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Electrical Engineering and Systems Science Signal Processing

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Wednesday 16 September

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from eess.AS

GrainSpeech: Less Context, More Detail for Compact Speech Synthesis

Compact acoustic models face a challenging quality-capacity trade-off. We investigate two factors in this regime: encoder context and Mel-spectrogram supervision. A receptive-field-scaling study shows that expanding self-attention beyond 15 phonemes provides no consistent gains in pitch, energy, or duration prediction. Guided by this finding, we introduce a fixed-receptive-field convolutional encoder that reduces the respective prediction errors by 36.0%, 17.3%, and 3.4%. We further show that directly transferring image-domain gradient-variance supervision restores fine-scale variation but degrades predicted quality, motivating a Mel-specific formulation with axis-specific gradients, overlapping local statistics, and log-domain variance matching. GrainSpeech contains only 264.8K parameters and achieves 17.9x real-time Mel generation on a microcontroller (MCU), while attaining UTMOS scores comparable to substantially larger models with less than 1.5% of their parameters. Source code and demos are available at https://github.com/lab-emi/GrainSpeech.
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Signal Processing

From Multimode Near-Field Coupling to Friis

Near-field propagation between finite apertures can support multiple spatial channels, while far-field transmission is effectively single mode and follows the Friis transmission formula. This letter establishes a direct connection between these two regimes through the mutual shadow area between the transmitting and receiving apertures. The mutual shadow determines the asymptotic number of spatial degrees of freedom and, in the paraxial regime, leads to a simple beamforming distance that provides a characteristic scale for the transition from multimode to effectively single-mode propagation. The channel singular-value sum rule further shows that, below this distance, increasing separation primarily reduces the number of supported spatial channels while their average normalized strength remains approximately constant. Beyond the transition, the remaining channel strength decreases according to the conventional free-space quadratic power law, recovering the Friis transmission formula. Numerical results for circular apertures demonstrate the transition, the scaling with aperture size, and the dependence on the transmitter and receiver apertures. The mutual-shadow formulation also extends the description beyond the paraxial regime.
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Signal Processing

Distributed Sensing on a 110-kV Overhead-Line Maintenance Operation on an Operational Optical Ground Wire

We demonstrate dual-modal distributed sensing on an operational 110-kV OPGW during crane maintenance. DAS resolves meter-scale lifting events and matches impulsive events to phone audio, while DTSS quantifies post-reclamping residual strain up to $\sim$398 $\mu\epsilon$, enabling maintenance verification and asset monitoring in transmission grids.
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All authors Konstantinos Alexoudis, Torm Järvelill, Hendrik Johann Kerm, Kaida Kaeval, Florian Azendorf, Vincent Sleiffer, Jasper Müller, Chigo Okonkwo, Tom Bradley

Signal Processing

Stable Filters for Generative Modeling of Graph Signals

Generating signals on graphs requires permutation-equivariant models that exhibit stability with respect to relative structural perturbations. While recent graph-aware Schrödinger bridge models incorporate topology information directly into their reference dynamics, it is unclear how perturbations of the graph propagate through these dynamics and affect the resulting generated distributions. In this paper, we analyze the structural stability of graph-aware continuous-time generative models whose drift combines a graph filter with a learned graph neural network. We derive explicit Wasserstein stability bounds that quantify the effect of relative graph perturbations on the generated distributions. Motivated by these bounds, we introduce a principled framework for designing stable graph filters that preserve the smoothing behavior of graph heat diffusion, while boosting structural stability. Experiments on synthetic and fMRI signals show our stable filters enhance structural robustness while matching or exceeding the generative quality of the heat equation baseline.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from q-bio.QM

Automatic denoising and differentiation based on Savitzky-Golay filtering and Homogeneous Differentiators for attractor reconstruction via differential embedding

