Signal Processing
Papers
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Electrical Engineering and Systems Science Signal Processing
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Tuesday 18 August
Impulsive noise (IN), characterized by its high power and non-Gaussian distribution, poses a critical challenge in modern orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, driven by the proliferation of electronic devices. Current IN mitigation techniques rely heavily on time-domain processing. These methods are applied before the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), introducing additional complexity, failing to align with OFDM's inherent frequency-domain processing flow, and risking the destruction of subcarrier orthogonality due to imperfect IN subtraction. To address these limitations, we propose a frequency-domain, block-based framework for mitigating IN. The statistical representation of IN in the frequency domain is first derived using a transformed Gaussian mixture model. Based on this model, we develop an optimal receiver that leverages perfect noise state information (NSI), thereby identifying scenarios in which NSI is critical. We then propose an unsupervised block-based expectation-maximization (EM) framework for NSI estimation and develop three variants for evaluation. These include a simple symbol-by-symbol variance-updated EM, a sequence-based transition-updated EM, and a MAP-based EM that exploits a sparsity-promoting prior to automatically prune the number of states. Our frequency-domain design operates after the DFT, seamlessly integrates with the OFDM processing chain, preserves subcarrier orthogonality, and leverages the known IN block structure to achieve substantial performance gains without the immense complexity of time-domain impulse reconstruction.
Signal Processing
Empirical mode decomposition and interpretable machine learning for preterm birth classification from electrohysterography
Preterm birth (PTB) remains a major global health problem, and reliable non-invasive risk assessment remains difficult. Electrohysterography (EHG) records uterine electrical activity from the maternal abdomen and may support PTB assessment, but performance can be inflated when segments from the same recording are split across training and validation folds. We evaluated empirical mode decomposition (EMD) for term-versus-preterm classification using 26 pregnancy recordings (13 preterm, 13 term) from the public TPEHGT dataset. Annotated intervals and non-overlapping fixed 3-minute windows were compared, and the first four intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) were evaluated. Fourteen features from each of three EHG channels were assessed with nine classifiers using repeated five-fold recording-grouped cross-validation and recording-level aggregation. IMF1 gave the strongest mean performance. With fixed 3-minute IMF1 features, Random Forest achieved mean accuracy 0.8308, F1 0.7969, balanced accuracy 0.8308, MCC 0.6998, ROC-AUC 0.8157, and average precision 0.8877. IMF1 also outperformed matched filtered time-domain features across all reported mean metrics. Preterm recordings showed smaller, more regularly spaced peak-like events, lower temporal-energy measures, and higher entropy. These findings support further evaluation of IMF1-based EHG classification in larger independent cohorts.
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Signal Processing
On the Probability of Network States with Gaussian Connectivity Functions
In this paper, we consider the connectivity of a random network of N mobile devices in three dimensions (3D), where the location of each device or node has a Gaussian distribution in each dimension. For each pair of nodes, the probability of connectivity is related to the nodes' separation by a Gaussian connectivity function. The fundamental analytical tool for studying such systems is the probability of a given network state, derived and expressed in terms of its graph Laplacian. Leveraging this result, we obtain results for the connectivity of small networks, the probability of a complete network (where all nodes are connected to all other nodes), and the probability of an isolated node, which gives an approximation to the connectivity probability of larger networks. The general results are then simplified for special cases and limiting scenarios.
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Signal Processing
Geometry-Aware DRL for Multi-Subband Scheduling in Satellite-Assisted UAM Networks
In this paper, we investigate downlink scheduling for urban air mobility (UAM) in a cooperative space-air-ground integrated network. Multiple ground stations (GSs) employ narrow three-dimensional beams and share spectrum across multiple subbands, while a satellite provides an orthogonal-band service option. Rapidly time-varying geometry and directional interference require joint decisions on base station association, GS subband assignment, and transmit powers. We formulate a finite-horizon mixed discrete-continuous problem that maximizes sum rate while penalizing handovers and GS overload, using only UAM positions and velocities. To address the combinatorial scheduling problem, we propose GeoSetPPO, a geometry-aware set-attention proximal policy optimization (PPO) method that outputs per-UAM discrete association and subband decisions with permutation-invariant representations. Conditioned on each schedule, GS powers are computed by a per-slot successive convex approximation (SCA) module under per-GS power budgets and minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints. To reduce training cost and improve stability, we adopt a two-stage training strategy that transitions reward evaluation from uniform power to SCA-based power allocation. Simulations demonstrate stable convergence, higher returns than multi-layer perceptron (MLP)- and Transformer-based PPO under the considered training setting, and favorable reward and schedule-feasibility performance relative to algorithm-based and distance-based schedulers. In the larger evaluated network, GeoSetPPO also reduces the scheduling latency from 40.84 ms to 2.90 ms relative to the previous algorithm-based method.
