Wireless Sensing via Pinching-Antenna Systems

A wireless sensing architecture via pinching antenna systems is proposed. Compared to conventional wireless systems, PASS offers flexible antenna deployment and improved probing performance for wireless sensing by leveraging dielectric waveguides and pinching antennas (PAs). To enhance signal reception, leaky coaxial (LCX) cables are used to uniformly collect echo signals over a wide area. The Cram\'er-Rao bound (CRB) for multi-target sensing is derived and then minimized through the joint optimization of the transmit waveform and the positions of PAs. To solve the resulting highly coupled, non-convex problem, a two-stage particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based algorithm is proposed. Numerical results demonstrate significant gains in sensing accuracy and robustness over conventional sensing systems, highlighting the benefits of integrating LCX-based reception with optimized PASS configurations.

Rate Region of ISAC for Pinching-Antenna Systems

The Pinching-Antenna SyStem (PASS) reconstructs wireless channels through \emph{pinching beamforming}, wherein the activated positions of pinching antennas along dielectric waveguides are optimized to shape the radiation pattern. The aim of this article is to analyze the performance limits of employing PASS in integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). Specifically, a PASS-assisted ISAC system is considered, where a pinched waveguide is utilized to simultaneously communicate with a user and sense a target. Closed-form expressions for the achievable communication rate (CR) and sensing rate (SR) are derived to characterize the information-theoretic limits of this dual-functional operation. \romannumeral1) For the single-pinch case, closed-form solutions for the optimal pinching antenna location are derived under \emph{sensing-centric (S-C)}, \emph{communications-centric (C-C)}, and \emph{Pareto-optimal} designs. On this basis, the CR-SR trade-off is characterized by deriving the full CR-SR rate region, which is shown to encompass that of conventional fixed-antenna systems. \romannumeral2) For the multiple-pinch case, an antenna location refinement method is applied to obtain the optimal C-C and S-C pinching beamformers. As a further advance, inner and outer bounds on the achievable CR-SR region are derived using an element-wise alternating optimization technique and by invoking Cauchy-Schwarz and Karamata's inequalities, respectively. Numerical results demonstrate that: \romannumeral1) the derived bounds closely approximate the true CR-SR region; and \romannumeral2) PASS can achieve a significantly larger rate region than conventional-antenna systems.

Pinching-Antenna Systems (PASS): Power Radiation Model and Optimal Beamforming Design

Pinching-antenna systems (PASS) improve wireless links by configuring the locations of activated pinching antennas along dielectric waveguides, namely pinching beamforming. In this paper, a novel adjustable power radiation model is proposed for PASS, where power radiation ratios of pinching antennas can be flexibly controlled by tuning the spacing between pinching antennas and waveguides. A closed-form pinching antenna spacing arrangement strategy is derived to achieve the commonly assumed equal-power radiation. Based on this, a practical PASS framework relying on discrete activation is considered, where pinching antennas can only be activated among a set of predefined locations. A transmit power minimization problem is formulated, which jointly optimizes the transmit beamforming, pinching beamforming, and the numbers of activated pinching antennas, subject to each user's minimum rate requirement. (1) To solve the resulting highly coupled mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, branch-and-bound (BnB)-based algorithms are proposed for both single-user and multi-user scenarios, which is guaranteed to converge to globally optimal solutions. (2) A low-complexity many-to-many matching algorithm is further developed. Combined with the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) theory, locally optimal and pairwise-stable solutions are obtained within polynomial-time complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that: (i) PASS significantly outperforms conventional multi-antenna architectures, particularly when the number of users and the spatial range increase; and (ii) The proposed matching-based algorithm achieves near-optimal performance, resulting in only a slight performance loss while significantly reducing computational overheads. Code is available at https://github.com/xiaoxiaxusummer/PASS_Discrete

