Performance Assessment of Hybrid and Digital Irregular Array Configurations for Beyond 100-GHz Multi-User MIMO Systems

The performance of irregular phased array architectures is assessed in the context of multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) communications operating beyond 100 GHz. Realizing half-wavelength spaced planar phased arrays is challenging due to wavelength-integrated circuit (IC) size conflict at those frequencies where the antenna dimensions are comparable to IC size. Therefore, irregular array architectures such as thinned and clustered arrays are developed to mitigate the wavelength-IC size conflict. In the thinned arrays, radiating elements are permanently deactivated, while in clustered arrays, neighboring elements are grouped into subarrays. Furthermore, irregular arrays are integrated with hybrid beamforming architectures to manage the complexity introduced by full digital beamforming, where a single radio frequency chain is connected per power amplifier. An optimization problem is formulated to determine the optimal arrangement of antenna elements where the trade-off between spectral efficiency (SE) and sidelobe levels (SLL) can be tuned. Clustered array configurations are optimized by genetic algorithm and Algorithm-X based methodologies, where the former relies on a randomized search and the latter exploits brute-force search, respectively. Furthermore, a prototype array is designed on a printed circuit board (PCB) to verify the proposed methodologies through full-wave simulations. To have a fair comparison, clustered arrays with a grouping of two and four elements are compared with thinned arrays with half and quarter thinning ratios, respectively. The combination of hybrid and irregular array architectures leads to minimal or no performance degradation in the case of hybrid fully connected architectures but severe SE and SLL degradation in the case of hybrid partially connected architectures, respectively.

Aliased Time-Modulated Array OFDM System

The time-modulated array is a simple array architecture in which each antenna is connected to an RF switch that serves as a modulator. The phase shift is achieved by digitally controlling the relative delay between the periodic modulating sequences of the antennas. The practical use of this architecture is limited by two factors. First, the switching frequency is high, as it must be a multiple of the sampling frequency. Second, the discrete modulating sequence introduces undesired harmonic replicas of the signal with non-negligible power. In this paper, aliasing is exploited to simultaneously reduce sideband radiation and switching frequency. To facilitate coherent combining of aliased signal blocks, the transmit signal has a repeated block structure in the frequency domain. As a result, a factor $A$ reduction in switching frequency is achieved at the cost of a factor $A$ reduction in communication capacity. Doubling $A$ reduces sideband radiation by around 2.9 dB.

Frequency Diverse Array OFDM Transmit System with Partial Overlap in Frequency

Frequency-diverse array (FDA) is an alternative array architecture in which each antenna is preceded by a mixer instead of a phase shifter. The mixers introduce a frequency offset between signals transmitted by each antenna resulting in a time-varying beam pattern. However, time-dependent beamforming is not desirable for communication or sensing. In this paper, the FDA is combined with orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. The proposed beamforming method splits the OFDM symbol transmitted by all antennas into subcarrier blocks, which are precoded differently. The selected frequency offset between the antennas results in overlap and coherent summation of the differently precoded subcarrier blocks. This allows to achieve fully digital beamforming over a single block with the use of a single digital-to-analog converter. The system's joint communication and sensing performance is evaluated and sensitivity to errors is studied.

BS-Breath: Respiration Sensing with Cell-free Massive MIMO

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of respiration pattern estimation utilizing a communication-centric cellfree massive MIMO OFDM Base Station (BS). The sensing target is typically positioned near the User Equipment (UE), which transmits uplink pilots to the BS. Our results demonstrate the potential of massive MIMO systems for accurate and reliable vital sign estimation. Initially, we adopt a single antenna sensing solution that combines multiple subcarriers and a breathing projection to align the 2D complex breathing pattern to a single displacement dimension. Then, Weighted Antenna Combining (WAC) aggregates the 1D breathing signals from multiple antennas. The results demonstrate that the combination of space-frequency resources specifically in terms of subcarriers and antennas yields higher accuracy than using only a single antenna or subcarrier. Our results significantly improved respiration estimation accuracy by using multiple subcarriers and antennas. With WAC, we achieved an average correlation of 0.8 with ground truth data, compared to 0.6 for single antenna or subcarrier methods, a 0.2 correlation increase. Moreover, the system produced perfect breathing rate estimates. These findings suggest that the limited bandwidth (18 MHz in the testbed) can be effectively compensated by utilizing spatial resources, such as distributed antennas.

Beamforming with Oversampled Time-Modulated Arrays

The time-modulated array (TMA) is a simple array architecture in which each antenna is connected via a multi-throw switch. The switch acts as a modulator switching state faster than the symbol rate. The phase shifting and beamforming is achieved by a cyclic shift of the periodical modulating signal across antennas. In this paper, the TMA mode of operation is proposed to improve the resolution of a conventional phase shifter. The TMAs are analyzed under constrained switching frequency being a small multiple of the symbol rate. The presented generic signal model gives insight into the magnitude, phase and spacing of the harmonic components generated by the quantized modulating sequence. It is shown that the effective phase-shifting resolution can be improved multiplicatively by the oversampling factor ($O$) at the cost of introducing harmonics. Finally, the array tapering with an oversampled modulating signal is proposed. The oversampling provides $O+1$ uniformly distributed tapering amplitudes.