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Signal Processing
Channel2World: A Wireless Foundation Model for RF Environment Representation
Wireless channels are commonly treated as link-specific observations, although their multipath structure is governed by the surrounding radio-frequency (RF) environment. In this paper, we propose Channel2World, a wireless foundation model that learns a reusable environment-level representation from multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel-position observations. The model aggregates channels collected within the same base-station-centered environment into a wireless world embedding using a Transformer-based encoder. The encoder is pretrained through context-query prediction, where context channels condition user equipment (UE) position and relative path-gain prediction for disjoint query channels. After pretraining, the encoder is frozen and used as a task-agnostic environment-conditioning module for downstream wireless models, enabling adaptation to unseen environments without site-specific fine-tuning. To learn an environment-level latent space that generalizes across deployments, we pretrain Channel2World using ray-tracing data from 26,000 environments, with approximately 5,000 channel measurements per environment. Evaluations on UE localization, beam-domain channel state information (CSI) reconstruction, and RF-observable geometry reconstruction show that the learned embeddings provide effective conditioning in unseen environments. For localization and CSI reconstruction tasks, embedding-based conditioning outperforms or remains competitive with site-specific fine-tuning, although fine-tuning requires task-specific labeled data and additional gradient-based adaptation. The embeddings also support the reconstruction of dominant reflector structures, indicating their utility as reusable environmental priors across tasks.
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Signal Processing
Channel Modeling for Phase-Based Ranging
This paper presents a Python-based simulation framework for the physical layer of Bluetooth Channel Sounding in accordance with Bluetooth Core Specification v6.2. The simulator implements Mode 3 phase-based ranging across 72 active tones in the 2.4 GHz ISM band and supports multiple propagation conditions, including free-space, static multipath, and IEEE 802.15.4a stochastic multipath channels. In addition, it models relevant hardware and interference effects such as phase noise, phase ramp, carrier frequency offset, IQ imbalance, ADC quantization, and narrowband interference from co-located Wi-Fi systems, with parameters derived from commercial SoC datasheets and field measurements. The framework enables controlled and repeatable analysis of physical layer effects that are difficult to isolate in over-the-air experiments and are not sufficiently represented in existing higher-level simulation tools. This work focuses exclusively on physical layer signal generation, channel modeling, and impairment injection, providing a foundation for future studies on Bluetooth Channel Sounding ranging and localization algorithms.
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Signal Processing
Super-resolution ranging using a sub-terahertz self-injection-locked frequency-modulated radar
Sub-terahertz (sub-THz) and terahertz (THz) frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radars have opened a plethora of scientific and industrial applications, especially in the imaging field. While strong candidates for sub-THz/THz FMCW radar imagers are implemented using photonic methods, there is a desire to achieve the full integration and portability that only electronics can offer. However, integrated electronic sub-THz/THz FMCW radars have significantly lower bandwidth (< 100 GHz) than photonic-based radars, restricting the radar range resolution to the millimeter scale (> 1.5 mm). In addition, the electronic FMCW radar's broad bandwidth comes with increased transmitter phase noise, consequently degrading the radar range accuracy. Here, we present a sub-THz fully-integrated autodyne frequency-modulated (AFM) radar utilizing a self-injection locking (SIL) mechanism that fundamentally overcomes the aforementioned challenges of FMCW radars. The AFM radar supports an exceptionally wide effective bandwidth extending into the terahertz sweep range by forming an intermediate frequency comb spectrum in a quadratic receiver, unlocking the path for super-resolution ranging. Furthermore, SIL significantly reduces the transmitter's phase noise, allowing high-accuracy range measurements. We theoretically describe and experimentally demonstrate the SIL operation of the AFM radar. The proposed radar experimentally achieves sub-millimeter range resolution and a range accuracy of < 0.002%, enabling the imaging of covered printed letters with micrometer features.