Differential embedding methods aim to reconstruct attractors of dynamical systems from noisy measured time series, but require accurate estimates of signal derivatives. We introduce SHADED (Savitzky-Golay and Homogeneous-differentiator based Automatic DEnoising and Differentiation), a novel methodology for denoising and estimation of derivatives up to an arbitrary order, which enables attractor reconstruction via differential embedding from noisy time series data. Homogeneous Differentiators (HD) guarantee finite-time derivative estimates in the presence of noise, while subsequent Savitzky-Golay (SG) filtering attenuates chattering. Crucially, SHADED extracts all parameters required for application of both HD and SG automatically from the data, without requiring manual tuning that may lead to inaccurate reconstruction, and can also incorporate prior knowledge, if available, thereby yielding a flexible tool for data-driven numerical differentiation of noisy signals. The obtained differential embeddings can reveal features of the underlying dynamics that are useful, e.g., for system identification, pattern recognition and discrimination between dynamic regimes; the latter application is particularly important in biomedical settings, to help distinguish between different physiological and pathological states. We demonstrate the efficacy of SHADED by testing it on computational neuroscience models, LTspice-simulated chaotic electronic circuits, and photoplethysmography and arterial blood pressure experimental recordings: across all these case studies, SHADED produces accurate derivative estimates and accurate attractor reconstructions via differential embedding (whenever a ground truth is available) or geometrically coherent and reproducible reconstructions consistent with the expected dynamics (in the absence of a ground truth), without the need for manual parameter tuning.
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All authors Uros Sutulovic, Daniele Proverbio, Rami Katz, Giulia Giordano

Signal Processing

Learning Array Signal Topologies as Conditional Neural Manifolds

Subspace methods such as multiple signal classification (MUSIC) achieve super-resolution direction of arrival (DoA) estimation by exploiting the orthogonality between the array manifold and the noise subspace of the measurements. Their accuracy therefore depends on the assumed manifold and degrades under model mismatch, while parameters not identifiable from the spatial manifold cannot be recovered. In this work, we propose the conditional neural manifold (CNM), which replaces the fixed manifold with an observation-conditioned mapping from source parameters to steering vectors. An encoder maps the snapshots to a latent scene representation that conditions a zero-initialized neural field over the parameter space. The manifold is learned without steering-vector supervision by shaping the resulting MUSIC landscape. Since the correction acts on the manifold rather than on the estimator, it can be used by other manifold-based methods without modification. The CNM restores resolution under array imperfections, colored noise, correlated sources, and near-field propagation, and resolves the angle-frequency ambiguity inherent to the nominal spatial manifold.
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Signal Processing

QUBO Formulations of the Downlink MIMO Scheduling Problem in 5G Base Stations

Quantum computers can potentially solve large-scale combinatorial problems very efficiently when the problems are first converted into the quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) format. Scheduling in fifth generation (5G) base stations is a practical combinatorial problem that cannot be solved optimally in real-time using classical computing. We formulate the downlink (DL) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheduling at 5G base stations as QUBO and analyze the QUBO formulation scalability with respect to the key system parameters. The single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) QUBO formulation looks promising because the number of QUBO variables grows linearly while the problem search space grows exponentially with increasing number of users. Based on the simulation results, the suboptimal greedy algorithm for the SU-MIMO performs well with a high number of users and low bandwidth. A hybrid approach, where either a quantum solver or a suboptimal low-complexity classical algorithm is selected based on the system parameters, seems sensible in practice. This work paves the way for future quantum and quantum-inspired implementations of scheduling in cellular systems.
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Signal Processing

Massive MIMO ISAC Under Target-Angle Uncertainty: CRLB Outage Analysis and Robust Resource Allocation

In integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), the same spectral and hardware resources are shared for two functionalities. Most ISAC designs assume perfect target-angle information neglecting angle estimation errors, which introduce steering-vector mismatches, degrade sensing accuracy, and may invalidate deterministic sensing guarantees. This paper investigates monostatic massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) ISAC systems under imperfect target-angle estimates. We derive closed-form expressions for the Cramér-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) of target azimuth and elevation estimates in the presence of angle uncertainty. We characterize the cumulative distribution functions and outage probabilities of the CRLBs under Gaussian, generalized uniform, and von Mises angle-error models. Our analysis reveals that, in the small-error regime, the CRLBs increase quadratically with the angle errors due to transmit steering-vector mismatch. To ensure reliable sensing, we propose a robust power allocation framework that jointly optimizes pilot training and communications/sensing transmission powers to maximize the communications sum rate while satisfying CRLB outage constraints. The resulting nonconvex problem is solved using an alternating-optimization algorithm based on successive convex approximation. Numerical results validate the developed analysis and show that the proposed robust design reduces azimuth and elevation CRLB outage probabilities by up to $60\%$ compared with conventional non-robust schemes. It attains up to $45\%$ higher sum rates than the non-robust design under strict CRLB thresholds.
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All authors Smriti Uniyal, Tianyu Fang, Van-Dinh Nguyen, Hien Quoc Ngo, Markku Juntti, Nhan Thanh Nguyen

