Towards Collaborative Autonomous Driving: Simulation Platform and End-to-End System

Vehicle-to-everything-aided autonomous driving (V2X-AD) has a huge potential to provide a safer driving solution. Despite extensive researches in transportation and communication to support V2X-AD, the actual utilization of these infrastructures and communication resources in enhancing driving performances remains largely unexplored. This highlights the necessity of collaborative autonomous driving: a machine learning approach that optimizes the information sharing strategy to improve the driving performance of each vehicle. This effort necessitates two key foundations: a platform capable of generating data to facilitate the training and testing of V2X-AD, and a comprehensive system that integrates full driving-related functionalities with mechanisms for information sharing. From the platform perspective, we present V2Xverse, a comprehensive simulation platform for collaborative autonomous driving. This platform provides a complete pipeline for collaborative driving. From the system perspective, we introduce CoDriving, a novel end-to-end collaborative driving system that properly integrates V2X communication over the entire autonomous pipeline, promoting driving with shared perceptual information. The core idea is a novel driving-oriented communication strategy. Leveraging this strategy, CoDriving improves driving performance while optimizing communication efficiency. We make comprehensive benchmarks with V2Xverse, analyzing both modular performance and closed-loop driving performance. Experimental results show that CoDriving: i) significantly improves the driving score by 62.49% and drastically reduces the pedestrian collision rate by 53.50% compared to the SOTA end-to-end driving method, and ii) achieves sustaining driving performance superiority over dynamic constraint communication conditions.

Robust Symbol-Level Precoding for Massive MIMO Communication Under Channel Aging

This paper investigates the robust design of symbol-level precoding (SLP) for multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink transmission with imperfect channel state information (CSI) caused by channel aging. By utilizing the a posteriori channel model based on the widely adopted jointly correlated channel model, the imperfect CSI is modeled as the statistical CSI incorporating the channel mean and channel variance information with spatial correlation. With the signal model in the presence of channel aging, we formulate the signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SINR) balancing and minimum mean square error (MMSE) problems for robust SLP design. The former targets to maximize the minimum SINR across users, while the latter minimizes the mean square error between the received signal and the target constellation point. When it comes to massive MIMO scenarios, the increment in the number of antennas poses a computational complexity challenge, limiting the deployment of SLP schemes. To address such a challenge, we simplify the objective function of the SINR balancing problem and further derive a closed-form SLP scheme. Besides, by approximating the matrix involved in the computation, we modify the proposed algorithm and develop an MMSE-based SLP scheme with lower computation complexity. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed schemes over the state-of-the-art SLP schemes.

FedRSU: Federated Learning for Scene Flow Estimation on Roadside Units

Roadside unit (RSU) can significantly improve the safety and robustness of autonomous vehicles through Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication. Currently, the usage of a single RSU mainly focuses on real-time inference and V2X collaboration, while neglecting the potential value of the high-quality data collected by RSU sensors. Integrating the vast amounts of data from numerous RSUs can provide a rich source of data for model training. However, the absence of ground truth annotations and the difficulty of transmitting enormous volumes of data are two inevitable barriers to fully exploiting this hidden value. In this paper, we introduce FedRSU, an innovative federated learning framework for self-supervised scene flow estimation. In FedRSU, we present a recurrent self-supervision training paradigm, where for each RSU, the scene flow prediction of points at every timestamp can be supervised by its subsequent future multi-modality observation. Another key component of FedRSU is federated learning, where multiple devices collaboratively train an ML model while keeping the training data local and private. With the power of the recurrent self-supervised learning paradigm, FL is able to leverage innumerable underutilized data from RSU. To verify the FedRSU framework, we construct a large-scale multi-modality dataset RSU-SF. The dataset consists of 17 RSU clients, covering various scenarios, modalities, and sensor settings. Based on RSU-SF, we show that FedRSU can greatly improve model performance in ITS and provide a comprehensive benchmark under diverse FL scenarios. To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first real-world LiDAR-camera multi-modal dataset and benchmark for the FL community.

A Unified NOMA Framework in Beam-Hopping Satellite Communication Systems

This paper investigates the application of a unified non-orthogonal multiple access framework in beam hopping (U-NOMA-BH) based satellite communication systems. More specifically, the proposed U-NOMA-BH framework can be applied to code-domain NOMA based BH (CD-NOMA-BH) and power-domain NOMA based BH (PD-NOMA-BH) systems. To satisfy dynamic-uneven traffic demands, we formulate the optimization problem to minimize the square of discrete difference by jointly optimizing power allocation, carrier assignment and beam scheduling. The non-convexity of the objective function and the constraint condition is solved through Dinkelbach's transform and variable relaxation. As a further development, the closed-from and asymptotic expressions of outage probability are derived for CD/PD-NOMA-BH systems. Based on approximated results, the diversity orders of a pair of users are obtained in detail. In addition, the system throughput of U-NOMA-BH is discussed in delay-limited transmission mode. Numerical results verify that: i) The gap between traffic requests of CD/PD-NOMA-BH systems appears to be more closely compared with orthogonal multiple access based BH (OMA-BH); ii) The CD-NOMA-BH system is capable of providing the enhanced traffic request and capacity provision; and iii) The outage behaviors of CD/PD-NOMA-BH are better than that of OMA-BH.