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Signal Processing
Multi-Sensor Edge Angle Detection for Performance Analysis in Ski Jumping
In ski jumping, performance during the gliding phase depends on achieving an aerodynamic posture that maximizes the lift-to-drag ratio. In the V-style technique, the ski edge angle is a key determinant. Reducing the edge angle flattens the skis, increases their effective surface area, and improves aerodynamic lift, ultimately contributing to longer flight distances. Ski edge angles are biomechanically constrained by the limited range of ankle inversion. Current sensing solutions widely quantify these angles using multi-system approaches that combine sensor signals through geometric relations. Such configurations require instrumentation on both the boot and the ski, altering mass distribution, affecting balance during flight, and increasing system complexity. To overcome these limitations, this work presents a wearable sensing system that measures both boot inclination and ski edge angle without modifying the ski surface. Two ultrasonic Time of Flight (ToF) sensors and an in-shoe Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are integrated into a single boot-mounted unit. Edge angles are estimated by combining ultrasonic distance measurements with IMU data through geometric reconstruction of the boot-ski configuration. Laboratory experiments demonstrate an angle resolution of 0.4500{\deg}, a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.2640{\deg}, and a coefficient of determination exceeding 99% when compared with reference measurements, indicating strong linear agreement between the two modalities. The system achieves an end-to-end latency of 30.31 ms, enabling real-time feedback suitable for athlete training, while consuming 1.28 mW of power. With a total weight of only 18.6 g the proposed system enables unobtrusive measurement of ski edge angle and boot orientation.
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Signal Processing
Finite-range Lattice Momentum Operators for Quantum Field Theory
We propose a Z-transform framework for the analysis and synthesis of finite range lattice momentum operators in quantum field theory. In this formulation, translation-invariant lattice operators are represented as functions of the complex variable $z$ in the unit circle, allowing their spectral properties to be analyzed using tools from digital signal processing and rational approximation theory. Within this framework, the fermion doubling problem is reinterpreted as the appearance of unwanted zeros of the discrete momentum operator on the unit circle — an aliasing phenomenon in the sense of the Nyquist sampling theorem — and the conditions for ghost suppression are expressed as precise constraints on the zero structure of the operator's transfer function. It is proven that no rational function can satisfy all required conditions simultaneously, motivating the finite impulse response approach developed here. This reframing naturally suggests a class of finite-range momentum operators, constructed by solving a least-squares approximation problem in the frequency domain. The resulting finite impulse response (FIR) operator approximates the continuum derivative across the full Brillouin zone, with ghost suppression achieved through the accuracy of the spectral approximation rather than through the addition of a symmetry-breaking Wilson term or the infinite-range nonlocal SLAC derivative. Numerical investigation confirms that near $\theta = \pi$ only plane waves propagate coherently, and these exhibit group velocities far exceeding the speed of light, further distinguishing them from physical low-energy excitations. No ghost wave packet solutions exist near $\theta = \pi$.
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Signal Processing
Channel Knowledge Map Enabled Low-Complexity Dynamic Radio Environment Reconstruction
Accurate and timely radio environment reconstruction is important but challenging under particularly dynamic transmitter configurations. The conventional methods such as compressed sensing (CS), Kriging method or U-Net typically require environment measurements and reconstruction overhead for radio environment updating as the transmitter locations or radiation patterns change. In this paper, we propose a novel channel knowledge map (CKM)-enabled dynamic radio environment reconstruction method for efficient radio map updating. Specifically, the recently proposed CKM can store reusable path-level propagation knowledge that is decoupled from the transmitter-side radiation characteristics. We can leverage CKM for lightweight forward radio map generation as the transmitter locations and radiation patterns are known, without requiring new target-map measurements. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms CS, Kriging, and U-Net in reconstruction accuracy and exhibits strong robustness performance under dynamic transmitter configurations, which demonstrates the potential of the proposed method for flexible and efficient radio environment reconstruction in dynamic wireless networks.
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Signal Processing
Task-Based Evaluation of Raw Radar Data Compression: A Pre-Registered Study of Where Classical Codecs Fail to Preserve Target Detection, and Why
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems collect raw I/Q echo data at rates that exceed downlink capacity; fielded systems compress onboard with block-adaptive quantization (BAQ/FDBAQ). Proposed replacements, including learned compression, are typically evaluated with image-quality metrics (PSNR, SSIM, SQNR); none measures whether the data still supports its operational use. We introduce a pre-registered, task-based evaluation methodology for raw radar compression: codecs are scored after SAR focusing against a two-sided detection criterion – a CFAR detection-agreement floor and a false-alarm budget at matched threshold – using frozen task models trained once on uncompressed data. On Sentinel-1 stripmap Level-0 data the evaluation reproduces the operating point of the fielded FDBAQ codec (3-bit BAQ sustains utility at 6.12 bits per complex sample), with a previously reported reconstruction-lattice artifact tested for and ruled out. No classical configuration tested sustains utility below 4.86 bits per complex sample (roughly 13:1) on this scene, and each failure has an identifiable mechanism: raw echoes offer no transform-coding gain, while energy concentration after focusing delivers the predicted detection gain (Pd 0.888 vs 0.691 at 2 bits per complex sample) but converts it into false alarms through wavelet ringing; detection probability alone would have certified a codec producing roughly 53 times the tolerable false-alarm count. Applying the same protocol to AFRL Gotcha GMTI data (airborne, never compressed onboard) replicates both findings independently (frontier at 7.99 bits per complex sample). We release the evaluation harness, a unitary dechirp/focus transform with verified round-trip invertibility (relative error ~1e-7), and the complete pre-registration trail, including one retracted overclaim and a bounded negative result for a small learned codec, reported as a lower bound.