Pinching-Antenna System (PASS) Enhanced Covert Communications

A Pinching-Antenna SyStem (PASS)-assisted convert communication framework is proposed. PASS utilizes dielectric waveguides with freely positioned pinching antennas (PAs) to establish strong line-of-sight links. Capitalizing on this high reconfigurable flexibility of antennas, the potential of PASS for covert communications is investigated. 1)~For the single-waveguide single-PA (SWSP) scenario, a closed-form optimal PA position that maximizes the covert rate is first derived. Subsequently, a one-dimensional power search is employed to enable low-complexity optimization for covert communications. With antenna mobility on a scale of meters, PASS can deal with the challenging situation of the eavesdropper enjoying better channel conditions than the legal user. 2)~For the multi-waveguide multi-PA (MWMP) scenario, the positions of multiple PAs are optimized to enable effective pinching beamforming, thereby enhancing the covert rate. To address the resultant multimodal joint transmit and pinching beamforming problem, a twin particle swarm optimization (TwinPSO) approach is proposed. Numerical results demonstrate that: i)~the proposed approaches can effectively resolve the optimization problems; ii)~PASS achieves a higher covert rate than conventional fixed-position antenna architectures; and iii)~with enhanced flexibility, the MWMP setup outperforms the SWSP counterpart.

Near-Field Motion Parameter Estimation: A Variational Bayesian Approach

A near-field motion parameter estimation method is proposed. In contract to far-field sensing systems, the near-field sensing system leverages spherical-wave characteristics to enable full-vector location and velocity estimation. Despite promising advantages, the near-field sensing system faces a significant challenge, where location and velocity parameters are intricately coupled within the signal. To address this challenge, a novel subarray-based variational message passing (VMP) method is proposed for near-field joint location and velocity estimation. First, a factor graph representation is introduced, employing subarray-level directional and Doppler parameters as intermediate variables to decouple the complex location-velocity dependencies. Based on this, the variational Bayesian inference is employed to obtain closed-form posterior distributions of subarray-level parameters. Subsequently, the message passing technique is employed, enabling tractable computation of location and velocity marginal distributions. Two implementation strategies are proposed: 1) System-level fusion that aggregates all subarray posteriors for centralized estimation, or 2) Subarray-level fusion where locally processed estimates from subarrays are fused through Guassian product rule. Cram\'er-Rao bounds for location and velocity estimation are derived, providing theoretical performance limits. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed VMP method outperforms existing approaches while achieving a magnitude lower complexity. Specifically, the proposed VMP method achieves centimeter-level location accuracy and sub-m/s velocity accuracy. It also demonstrates robust performance for high-mobility targets, making the proposed VMP method suitable for real-time near-field sensing and communication applications.

Pinching Antenna Systems (PASS): Architecture Designs, Opportunities, and Outlook

This article proposes a novel design for the Pinching Antenna Systems (PASS) and advocates simple yet efficient wireless communications over the `last meter'. First, the potential benefits of PASS are discussed by reviewing an existing prototype. Then, the fundamentals of PASS are introduced, including physical principles, signal models, and communication designs. In contrast to existing multi-antenna systems, PASS brings a novel concept termed \emph{Pinching Beamforming}, which is achieved by dynamically adjusting the positions of PAs. Based on this concept, a couple of practical transmission architectures are proposed for employing PASS, namely non-multiplexing and multiplexing architectures. More particularly, 1) The non-multiplexing architecture is featured by simple baseband signal processing and relies only on the pinching beamforming; while 2) the multiplexing architecture provides enhanced signal manipulation capabilities with joint baseband and pinching beamforming, which is further divided into sub-connected, fully-connected, and phase-shifter-based fully-connected schemes. Furthermore, several emerging scenarios are put forward for integrating PASS into future wireless networks. As a further advance, by demonstrating a few numerical case studies, the significant performance gain of PASS is revealed compared to conventional multi-antenna systems. Finally, several research opportunities and open problems of PASS are highlighted.

Array Gain for Pinching-Antenna Systems (PASS)

Pinching antennas is a novel flexible-antenna technology, which can be realized by employing small dielectric particles on a waveguide. The aim of this letter is to characterize the array gain achieved by pinching-antenna systems (PASS). A closed-form upper bound on the array gain is derived by fixing the inter-antenna spacing. Asymptotic analyses of this bound are conducted by considering an infinitely large number of antennas, demonstrating the existence of an optimal number of antennas that maximizes the array gain. The relationship between the array gain and inter-antenna spacing is further explored by incorporating the effect of mutual coupling. It is proven that there also exists an optimal inter-antenna spacing that maximizes the array gain. Numerical results demonstrate that by optimizing the number of antennas and inter-antenna spacing, PASS can achieve a significantly larger array gain than conventional fixed-location antenna systems.

