna-Enhanced Wireless Communications and Sensing

Movable antenna (MA) has been recognized as a promising technology for performance enhancement in wireless communication and sensing systems by exploiting the spatial degrees of freedom (DoFs) in flexible antenna movement. However, the integration of MAs into next-generation wireless networks still faces design challenges due to the paradigm shift from conventional fixed-position antennas (FPAs) to MAs, which motivates this paper to provide a comprehensive overview of the models, scenarios, and signal processing techniques for MA-enhanced wireless networks. First, we introduce several efficient methods to realize flexible antenna movement. Next, channel models based on field response and spatial correlation are presented to characterize the channel variations with respect to MA movement. Then, we discuss the advantages and challenges of applying MAs to typical application scenarios of wireless communications and sensing. Moreover, we show the signal processing techniques for MA-enhanced communication and sensing systems, including channel acquisition and antenna position optimization. Finally, we highlight promising research directions to inspire future investigations.

AI Signal Processing Paradigm for Movable Antenna: From Geometric Optimization to Electromagnetic Reconfigurability

As 6G wireless communication systems evolve toward intelligence and high reconfigurability, the limitations of traditional fixed antenna (TFA) has become increasingly prominent, with geometrically movable antenna (GMA) and electromagnetically reconfigurable antenna (ERA) emerging as key technologies to break through this bottleneck. GMA activates spatial degrees of freedom (DoF) by dynamically adjusting antenna positions, ERA regulates radiation characteristics using tunable metamaterials, thereby introducing DoF in the electromagnetic domain. However, the ``geometric-electromagnetic dual reconfiguration" paradigm formed by their integration poses severe challenges of high-dimensional hybrid optimization to signal processing. To address this issue, we integrate the geometric optimization of GMA and the electromagnetic reconfiguration of ERA for the first time, propose a unified modeling framework for movable and reconfigurable antenna (MARA), investigate the channel modeling and spectral efficiency (SE) optimization for GMA, ERA, and MARA. Besides, we systematically review artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions, focusing on analyzing the advantages of AI over traditional algorithms in high-dimensional non-convex optimization computations. This paper fills the gap in existing literature regarding the lack of a comprehensive review on the AI-driven signal processing paradigm under geometric-electromagnetic dual reconfiguration and provides theoretical support for the design and optimization of 6G wireless systems with high SE and flexibility.

Movable-Antenna Trajectory Optimization for Wireless Sensing: CRB Scaling Laws over Time and Space

In this paper, we present a new wireless sensing system utilizing a movable antenna (MA) that continuously moves and receives sensing signals to enhance sensing performance over the conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA) sensing. We show that the angle estimation performance is fundamentally determined by the MA trajectory, and derive the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) of the mean square error (MSE) for angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation as a function of the trajectory for both one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) antenna movement. For the 1D case, a globally optimal trajectory that minimizes the CRB is derived in closed form. Notably, the resulting CRB decreases cubically with sensing time in the time-constrained regime, whereas it decreases linearly with sensing time and quadratically with the movement line segment's length in the space-constrained regime. For the 2D case, we aim to achieve the minimum of maximum (min-max) CRBs of estimation MSE for the two AoAs with respect to the horizontal and vertical axes. To this end, we design an efficient alternating optimization algorithm that iteratively updates the MA's horizontal or vertical coordinates with the other being fixed, yielding a locally optimal trajectory. Numerical results show that the proposed 1D/2D MA-based sensing schemes significantly reduce both the CRB and actual AoA estimation MSE compared to conventional FPA-based sensing with uniform linear/planar arrays (ULAs/UPAs) as well as various benchmark MA trajectories. Moreover, it is revealed that the steering vectors of our designed 1D/2D MA trajectories have low correlation in the angular domain, thereby effectively increasing the angular resolution for achieving higher AoA estimation accuracy.

Joint Antenna Positioning and Beamforming for Movable Antenna Array Aided Ground Station in Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Communication

This paper proposes a new architecture for the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite ground station aided by movable antenna (MA) array. Unlike conventional fixed-position antenna (FPA), the MA array can flexibly adjust antenna positions to reconfigure array geometry, for more effectively mitigating interference and improving communication performance in ultra-dense LEO satellite networks. To reduce movement overhead, we configure antenna positions at the antenna initialization stage, which remain unchanged during the whole communication period of the ground station. To this end, an optimization problem is formulated to maximize the average achievable rate of the ground station by jointly optimizing its antenna position vector (APV) and time-varying beamforming weights, i.e., antenna weight vectors (AWVs). To solve the resulting non-convex optimization problem, we adopt the Lagrangian dual transformation and quadratic transformation to reformulate the objective function into a more tractable form. Then, we develop an efficient block coordinate descent-based iterative algorithm that alternately optimizes the APV and AWVs until convergence is reached. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed MA scheme significantly outperforms traditional FPA by increasing the achievable rate at ground stations under various system setups, thus providing an efficient solution for interference mitigation in future ultra-dense LEO satellite communication networks.