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Monday 17 August
Signal Processing
Multi-Tag Collision Recovery in UHF-RFID Using Self-Attention Decoding
Passive ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) enables battery-free tags to communicate with a reader through backscatter. When multiple tags respond in the same time slot, their waveforms overlap at the reader, and a conventional reader that follows framed slotted ALOHA (FSA) discards the resulting collided slot. This limits the throughput of the overall protocol even though the received signal still contains recoverable information about the responding tags. To address this limitation, we propose Self-Attention Tag Recovery (SATR), a transformer-based decoding algorithm that operates directly on the baseband in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) samples received during a standard tag response. SATR uses self-attention to model the temporal structure of the modulated waveform and learns candidate tag representations. It jointly estimates the number of responding tags and, more importantly, decodes the bit sequence of each detected tag. We numerically evaluate the decoding and throughput performance of SATR over a range of collision sizes and recovery configurations, and validate it with measurements of commercial UHF-RFID tags. The results show that, with proper design and training, SATR can reliably decode collisions of up to four tags. It achieves a throughput of approximately $0.815$ tags per slot under single acknowledgment and $1.87$ tags per slot under full recovery, corresponding to $2.2$ and $5.1$ times the conventional FSA limit of $1/e \approx 0.368$ tags per slot, while approaching optimal decoding performance and outperforming existing collision recovery methods.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.LG
Causal Discovery in Equal Variance Linear Gaussian DAGs via SURE-Tuned Ridge Regression
Recovering the directed acyclic graph (DAG) of a structural equation model (SEM) from observational data is a central problem in causal discovery. The iterative gradient descent and per-problem hyperparameter tuning of continuous-optimization methods are poorly suited to two practically important regimes: the sample-limited regime, where the number of samples is comparable to or smaller than the number of nodes in the DAG, and the compute-limited regime. This work proposes SURE-Ridge, a non-iterative, closed-form estimator for equal variance linear Gaussian SEM. The method performs parallel node-wise regressions with regularization parameters chosen adaptively by Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE), and applies an adaptive thresholding procedure to extract a DAG from the resulting soft adjacency matrix. Numerical results show that SURE-Ridge achieves the lowest structural Hamming distance in the small-sample regime and the lowest run time across all sample sizes tested, compared with NOTEARS, DAGMA, and GBNSL baselines.
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Signal Processing
Physically Consistent Channel Modeling and Signal Processing for Reconfigurable Wireless Systems
Reconfigurable antennas are increasingly integrated into multi-antenna communication systems to exploit large apertures while reducing the hardware complexity, energy consumption, and implementation costs of classical massive arrays. Their reconfigurable electromagnetic (EM) properties, including dynamically varying radiation patterns and state-dependent mutual coupling, challenge the fixed-antenna and decoupled-port assumptions of conventional channel models. This motivates a physically consistent framework connecting Maxwell's equations, circuit theory, and information theory. In this tutorial, we develop a unified framework spanning three coupled dimensions: (i) reconfigurable antenna and transceiver architectures, (ii) physically consistent channel modeling, and (iii) physically consistent signal processing. We first establish a taxonomy covering tunable antennas, reconfigurable transceivers, and emerging array architectures, highlighting their reconfiguration mechanisms and hardware-performance trade-offs. We then develop modeling approaches based on Maxwell's equations, wavenumber-domain representations, multiport network theory, and computational electromagnetics, and use them to construct end-to-end channel and noise models that capture near-field propagation, mutual coupling, and circuit-level impairments. Building on these models, we examine architecture-aware channel estimation, beamforming, data detection, and channel decoding, emphasizing how physical structure reshapes algorithm design and performance-complexity trade-offs. Overall, the tutorial treats physical architecture, channel and noise models, and communication algorithms as coupled components of an end-to-end design, providing a unified foundation for physically consistent reconfigurable wireless systems.