Social Interaction-Aware Dynamical Models and Decision Making for Autonomous Vehicles

Interaction-aware Autonomous Driving (IAAD) is a rapidly growing field of research that focuses on the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) that are capable of interacting safely and efficiently with human road users. This is a challenging task, as it requires the autonomous vehicle to be able to understand and predict the behaviour of human road users. In this literature review, the current state of IAAD research is surveyed in this work. Commencing with an examination of terminology, attention is drawn to challenges and existing models employed for modelling the behaviour of drivers and pedestrians. Next, a comprehensive review is conducted on various techniques proposed for interaction modelling, encompassing cognitive methods, machine learning approaches, and game-theoretic methods. The conclusion is reached through a discussion of potential advantages and risks associated with IAAD, along with the illumination of pivotal research inquiries necessitating future exploration.

Soft Demodulator for Symbol-Level Precoding in Coded Multiuser MISO Systems

In this paper, we consider symbol-level precoding (SLP) in channel-coded multiuser multi-input single-output (MISO) systems. It is observed that the received SLP signals do not always follow Gaussian distribution, rendering the conventional soft demodulation with the Gaussian assumption unsuitable for the coded SLP systems. It, therefore, calls for novel soft demodulator designs for non-Gaussian distributed SLP signals with accurate log-likelihood ratio (LLR) calculation. To this end, we first investigate the non-Gaussian characteristics of both phase-shift keying (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) received signals with existing SLP schemes and categorize the signals into two distinct types. The first type exhibits an approximate-Gaussian distribution with the outliers extending along the constructive interference region (CIR). In contrast, the second type follows some distribution that significantly deviates from the Gaussian distribution. To obtain accurate LLR, we propose the modified Gaussian soft demodulator and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) soft demodulators to deal with two types of signals respectively. Subsequently, to further reduce the computational complexity and pilot overhead, we put forward a novel neural soft demodulator, named pilot feature extraction network (PFEN), leveraging the transformer mechanism in deep learning. Simulation results show that the proposed soft demodulators dramatically improve the throughput of existing SLPs for both PSK and QAM transmission in coded systems.

Symbol-Level Precoding for Average SER Minimization in Multiuser MISO Systems

This paper investigates symbol-level precoding (SLP) for high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) aimed at minimizing the average symbol error rate (SER), leveraging both constructive interference (CI) and noise power to gain superiority in full signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) ranges. We first construct the SER expression with respect to the transmitted signal and the rescaling factor, based on which the problem of average SER minimization subject to total transmit power constraint is further formulated. Given the non-convex nature of the objective, solving the above problem becomes challenging. Due to the differences in constraints between the transmit signal and the rescaling factor, we propose the double-space alternating optimization (DSAO) algorithm to optimize the two variables on orthogonal Stiefel manifold and Euclidean spaces, respectively. To facilitate QAM demodulation instead of affording impractical signaling overhead, we further develop a block transmission scheme to keep the rescaling factor constant within a block. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed SLP scheme exhibits a significant performance advantage over existing state-of-the-art SLP schemes.

Learning nonparametric DAGs with incremental information via high-order HSIC

Score-based methods for learning Bayesain networks(BN) aim to maximizing the global score functions. However, if local variables have direct and indirect dependence simultaneously, the global optimization on score functions misses edges between variables with indirect dependent relationship, of which scores are smaller than those with direct dependent relationship. In this paper, we present an identifiability condition based on a determined subset of parents to identify the underlying DAG. By the identifiability condition, we develop a two-phase algorithm namely optimal-tuning (OT) algorithm to locally amend the global optimization. In the optimal phase, an optimization problem based on first-order Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion (HSIC) gives an estimated skeleton as the initial determined parents subset. In the tuning phase, the skeleton is locally tuned by deletion, addition and DAG-formalization strategies using the theoretically proved incremental properties of high-order HSIC. Numerical experiments for different synthetic datasets and real-world datasets show that the OT algorithm outperforms existing methods. Especially in Sigmoid Mix model with the size of the graph being ${\rm\bf d=40}$, the structure intervention distance (SID) of the OT algorithm is 329.7 smaller than the one obtained by CAM, which indicates that the graph estimated by the OT algorithm misses fewer edges compared with CAM.

Interruption-Aware Cooperative Perception for V2X Communication-Aided Autonomous Driving

Cooperative perception enabled by V2X Communication technologies can significantly improve the perception performance of autonomous vehicles beyond the limited perception ability of the individual vehicles, therefore, improving the safety and efficiency of autonomous driving in intelligent transportation systems. However, in order to fully reap the benefits of cooperative perception in practice, the impacts of imperfect V2X communication, i.e., communication errors and disruptions, need to be understood and effective remedies need to be developed to alleviate their adverse impacts. Motivated by this need, we propose a novel INterruption-aware robust COoperative Perception (V2X-INCOP) solution for V2X communication-aided autonomous driving, which leverages historical information to recover missing information due to interruption. To achieve comprehensive recovery, we design a communication adaptive multi-scale spatial-temporal prediction model to extract multi-scale spatial-temporal features based on V2X communication conditions and capture the most significant information for the prediction of the missing information. To further improve recovery performance, we adopt a knowledge distillation framework to give direct supervision to the prediction model and a curriculum learning strategy to stabilize the training of the model. Our experiments on three public cooperative perception datasets demonstrate that our proposed method is effective in alleviating the impacts of communication interruption on cooperative perception.