Secure Beamforming for Continuous Aperture Array (CAPA) Systems

Continuous aperture array (CAPA) is considered a promising technology for 6G networks, offering the potential to fully exploit spatial DoFs and achieve the theoretical limits of channel capacity. This paper investigates the performance gain of a CAPA-based downlink secure transmission system, where multiple legitimate user terminals (LUTs) coexist with multiple eavesdroppers (Eves). The system's secrecy performance is evaluated using a weighted secrecy sum-rate (WSSR) under a power constraint. We then propose two solutions for the secure current pattern design. The first solution is a block coordinate descent (BCD) optimization method based on fractional programming, which introduces a continuous-function inversion theory corresponding to matrix inversion in the discrete domain. This approach derives a closed-form expression for the optimal source current pattern. Based on this, it can be found that the optimal current pattern is essentially a linear combination of the channel spatial responses, thus eliminating the need for complex integration operations during the algorithm's optimization process. The second solution is a heuristic algorithm based on Zero-Forcing (ZF), which constructs a zero-leakage current pattern using the channel correlation matrix. It further employs a water-filling approach to design an optimal power allocation scheme that maximizes the WSSR. In high SNR regions, this solution gradually approaches the first solution, ensuring zero leakage while offering lower computational complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that: 1) CAPA-based systems achieve better WSSR compared to discrete multiple-input multiple-output systems. 2) The proposed methods, whether optimization-based or heuristic, provide significant performance improvements over existing state-of-the-art Fourier-based discretization methods, while considerably reducing computational complexity.

Cramér-Rao Bound Optimization for Near-Field Sensing with Continuous-Aperture Arrays

A Cram\'er-Rao bound (CRB) optimization framework for near-field sensing (NISE) with continuous-aperture arrays (CAPAs) is proposed. In contrast to conventional spatially discrete arrays (SPDAs), CAPAs emit electromagnetic (EM) probing signals through continuous source currents for target sensing, thereby exploiting the full spatial degrees of freedom (DoFs). The maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method for estimating target locations in the near-field region is developed. To evaluate the NISE performance with CAPAs, the CRB for estimating target locations is derived based on continuous transmit and receive array responses of CAPAs. Subsequently, a CRB minimization problem is formulated to optimize the continuous source current of CAPAs. This results in a non-convex, integral-based functional optimization problem. To address this challenge, the optimal structure of the source current is derived and proven to be spanned by a series of basis functions determined by the system geometry. To solve the CRB minimization problem, a low-complexity subspace manifold gradient descent (SMGD) method is proposed, leveraging the derived optimal structure of the source current. Our simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed SMGD method and further demonstrate that i)~the proposed SMGD method can effectively solve the CRB minimization problem with reduced computational complexity, and ii)~CAPA achieves a tenfold improvement in sensing performance compared to its SPDA counterpart, due to full exploitation of spatial DoFs.

CAPA: Continuous-Aperture Arrays for Revolutionizing 6G Wireless Communications

In this paper, a novel continuous-aperture array (CAPA)-based wireless communication architecture is proposed, which relies on an electrically large aperture with a continuous current distribution. First, an existing prototype of CAPA is reviewed, followed by the potential benefits and key motivations for employing CAPAs in wireless communications. Then, three practical hardware implementation approaches for CAPAs are introduced based on electronic, optical, and acoustic materials. Furthermore, several beamforming approaches are proposed to optimize the continuous current distributions of CAPAs, which are fundamentally different from those used for conventional spatially discrete arrays (SPDAs). Numerical results are provided to demonstrate their key features in low complexity and near-optimality. Based on these proposed approaches, the performance gains of CAPAs over SPDAs are revealed in terms of channel capacity as well as diversity-multiplexing gains. Finally, several open research problems in CAPA are highlighted.