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Signal Processing
Exploiting Movable-Element STARS for Rate Splitting Multiple Access
This paper investigates a movable-element simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (ME-STARS) assisted rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) system under imperfect channel state information (CSI). Unlike conventional STARS with fixed element positions, the elements of ME-STARS can be repositioned within a predefined region, providing additional spatial degrees of freedom for improving the cascaded transmitter–STARS–user channels. To exploit this flexibility while accounting for CSI uncertainty, we formulate a robust sum-rate maximization problem that jointly optimizes the transmit beamforming, common-rate allocation, reflection and transmission coefficients, and ME-STARS element positions, subject to transmit-power, user-rate, minimum inter-element spacing, and movement-region constraints. The resulting problem is highly non-convex due to the strong coupling among the design variables and the position-dependent channels. To address this challenge, an iterative optimization framework is developed in which the transmit beamforming, STARS coefficients, and element positions are successively optimized through tractable convex reformulations. In particular, the element positions are updated sequentially using a majorization–minimization (MM) framework, where quadratic surrogate functions are constructed from the first- and second-order derivatives of the position-dependent channels while preserving the minimum inter-element spacing constraint. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed ME-STARS design consistently outperforms the considered benchmark schemes. Moreover, the performance gains remain significant under increasing CSI uncertainty, highlighting the effectiveness of element repositioning for robust RSMA transmission.
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Signal Processing
ECO-ID: Event-Camera based Optical System for Secure Multi-User Ultra-Low Latency Identification
Time-critical interactive systems increasingly require ultra-low-latency device identification for multiple users, yet prevailing approaches such as passwords, QR codes, and RFID/NFC are constrained by human input, frame-based sensing, or near-contact range. This paper presents ECO-ID, an event-camera-based optical system for multi-user, ultra-low-latency identification over visible light communication (VLC). Leveraging microsecond-resolution, asynchronous observations of brightness transitions, ECO-ID employs a spatiotemporal coding design: disjoint LED subsets provide spatial separation among users, while user-specific timing delays encode identities without inter-user synchronization. The optical channel and event-driven sensing reduce full-scene capture relative to frame cameras and limit the RF attack surface, while enabling rapid token verification with freshness and replay protection. We implement a prototype and demonstrate that ECO-ID can practically achieve approximately 99.8% localization and 98.7% identification with 0.64 ms mean latency, while theoretically supporting identification at the scale of tens of concurrent users. Overall, ECO-ID provides a fast, privacy-conscious, and security-aware alternative for scalable multi-user identification in time-critical interactive environments.
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Signal Processing
Rank-Aware Element Grouping for Power-Efficient Multiuser ISAC With an Extremely Large-Scale IRS
We investigate power-efficient multiuser integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) assisted by an element-grouping extremely large-scale intelligent reflecting surface (EG-XL-IRS). The grouping pattern is designed using slowly varying statistical channel state information (S-CSI), so that both IRS-related channel acquisition and online passive beamforming operate in the group domain rather than the element domain. We reveal a fundamental gain-rank tradeoff induced by element grouping: phase-consistent grouping can coherently enhance selected deterministic propagation components, while excessive concentration on a common deterministic mode can reduce the effective spatial rank of the multiuser channel and, for extended targets, the diversity of desired-scatterer responses. Motivated by this observation, we develop a task-adaptive rank-aware grouping strategy that balances weak-user enhancement and target-scatterer illumination while preserving task-relevant spatial dimensions. For each candidate grouping pattern, the transmit covariances and group-wise reflection phases are jointly optimized under communication and sensing quality-of-service constraints, followed by physical phase recovery and feasibility verification. Numerical results show that the proposed design substantially reduces the required transmit power compared with representative grouping benchmarks under the same grouping dimension and online optimization budget.
