ATASI-Net: An Efficient Sparse Reconstruction Network for Tomographic SAR Imaging with Adaptive Threshold

Tomographic SAR technique has attracted remarkable interest for its ability of three-dimensional resolving along the elevation direction via a stack of SAR images collected from different cross-track angles. The emerged compressed sensing (CS)-based algorithms have been introduced into TomoSAR considering its super-resolution ability with limited samples. However, the conventional CS-based methods suffer from several drawbacks, including weak noise resistance, high computational complexity, and complex parameter fine-tuning. Aiming at efficient TomoSAR imaging, this paper proposes a novel efficient sparse unfolding network based on the analytic learned iterative shrinkage thresholding algorithm (ALISTA) architecture with adaptive threshold, named Adaptive Threshold ALISTA-based Sparse Imaging Network (ATASI-Net). The weight matrix in each layer of ATASI-Net is pre-computed as the solution of an off-line optimization problem, leaving only two scalar parameters to be learned from data, which significantly simplifies the training stage. In addition, adaptive threshold is introduced for each azimuth-range pixel, enabling the threshold shrinkage to be not only layer-varied but also element-wise. Moreover, the final learned thresholds can be visualized and combined with the SAR image semantics for mutual feedback. Finally, extensive experiments on simulated and real data are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.

Open-Set Object Detection Using Classification-free Object Proposal and Instance-level Contrastive Learning with Appendix

Detecting both known and unknown objects is a fundamental skill for robot manipulation in unstructured environments. Open-set object detection (OSOD) is a promising direction to handle the problem consisting of two subtasks: objects and background separation, and open-set object classification. In this paper, we present Openset RCNN to address the challenging OSOD. To disambiguate unknown objects and background in the first subtask, we propose to use classification-free region proposal network (CF-RPN) which estimates the objectness score of each region purely using cues from object's location and shape preventing overfitting to the training categories. To identify unknown objects in the second subtask, we propose to represent them using the complementary region of known categories in a latent space which is accomplished by a prototype learning network (PLN). PLN performs instance-level contrastive learning to encode proposals to a latent space and builds a compact region centering with a prototype for each known category. Further, we note that the detection performance of unknown objects can not be unbiasedly evaluated on the situation that commonly used object detection datasets are not fully annotated. Thus, a new benchmark is introduced by reorganizing GraspNet-1billion, a robotic grasp pose detection dataset with complete annotation. Extensive experiments demonstrate the merits of our method. We finally show that our Openset RCNN can endow the robot with an open-set perception ability to support robotic rearrangement tasks in cluttered environments. More details can be found in https://sites.google.com/view/openest-rcnn/

Compressive Spectrum Sensing Using Blind-Block Orthogonal Least Squares

Compressive sensing (CS) has recently emerged as an extremely efficient technology of the wideband spectrum sensing. In compressive spectrum sensing (CSS), it is necessary to know the sparsity or the noise information in advance for reliable reconstruction. However, such information is usually absent in practical applications. In this paper, we propose a blind-block orthogonal least squares-based compressive spectrum sensing (B-BOLS-CSS) algorithm, which utilizes a novel blind stopping rule to cut the cords to these prior information. Specifically, we first present both the noiseless and noisy recovery guarantees for the BOLS algorithm based on the mutual incoherence property (MIP). Motivated by them, we then formulate the blind stopping rule, which exploits an $\ell_{2,\infty}$ sufficient statistic to blindly test the support atoms in the remaining measurement matrix. We further evaluate the theoretical performance analysis of the holistic B-BOLS-CSS algorithm by developing a lower bound of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to ensure that the probability of exact recovery is no lower than a given threshold. Simulations not only demonstrate the improvement of our derived theoretical results, but also illustrate that B-BOLS-CSS works well in both low and high SNR environments.

Compressive Spectrum Sensing Using Sampling-Controlled Block Orthogonal Matching Pursuit

This paper proposes two novel schemes of wideband compressive spectrum sensing (CSS) via block orthogonal matching pursuit (BOMP) algorithm, for achieving high sensing accuracy in real time. These schemes aim to reliably recover the spectrum by adaptively adjusting the number of required measurements without inducing unnecessary sampling redundancy. To this end, the minimum number of required measurements for successful recovery is first derived in terms of its probabilistic lower bound. Then, a CSS scheme is proposed by tightening the derived lower bound, where the key is the design of a nonlinear exponential indicator through a general-purpose sampling-controlled algorithm (SCA). In particular, a sampling-controlled BOMP (SC-BOMP) is developed through a holistic integration of the existing BOMP and the proposed SCA. For fast implementation, a modified version of SC-BOMP is further developed by exploring the block orthogonality in the form of sub-coherence of measurement matrices, which allows more compressive sampling in terms of smaller lower bound of the number of measurements. Such a fast SC-BOMP scheme achieves a desired tradeoff between the complexity and the performance. Simulations demonstrate that the two SC-BOMP schemes outperform the other benchmark algorithms.

