Consider the following problem: A multi-antenna base station (BS) sends multiple symbol streams to multiple single-antenna users via precoding. However, unlike conventional multiuser precoding, the transmitted signals are subjected to binary, unit-modulus, or even discrete unit-modulus constraints. Such constraints arise in the one-bit and constant-envelope (CE) massive MIMO scenarios, wherein high-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are replaced by one-bit DACs and phase shifters, respectively, for cutting down hardware cost and energy consumption. Multiuser precoding under one-bit and CE restrictions poses significant design difficulty. In this paper we establish a framework for designing multiuser precoding under the one-bit, continuous CE and discrete CE scenarios—all within one theme. We first formulate a precoding design that focuses on minimization of the symbol-error probabilities (SEPs), assuming quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) symbol constellations. We then devise an algorithm for our SEP-based design. The algorithm combines i) a novel penalty method for handling binary, unit-modulus and discrete unit-modulus constraints; and ii) a first-order non-convex optimization recipe custom-built for the design. Specifically, the latter is an inexact majorization-minimization method via accelerated projected gradient, which, as shown by simulations, runs very fast and can handle a large number of decision variables. Simulation results indicate that the proposed design offers significantly better bit-error rate performance than the existing designs.

This letter investigates a fluid antenna (FA)-assisted integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, with joint antenna position optimization and waveform design. We consider enhancing the sum-rate maximization (SRM) and sensing performance with the aid of FAs. Although the introduction of FAs brings more degrees of freedom for performance optimization, its position optimization poses a non-convex programming problem and brings great computational challenges. This letter contributes to building an efficient design algorithm by the block successive upper bound minimization and majorization-minimization principles, with each step admitting closed-form update for the ISAC waveform design. In addition, the extrapolation technique is exploited further to speed up the empirical convergence of FA position design. Simulation results show that the proposed design can achieve state-of-the-art sum-rate performance with at least 60% computation cutoff compared to existing works with successive convex approximation (SCA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms.

In this paper we consider maximum-likelihood (ML) MIMO detection under one-bit quantized observations and binary symbol constellations. This problem is motivated by the recent interest in adopting coarse quantization in massive MIMO systems---as an effective way to scale down the hardware complexity and energy consumption. Classical MIMO detection techniques consider unquantized observations, and many of them are not applicable to the one-bit MIMO case. We develop a new non-convex optimization algorithm for the one-bit ML MIMO detection problem, using a strategy called homotopy optimization. The idea is to transform the ML problem into a sequence of approximate problems, from easy (convex) to hard (close to ML), and with each problem being a gradual modification of its previous. Then, our attempt is to iteratively trace the solution path of these approximate problems. This homotopy algorithm is well suited to the application of deep unfolding, a recently popular approach for turning certain model-based algorithms into data-driven, and performance enhanced, ones. While our initial focus is on one-bit MIMO detection, the proposed technique also applies naturally to the classical unquantized MIMO detection. We performed extensive simulations and show that the proposed homotopy algorithms, both non-deep and deep, have satisfactory bit-error probability performance compared to many state-of-the-art algorithms. Also, the deep homotopy algorithm has attractively low computational complexity.

Coarsely quantized MIMO signalling methods have gained popularity in the recent developments of massive MIMO as they open up opportunities for massive MIMO implementation using cheap and power-efficient radio-frequency front-ends. This paper presents a new one-bit MIMO precoding approach using spatial Sigma-Delta (∑Δ) modulation. In previous one-bit MIMO precoding research, one mainly focuses on using optimization to tackle the difficult binary signal optimization problem that arise from the precoding design. Our approach attempts a different route. Assuming angular MIMO channels, we apply ∑Δ modulation—a classical concept in analog-to-digital conversion of temporal signals—in space. The resulting ∑Δ precoding approach has two main advantages: First, we no longer need to deal with binary optimization in ∑Δ precoding design. Particularly, the binary signal restriction is replaced by convex signal amplitude constraints. Second, the impact of the quantization error can be well controlled via modulator design and under appropriate operating conditions. Through symbol error probability analysis, we reveal that the very large number of antennas in massive MIMO provides favorable operating conditions for ∑Δ precoding. In addition, we develop a new ∑Δ modulation architecture that is capable of adapting the channel to achieve nearly zero quantization error for a targeted user. Furthermore, we consider multi-user ∑Δ precoding using the zero-forcing and symbol-level precoding schemes. These two ∑Δ precoding schemes perform considerably better than their direct one-bit quantized counterparts, as simulation results show.

This paper presents a low-complexity deep neural network (DNN)based multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) detector for the BPSK and QPSK constellation cases. We employ deep unfolding, whose idea is to take insight from the structure of an iterative optimization algorithm and attempt to learn a better iterative algorithm. The structure of the network is obtained from an iterative algorithm arising from the application of ADMM to the maximum-likelihood MIMO detection problem. The number of parameters to be learnt in this new design is less than that of DetNet, a recently proposed DNN-based MIMO detector. Our numerical experiments illustrate that the new method outperforms DetNet and several existing MIMO detectors in the large-scale MIMO case. In particular, we show that for a 160×160 MIMO system, our DNN design, with 40 layers, can attain nearly optimal bit-error rate performance.

Recently, the use of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has gained considerable attention in wireless communications. By intelligently adjusting the passive reflection angle, IRS is able to assist the base station (BS) to extend the coverage and improve spectral efficiency. This paper considers a joint symbol-level precoding (SLP) and IRS reflecting design to minimize the symbol-error probability (SEP) of the intended users in an IRS-aided multiuser MISO downlink. We formulate the SEP minimization problems to pursue uniformly good performance for all users for both QAM and PSK constellations. The resulting problem is non-convex and we resort to alternating minimization to obtain a stationary solution. Simulation results demonstrate that under the aid of IRS our proposed design indeed enhances the bit-error rate performance. In particular, the performance improvement is significant when the number of IRS elements is large.