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Signal Processing
Real-Time Symbol-Domain OFDM Radar in an OpenAirInterface 5G Base Station With O-RAN Sensing Services
This paper presents a real-time orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) radar embedded in the OpenAirInterface (OAI) 5G base-station process. The radar removes communication symbols by regularized element-wise division and performs range-Doppler processing and ordered-statistic constant-false-alarm-rate detection online without modifying the 5G waveform. The implemented system provides 2.57 m nominal range resolution and 0.28 m/s velocity resolution. Hardware measurements identify and mitigate several implementation-specific limitations, most notably a deterministic carrier-dependent transmit-receive phase rotation on a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) X300. Selecting a tuning-grid-aligned carrier improves mean-removal clutter suppression from -16.4 dB to 38.0 dB and reduces coherent-integration loss from 19.81 dB to 0.27 dB. The measured processing gain closely agrees with its predicted value. Instrumented worker timing confirms real-time operation, with a conservative 58.4 percent utilization bound and no dropped soundings. A custom E2 service model, E2SM-RADAR, exports detections and a compact slow-time product to a near-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller. Live end-to-end operation demonstrates reliable delivery and supports controller-side tracking, micro-Doppler analysis, and classification. With a commercial user equipment connected on the same carrier, measurements show no measurable difference in downlink throughput estimate with sensing enabled, while the radar sensing bandwidth follows the scheduler allocation. Video demonstration can be found in youtube: youtu.be/GaYAcTJ8RKI
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Signal Processing
Degradation-Aligned Self-Supervised Learning for State of Health Estimation of Lithium-Ion Batteries under Label Sparsity
An accurate estimation of the state of health (SOH) underpins safe and optimized use of the battery system. Although compelling, data-driven SOH estimation models typically require large amounts of high-quality labeled cycling data, while in practice such labels are often sparse in both quantity and coverage. Therefore, in this work, we propose a degradation-aligned self-supervised learning (SSL) framework based on a convolutional neural network-gated recurrent unit (CNN-GRU) model, which learns aging-consistent representations from unlabeled data through a cycle-order ranking objective as the pretext task for pretraining, thereby enabling robust SOH estimation after fine-tuning on sparsely labeled data. Test results showcase that the proposed ranking-based SSL approach proves to endow the pretrained model with degradation awareness from unlabeled data, and after fine-tuning the model can carry out accurate, robust SOH estimation, even when only an extremely limited amount of 1% of unevenly distributed labeled training data is available, where the MAE of 1.718% and RMSE of 2.329% can be achieved on the test cell. In addition, in-depth analyses are presented regarding the influences of label distribution and cross-cell robustness. We believe this work could shed new light on label-efficient SOH estimation of lithium-ion batteries, addressing a practical need in battery management.
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Signal Processing
Automating Learner Assessment: Benchmarking Machine Learning and Deep Learning Models for EEG-Based Familiarity Prediction
Objective assessment of learning remains a fundamental challenge in education. Electroencephalography (EEG) provides a direct, non-invasive window into the neural correlates of knowledge acquisition, including cognitive familiarity. This study benchmarks fifteen machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models for EEG-based familiarity prediction across two cognitive domains: faces (factual knowledge) and mathematical equations (conceptual knowledge). Using continuous EEG data from 23 participants, we extract spectral features (Power Spectral Density) across six frequency bands. We show that while standard stratified cross-validation yields artificially high classification performance (up to 0.9853 F1-score using CNN) due to temporal leakage across neighboring epochs, a rigorous trial-independent validation (Group K-Fold) drops the peak performance to 0.6038 F1-score (using CNN), which is still statistically significant above the 25% chance level. This highlights the critical necessity of trial-independent evaluation to avoid overestimating model generalizability. Furthermore, feature importance and SHAP analysis reveal that temporal and frontal Gamma and Beta oscillations are the most critical biomarkers for familiarity. This work establishes a realistic benchmark for EEG-based cognitive monitoring in educational technologies.
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Signal Processing
Development of Different Algorithms for Drone-Based Antenna Measurement Systems and Near-Field Error Analysis
Near-field antenna measurements underpin the characterization of electrically large apertures, yet the fidelity of the Near-Field to Far-Field (NF-FF) transformation depends on the reconstruction algorithm's assumptions and robustness to real-world imperfections, including those from drone-based scanning platforms. Classical FFT-based modal expansion is efficient on uniformly sampled canonical grids but fails when phase-coherent acquisition cannot be maintained. We address this via a phaseless NF-FF algorithm reconstructing the far field from amplitude-only data through iterative phase retrieval. When sampling becomes sparse or irregular, even amplitude-based methods break down, motivating the $\textbf{Adaptive Sparse Inverse Radiation Estimator (ASPIRE)}$, a full-complex inverse source framework that solves a Method-of-Moments problem over RWG basis functions via cascaded rSVD and regularized shrinkage. Mutual coupling between basis functions is explicitly resolved, improving reconstruction fidelity beyond coupling-agnostic inverse-source formulations. The solver is accelerated via a Multilevel Fast Multipole Method engine with Numba just-in-time compilation, achieving a $1.2\times$ reduction in matrix-vector product time and up to $15\times$ lower memory usage relative to dense evaluation at N=100K. Across frequency bands and positioning/truncation error scenarios, the pipeline sustains algorithmic stability and achieves sub-degree beamwidth reconstruction error. These results establish an error-aware framework for algorithm selection across fixed and drone-based near-field measurement platforms.
