Generalized Noncoherent Space-Time Block Codes from Quantum Error Correction

This paper generalizes results in noncoherent space-time block code (STBC) design based on quantum error correction (QEC) to new antenna configurations. Previous work proposed QEC-inspired STBCs for antenna geometries where the number of transmit and receive antennas were equal and a power of two. In this work we extend these results by providing QEC-inspired STBCs applicable to all square antenna geometries and some rectangular geometries where the number of receive antennas is greater than the number of transmit antennas. We derive the maximum-likelihood decoding rule for this family of codes for the special case of Rayleigh fading with additive white Gaussian noise. We present Monte Carlo simulations of the performance of the codes in this environment for a three-antenna square geometry and a three-by-six rectangular geometry. We demonstrate competitive performance for these codes with respect to a popular noncoherent differential code.

Quantum-Inspired Approximations to Constraint Satisfaction Problems

Two contrasting algorithmic paradigms for constraint satisfaction problems are successive local explorations of neighboring configurations versus producing new configurations using global information about the problem (e.g. approximating the marginals of the probability distribution which is uniform over satisfying configurations). This paper presents new algorithms for the latter framework, ultimately producing estimates for satisfying configurations using methods from Boolean Fourier analysis. The approach is broadly inspired by the quantum amplitude amplification algorithm in that it maximally increases the amplitude of the approximation function over satisfying configurations given sequential refinements. We demonstrate that satisfying solutions may be retrieved in a process analogous to quantum measurement made efficient by sparsity in the Fourier domain, and present a complete solver construction using this novel approximation. Freedom in the refinement strategy invites further opportunities to design solvers in an evolutionary computing framework. Results demonstrate competitive performance against local solvers for the Boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem, encouraging future work in understanding the connections between Boolean Fourier analysis and constraint satisfaction.