Frequency Diverse Array OFDM System for Joint Communication and Sensing

The frequency-diverse array (FDA) offers a time-varying beamforming capability without the use of phase shifters. The autoscanning property is achieved by applying a frequency offset between the antennas. This paper analyzes the performance of an FDA joint communication and sensing system with the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. The performance of the system is evaluated against the scanning frequency, number of antennas and number of subcarriers. The utilized metrics; integrated sidelobe level (ISL) and error vector magnitude (EVM) allow for straightforward comparison with a standard single-input single-output (SISO) OFDM system.

AoI in Context-Aware Hybrid Radio-Optical IoT Networks

With the surge in IoT devices ranging from wearables to smart homes, prompt transmission is crucial. The Age of Information (AoI) emerges as a critical metric in this context, representing the freshness of the information transmitted across the network. This paper studies hybrid IoT networks that employ Optical Communication (OC) as a reinforcement medium to Radio Frequency (RF). We formulate a quadratic convex optimization that adopts a Pareto optimization strategy to dynamically schedule the communication between devices and select their corresponding communication technology, aiming to balance the maximization of network throughput with the minimization of energy usage and the frequency of switching between technologies. To mitigate the impact of dominant sub-objectives and their scale disparity, the designed approach employs a regularization method that approximates adequate Pareto coefficients. Simulation results show that the OC supplementary integration alongside RF enhances the network's overall performances and significantly reduces the Mean AoI and Peak AoI, allowing the collection of the freshest possible data using the best available communication technology.

User-Movement-Robust Virtual Reality Through Dual-Beam Reception in mmWave Networks

Utilizing the mmWave band can potentially achieve the high data rate needed for realistic and seamless interaction within a virtual reality (VR) application. To this end, beamforming in both the access point (AP) and head-mounted display (HMD) sides is necessary. The main challenge in this use case is the specific and highly dynamic user movement, which causes beam misalignment, degrading the received signal level and potentially leading to outages. This study examines mmWave-based coordinated multi-point networks for VR applications, where two or multiple APs cooperatively transmit the signals to an HMD for connectivity diversity. Instead of using omnireception, we propose dual-beam reception based on the analog beamforming at the HMD, enhancing the receive beamforming gain towards serving APs while achieving diversity. Evaluation using actual HMD movement data demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach, showcasing a reduction in outage rates of up to 13% compared to quasi-omnidirectional reception with two serving APs, and a 17% decrease compared to steerable single-beam reception with a serving AP. Widening the separation angle between two APs can further reduce outage rates due to head rotation as rotations can still be tracked using the steerable multi-beam, albeit at the expense of received signal levels reduction during the non-outage period.

Balanced Space- and Time-based Duty-cycle Scheduling for Light-based IoT

In this work, we propose a Multiple Access Control (MAC) protocol for Light-based IoT (LIoT) networks, where the gateway node orchestrates and schedules batteryless nodes duty-cycles based on their location and sleep time. The LIoT concept represents a sustainable solution for massive indoor IoT applications, offering an alternative communication medium through Visible Light Communication (VLC). While most existing scheduling algorithms for intermittent batteryless IoT aim to maximize data collection and enhance dataset size, our solution is tailored for environmental sensing applications, such as temperature, humidity, and air quality monitoring, optimizing measurement distribution and minimizing blind spots to achieve comprehensive and uniform environmental sensing. We propose a Balanced Space and Time-based Time Division Multiple Access scheduling (BST-TDMA) algorithm, which addresses environmental sensing challenges by balancing spatial and temporal factors to improve the environmental sensing efficiency of batteryless LIoT nodes. Our measurement-based results show that BST-TDMA was able to efficiently schedule duty-cycles with given intervals.

Building a real-time physical layer labeled data logging facility for 6G research

This work describes the architecture and vision of designing and implementing a new test infrastructure for 6G physical layer research at KU Leuven. The Testbed is designed for physical layer research and experimentation following several emerging trends, such as cell-free networking, integrated communication, sensing, open disaggregated Radio Access Networks, AI-Native design, and multiband operation. The software is almost entirely based on free and open-source software, making contributing and reusing any component easy. The open Testbed is designed to provide real-time and labeled data on all parts of the physical layer, from raw IQ data to synchronization statistics, channel state information, or symbol/bit/packet error rates. Real-time labeled datasets can be collected by synchronizing the physical layer data logging with a positioning and motion capture system. One of the main goals of the design is to make it open and accessible to external users remotely. Most tests and data captures can easily be automated, and experiment code can be remotely deployed using standard containers (e.g., Docker or Podman). Finally, the paper describes how the Testbed can be used for our research on joint communication and sensing, over-the-air synchronization, distributed processing, and AI in the loop.