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Signal Processing
Self-Supervised Noise2Noise-Enhanced Denoising for Continuous-Scan Air-Plasma THz Spectroscopy
Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) based on air-plasma generation and balanced air-biased coherent detection offers gap-free broadband coverage, but individual continuous-scan traces are strongly affected by pulse-to-pulse fluctuations and electronic noise. Reaching a useful signal-to-noise ratio therefore requires averaging multiple traces, which directly increases measurement time. We propose a learned denoising approach that recovers high-quality THz waveforms from as few as one complete continuous delay sweep, referred to here as a single-scan trace. A compact one-dimensional residual U-Net is trained using two complementary strategies: a reference-supervised baseline that maps individual noisy traces to long-average reference waveforms, and a Noise2Noise approach that learns from pairs of independently acquired noisy traces without requiring a clean training target. Averaging the predictions of both models reduces systematic bias and yields a trace-reduction factor of approximately $5.4\times$ at $K=1$, meaning that one denoised trace achieves the reconstruction accuracy of averaging approximately five raw traces. The Noise2Noise model alone achieves $4.9\times$, outperforming both the reference-supervised baseline ($4.6\times$) and classical Wiener filtering ($3.2\times$). These results show that self-supervised learning from repeated noisy measurements can support faster continuous-scan THz-TDS without hardware modification.
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Signal Processing
Distortion-Aware Integrated Sensing and Communication with Affine Filter Bank Modulation
The stringent energy-efficiency requirements of future Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) systems are fundamentally challenged. Unlike conventional communication systems, ISAC transmitters must radiate significantly higher power to ensure reliable target detection, forcing the High-Power Amplifier (HPA) to operate closer to saturation, where nonlinear distortions become unavoidable. Consequently, the robustness of every candidate ISAC waveform to HPA nonlinearities must be carefully assessed. In this context, this paper investigates the robustness of Affine Filter Bank Modulation (AFBM), a recently proposed waveform that combines the delay-Doppler resilience of affine modulation with reduced Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) and improved spectral containment. We develop a statistical characterization of the Ambiguity Function (AF) of the amplified AFBM waveform, deriving approximate expressions for its mean, variance, and Rician-distributed magnitude. Furthermore, a low-complexity Gaussian belief propagation receiver accounting for HPA nonlinearities is proposed for communication detection. Simulation results validate the analytical framework and demonstrate that AFBM preserves favorable sensing characteristics and robust Bit Error Rate (BER) performance even under severe nonlinear amplification.
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Signal Processing
Aggressive Non-Orthogonal Transmission with DFT-s-OFDM for Direct Device-to-Satellite Communications
Direct Device-to-Satellite (D2S) communications promise global connectivity to unmodified user equipment (UE), extending coverage beyond terrestrial networks. Realizing this promise is fundamentally challenging: severe path loss and limited UE transmit power push uplink SNRs far below terrestrial norms, while suitable spectrum remains scarce. Together, these constraints impose a spectral-efficiency (SE) bottleneck, and under such conditions the efficiency of the UE power amplifier becomes critical, jointly governing transmit power and battery life. To improve UE-side power efficiency, 3GPP has adopted Discrete Fourier Transform-spread OFDM (DFT-s-OFDM) as an optional uplink waveform, exploiting its substantially lower Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) relative to OFDM. To break the SE bottleneck, we show that aggressive non-orthogonal transmission, in which the number of concurrent users exceeds the number of receive antennas by more than 2x, can unlock substantial capacity gains that remain entirely unexploited. Realising these gains, however, requires receiver architectures that, to the best of our knowledge, have not yet been developed. DFT-s-OFDM intensifies the difficulty: the DFT spreading couples signal components across subcarriers, inflating the effective dimensionality of the detection problem. We address both challenges with a novel receiver design that jointly exploits the SE gains of aggressive non-orthogonal transmission and the power-efficiency benefits of DFT-s-OFDM. Simulations under realistic channel-estimation errors and high-mobility Doppler show that the proposed scheme achieves 2x the SE of baseline, surpasses recent nonlinear MIMO receivers by 40% at 15% of their complexity, and reduces PAPR by up to 6 dB relative to DFT-s-OFDM MIMO and 11 dB relative to OFDM.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from eess.AS
Contrastive Learning with Variational Regularization for Multi-Session EEG-to-Speech Decoding
Reconstructing heard speech from non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) is challenging due to a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and inter-session variability. While trial averaging improves the SNR, it is difficult to apply to continuous speech. We instead use repeated EEG responses to the same stimulus across different sessions as positive pairs for contrastive learning, and introduce variational regularization that, combined with this contrastive objective, keeps the encoder representation space broad. Experiments on a Japanese EEG dataset show that combining the session-invariant strategy with variational regularization improves the character error rate (CER) while maintaining mel-spectrogram reconstruction fidelity. Session probing confirms that the encoder representations achieve session-invariance.
