Enhancing Energy and Spectral Efficiency in IoT-Cellular Networks via Active SIM-Equipped LEO Satellites

This paper investigates a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication system enhanced by an active stacked intelligent metasurface (ASIM), mounted on the backplate of the satellite solar panels to efficiently utilize limited onboard space and reduce the main satellite power amplifier requirements. The system serves multiple ground users via rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) and IoT devices through a symbiotic radio network. Multi-layer sequential processing in the ASIM improves effective channel gains and suppresses inter-user interference, outperforming active RIS and beyond-diagonal RIS designs. Three optimization approaches are evaluated: block coordinate descent with successive convex approximation (BCD-SCA), model-assisted multi-agent constraint soft actor-critic (MA-CSAC), and multi-constraint proximal policy optimization (MCPPO). Simulation results show that BCD-SCA converges fast and stably in convex scenarios without learning, MCPPO achieves rapid initial convergence with moderate stability, and MA-CSAC attains the highest long-term spectral and energy efficiency in large-scale networks. Energy-spectral efficiency trade-offs are analyzed for different ASIM elements, satellite antennas, and transmit power. Overall, the study demonstrates that integrating multi-layer ASIM with suitable optimization algorithms offers a scalable, energy-efficient, and high-performance solution for next-generation LEO satellite communications.

Energy Efficient RSMA-Based LEO Satellite Communications Assisted by UAV-Mounted BD-Active RIS: A DRL Approach

This paper proposes an advanced non-terrestrial communication architecture that integrates Rate-Splitting Multiple Access (RSMA) with a Beyond-Diagonal Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (BD-ARIS) mounted on a UAV under the coverage of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite. The BD-ARIS adopts a group-connected structure to enhance signal amplification and adaptability, while RSMA enables efficient multi-user access by dividing messages into common and private components. The system jointly optimizes satellite beamforming, UAV positioning, power allocation, and rate-splitting ratios to maximize the overall energy efficiency (EE). To solve the resulting non-convex and high-dimensional problem, we employ three state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms: Trust Region Policy Optimization (TRPO), Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3), and Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (A3C). Moreover, realistic models for the power consumption of both the UAV and the BD-ARIS are considered. Simulation results reveal that TRPO consistently achieves the best performance in terms of EE and sum rate, especially under high transmit powers and challenging deployment scenarios. TD3 converges faster and performs competitively in moderate settings, while A3C suffers from instability due to its high variance. Additionally, the robustness of each algorithm under channel state information (CSI) uncertainty is evaluated, confirming TRPO resilience to imperfect observations. Overall, the proposed RSMA-BD-ARIS framework significantly outperforms conventional RIS-assisted designs and provides a scalable, energy-efficient solution for 6G and massive IoT applications in non-terrestrial networks.

Multi-BD Symbiotic Radio-Aided 6G IoT Network: Energy Consumption Optimization with QoS Constraint Approach

The commensal symbiotic radio (CSR) system is proposed as a novel solution for connecting systems through green communication networks. This system enables us to establish secure, ubiquitous, and unlimited connectivity, which is a goal of 6G. The base station uses MIMO antennas to transmit its signal. Passive IoT devices, called symbiotic backscatter devices (SBDs), receive the signal and use it to charge their power supply. When the SBDs have data to transmit, they modulate the information onto the received ambient RF signal and send it to the symbiotic user equipment, which is a typical active device. The main purpose is to enhance energy efficiency in this network by minimizing energy consumption (EC) while ensuring the minimum required throughput for SBDs. To achieve this, we propose a new scheduling scheme called Timing-SR that optimally allocates resources to SBDs. The main optimization problem involves non-convex objective functions and constraints. To solve this, we use mathematical techniques and introduce a new approach called sequential quadratic and conic quadratic representation to relax and discipline the problem, leading to reducing its complexity and convergence time. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms other outlined schemes in reducing EC.

Sum Throughput Maximization in Multi-BD Symbiotic Radio NOMA Network Assisted by Active-STAR-RIS

In this paper, we employ active simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (ASRIS) to aid in establishing and enhancing communication within a commensal symbiotic radio (CSR) network. Unlike traditional RIS, ASRIS not only ensures coverage in an omni directional manner but also amplifies received signals, consequently elevating overall network performance. in the first phase, base station (BS) with active massive MIMO antennas, send ambient signal to SBDs. In the first phase, the BS transmits ambient signals to the symbiotic backscatter devices (SBDs), and after harvesting the energy and modulating their information onto the signal carrier, the SBDs send Backscatter signals back to the BS. In this scheme, we employ the Backscatter Relay system to facilitate the transmission of information from the SBDs to the symbiotic User Equipments (SUEs) with the assistance of the BS. In the second phase, the BS transmits information signals to the SUEs after eliminating interference using the Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) method. ASRIS is employed to establish communication among SUEs lacking a line of sight (LoS) and to amplify power signals for SUEs with a LoS connection to the BS. It is worth noting that we use NOMA for multiple access in all network. The main goal of this paper is to maximize the sum throughput between all users. To achieve this, we formulate an optimization problem with variables including active beamforming coefficients at the BS and ASRIS, as well as the phase adjustments of ASRIS and scheduling parameters between the first and second phases. To model this optimization problem, we employ three deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods, namely PPO, TD3, and A3C. Finally, the mentioned methods are simulated and compared with each other.