HAQJSK: Hierarchical-Aligned Quantum Jensen-Shannon Kernels for Graph Classification

In this work, we propose a family of novel quantum kernels, namely the Hierarchical Aligned Quantum Jensen-Shannon Kernels (HAQJSK), for un-attributed graphs. Different from most existing classical graph kernels, the proposed HAQJSK kernels can incorporate hierarchical aligned structure information between graphs and transform graphs of random sizes into fixed-sized aligned graph structures, i.e., the Hierarchical Transitive Aligned Adjacency Matrix of vertices and the Hierarchical Transitive Aligned Density Matrix of the Continuous-Time Quantum Walk (CTQW). For a pair of graphs to hand, the resulting HAQJSK kernels are defined by measuring the Quantum Jensen-Shannon Divergence (QJSD) between their transitive aligned graph structures. We show that the proposed HAQJSK kernels not only reflect richer intrinsic global graph characteristics in terms of the CTQW, but also address the drawback of neglecting structural correspondence information arising in most existing R-convolution kernels. Furthermore, unlike the previous Quantum Jensen-Shannon Kernels associated with the QJSD and the CTQW, the proposed HAQJSK kernels can simultaneously guarantee the properties of permutation invariant and positive definiteness, explaining the theoretical advantages of the HAQJSK kernels. Experiments indicate the effectiveness of the proposed kernels.

Downlink Massive MIMO Channel Estimation via Deep Unrolling : Sparsity Exploitations in Angular Domain

In frequency division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO systems, reliable downlink channel estimation is essential for the subsequent data transmission but is realized at the cost of massive pilot overhead due to hundreds of antennas at base station (BS). In order to reduce the pilot overhead without compromising the estimation, compressive sensing (CS) based methods have been widely applied for channel estimation by exploiting the inherent sparse structure of massive MIMO channel in angular domain. However, they still suffer from high complexity during optimization process and the requirement of prior knowledge on sparsity information. To overcome these challenges, this paper develops a novel hybrid channel estimation framework by integrating the model-driven CS and data-driven deep unrolling techniques. The proposed framework is composed of a coarse estimation part and a fine correction part, which is implemented in a two-stage manner to exploit both inter- and intra-frame sparsities of channels in angular domain. Then, two estimation schemes are designed depending on whether priori sparsity information is required, where the second scheme designs a new thresholding function to eliminate such requirement. Numerical results are provided to verify that our schemes can achieve high accuracy with low pilot overhead and low complexity.

Efficient Wideband DoA Estimation with a Robust Iterative Method in UCA-based MIMO Systems

In multiple-input multiple-output systems, direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation is a critical technique as the basis of precoding and beamforming. With the ever-increasing requirement of high data rate and ubiquitous devices, effective wideband DoA estimation is desirable. In this paper, we propose an iterative coherent signal-subspace method including three steps in each iteration for two-dimensional (2D) DoA estimation with a uniform circular array. The first step selects partial frequency points for the subsequent focusing process to reduce unnecessary complexity. The second step realizes the focusing process, where we provide angle intervals to generate focusing matrices with robustness, and the signal-subspaces at the selected frequency points are focused into a reference frequency. The third step estimates DoAs with the multiple signal classification algorithm where the range of the spatial spectrum is constrained by the aforementioned angle intervals, thereby further reducing the complexity. The key parameters of the proposed method in the current iteration are adjusted based on the previous estimation results. In addition, we derive the Cram\'er-Rao bound of the investigated wideband 2D DoA estimation to provide guidance for practical applications. The simulation results indicate that our proposed method enjoys better performance and implementation efficiency when compared with benchmark methods.

Distributed Swarm Learning for Internet of Things at the Edge: Where Artificial Intelligence Meets Biological Intelligence

With the proliferation of versatile Internet of Things (IoT) services, smart IoT devices are increasingly deployed at the edge of wireless networks to perform collaborative machine learning tasks using locally collected data, giving rise to the edge learning paradigm. Due to device restrictions and resource constraints, edge learning among massive IoT devices faces major technical challenges caused by the communication bottleneck, data and device heterogeneity, non-convex optimization, privacy and security concerns, and dynamic environments. To overcome these challenges, this article studies a new framework of distributed swarm learning (DSL) through a holistic integration of artificial intelligence and biological swarm intelligence. Leveraging efficient and robust signal processing and communication techniques, DSL contributes to novel tools for learning and optimization tailored for real-time operations of large-scale IoT in edge wireless environments, which will benefit a wide range of edge IoT applications.

Robust Distributed Learning Against Both Distributional Shifts and Byzantine Attacks

In distributed learning systems, robustness issues may arise from two sources. On one hand, due to distributional shifts between training data and test data, the trained model could exhibit poor out-of-sample performance. On the other hand, a portion of working nodes might be subject to byzantine attacks which could invalidate the learning result. Existing works mostly deal with these two issues separately. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm that equips distributed learning with robustness measures against both distributional shifts and byzantine attacks. Our algorithm is built on recent advances in distributionally robust optimization as well as norm-based screening (NBS), a robust aggregation scheme against byzantine attacks. We provide convergence proofs in three cases of the learning model being nonconvex, convex, and strongly convex for the proposed algorithm, shedding light on its convergence behaviors and endurability against byzantine attacks. In particular, we deduce that any algorithm employing NBS (including ours) cannot converge when the percentage of byzantine nodes is 1/3 or higher, instead of 1/2, which is the common belief in current literature. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm against both robustness issues. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to address distributional shifts and byzantine attacks simultaneously.