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Signal Processing
Beamforming and Filter Design for Bistatic ISAC under Known and Unknown Transmit Symbols
This paper investigates the joint design of beamforming and radar receive filters in a multiuser bistatic integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) system, aiming to maximize the minimum radar signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) under communications SINR and transmit power constraints. We consider two scenarios: transmitted signals are either known or unknown at the radar receiver. We develop tractable solutions to the resulting non-convex optimization problems in both cases. For the known-signal case, we derive closed-form radar receive filters and iteratively design beamforming using fractional programming (FP) and successive convex approximation (SCA). For the unknown case, we adopt an alternating optimization (AO) approach to jointly design the beamforming and receive filters. Numerical results demonstrate that, while both approaches achieve comparable performance under per-slot optimization, knowledge of the transmitted symbols provides significant gains in multi-slot processing via coherent integration. Moreover, the proposed ISAC designs perform close to the radar-only benchmark under moderate communication requirements.
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Signal Processing
Deep Reinforcement Learning Orchestration of Game-Theoretic User Association and Resource Allocation in HetNets
Managing dynamic User Association and Resource Allocation (UARA) in modern Heterogeneous Cellular Networks (HetNets) remains a critical open challenge. Existing mathematical optimization and Reinforcement Learning approaches face limitations in handling low-latency decision-making under dynamic traffic conditions. This paper introduces a novel orchestration scheme for game-theoretic UARA in HetNets. The proposed bilevel framework distributes UARA decisions to User Equipment through a multi-objective non-cooperative game. Overlaying the distributed game, a centralized Deep Reinforcement Learning controller orchestrates network performance by dynamically configuring the game's utility parameters, enabling transitions between power awareness, coverage enhancement, and balanced operation. Evaluated on urban HetNet topologies with 3GPP TR 38.901-compliant channel modeling, the proposed framework closely approximates the optimal policy for the considered operational objectives, while delivering higher network throughput than conventional association methods. Furthermore, it incurs low computational overhead and maintains stable performance across the evaluated traffic densities without retraining.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.IT
Adaptive Unequal Error Protection for Semantic Split Learning over Wireless Channels
We propose a task-aware semantic split learning (SL) framework for wireless edge-cloud inference, in which the reliability of transmitted latent representations is dynamically adapted to their relevance for the downstream task. An autoencoder (AE)-based physical (PHY) layer enables end-to-end learning of the communication interface, while unequal error protection (UEP) is realized via mutual information (MI)-driven prioritization of latent components during training. The gradient of the estimated MI with respect to each latent component serves as a sensitivity-based proxy for task relevance, providing a fully learning-driven prioritization that adapts to both the data distribution and the downstream task. We further show that this prioritization translates into measurable physical-layer effects: MI-guided UEP assigns significantly higher transmit power to the most task-critical latent components compared to the equal error protection (EEP) baseline. Experiments on real-world IoT sensing data demonstrate consistent gains over equal and fixed-UEP baselines across SNR regimes. Additional analysis confirms ranking stability, estimator robustness and generalization across datasets and task types, indicating broad applicability of the proposed framework.
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Signal Processing
PRISM: Decision-Centric Predictive Sensing for Cognitive Digital Twins in 6G
Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) and Digital Twin (DT) technology have emerged as complementary for future wireless networks that require autonomous operations involving continuous interaction between physical and digital worlds. However, existing DT-assisted ISAC frameworks sense continuously and indiscriminately while optimizing only a single task, leaving little room for persistent, multi-domain knowledge or proactive sensing control. This article proposes a Predictive, Reasoning-driven, Intelligent Sensing Module (PRISM) engine that transforms the DT from a passive, domain-specific optimizer into a persistent, network-wide reasoning system. PRISM enables decision-centric predictive perception, proactively directing sensing toward anticipated decisions needs rather than following fixed sensing schedules. Using an illustrative extremely large multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) deployment scenario with a mixed eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC device population, we show how this principle benefits visibility-region sensing for channel acquisition and supports slice-aware operation. Preliminary simulations, including this deployment scenario and the resulting knowledge error, overhead, and latency results, confirm that this decision-centric approach substantially reduces sensing overhead while preserving decision reliability and latency, supporting the proposed architecture as a practical step toward self-aware, autonomously orchestrated 6G networks.
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Signal Processing
Zero-Shot Frequency Generalization for Radio Map Prediction via Cross-Attention Physics-Residual Learning
Deep learning models for radio map prediction are trained and tested at the same carriers and cannot serve unseen frequencies. We propose a two-stream network learning a residual over an analytic prior, fusing environment and physics streams by cross-attention. Evaluated at the query frequency, this free-space and knife-edge prior absorbs dominant frequency scaling of pathloss, leaving a residual that varies little across bands. Across 150 ray-traced scenes and four training carriers (1.8–28 GHz), the method reduces RMSE by 35.3% zero-shot at unseen carriers and scenes, and by 37.6% at extrapolated 60 GHz, outperforming interpolated 10 GHz.