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from math.OC

Gradient Descent with Stochastic Subspaces via Persistence of Memory

Stochastic subspace methods have gained popularity as gradient descent based techniques for large scale optimisation problems, especially in distributed settings. In this paper, we introduce the technique of "persistence of memory" to greatly extend and improve the random subspace methods. To this end, we leverage a vector that is only weakly correlated with the gradient in order to provide a guiding structure to the generative process of the random subspace along which the descent is going to take place. This guidance vector may be fixed for a large number of iterations, only to be refreshed at wide intervals (on whose size we can provide guarantees in terms of problem parameters). In important machine learning settings, such as optimisation problems embodying sparsity or a minibatch structure, we show that the guidance vector can be obtained in an effective and computationally inexpensive manner by leveraging the structured properties of the problem. En route, we establish to our knowledge the first theoretical analysis of classical SSD methods for sparse functions. In a local neighbourhood of the optimum, we demonstrate an alignment phenomenon of our gradient estimates with a low-lying eigenvector of the Hessian, allowing a once-for-all computation of the guidance vector which renders the method computationally favourable even in scenarios with unstructured objectives.
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All authors Subhroshekhar Ghosh, Clement Z. Q. Ng, Pierre-Louis Poirion, Akiko Takeda

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.CR

The Verifiable Action Card: Trustworthy Human-in-the-Loop Control for Secure Autonomous Agents

Agentic browsers can execute security-sensitive actions under a user's authenticated session, making indirect prompt injection and deceptive confirmation interfaces a direct threat to action integrity. Existing human-in-the-loop (HITL) safeguards are insufficient when the approval prompt itself can be influenced by untrusted page content or model-generated text. We present the Verifiable Action Card (VAC), an architectural defence that reconstructs approval information from the ground-truth pending browser action and trusted intent provenance, renders it out-of-band in the trusted browser chrome, and binds approval to the exact action re-verified at dispatch. VAC combines provenance fencing, a ground-truth action descriptor, default-deny confirmation, provenance-aware risk gating, and execution binding. We implement VAC in a complete agentic browser and evaluate it on a 24-scenario benchmark covering confused-deputy attacks, Lies-in-the-Loop dialog forging, indirect prompt injection, adaptive action substitution, provenance evasion, and legitimate tasks. Across the evaluated LLMs, attack success without VAC ranges from $68\%$ to $100\%$, whereas VAC reduces attack success to $0\%$ on every model, with $78\%$ legitimate-task completion and a $0\%$ false-block rate. These results show that grounding approval in the action that will actually execute provides architectural protection against security failures that prompt-level defences and conventional HITL confirmation cannot reliably prevent.
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All authors Hasnain Irshad, Anam Mughees, Neelam Mughees, Abdullah Mughees, Imtiaz Ali Soomro

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from eess.AS

Reviving Etter method for autoregressive inpainting: Generalization, evaluation, implementation

Audio inpainting aims to restore missing segments in an audio waveform, as encountered in dropouts and packet losses. This paper revisits the autoregressive (AR) interpolation method proposed by Etter, which combines forward and backward AR prediction through a structured linear system, yet lacks a widely used full implementation for audio signals. We provide an open implementation and propose two practical extensions: A formulation that allows high-order AR models even when the gap length is shorter than the model order, and a causal variant tailored to packet loss concealment. The method is evaluated on musical excerpts with gaps up to 80 ms, using SNR and perceptually motivated objective difference grades, complemented by a listening test. The results show that Etter inpainting matches the performance of most AR- and sparsity-based baseline methods, with the exception of the iterative, gap-wise Janssen approach.
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Signal Processing

Semantic CSI Feedback for Beam Selection: When Task-Aware Embeddings from Sparse Pilots Outperform Full-Bandwidth Reconstruction

Classical CSI feedback in FDD massive MIMO transmits a compressed reconstruction of the channel, optimizing fidelity to the original signal regardless of the downstream task. We propose a semantic communication perspective: instead of reconstructing the channel, the UE transmits a learned semantic embedding optimized end-to-end for beam selection at the gNB. Comparing reconstruction-oriented feedback (CsiNet) against task-aware semantic feedback across two input domains and three observation scenarios, we show that a semantic embedding of just $d=8$ real values from only 43 NR CSI-RS pilots in the angular-delay domain achieves the highest beam prediction accuracy, outperforming every method with access to the full 512-subcarrier channel. The key insight is that beam-relevant information is intrinsically low-dimensional: the semantic encoder learns to discard reconstruction-irrelevant structure and retain only a compact representation that is relevant to beam selection, realizing the core principle of semantic communication: transmit the intent, not the signal.
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Signal Processing

Physically Consistent Modeling of Dispersive Time-Modulated Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Wideband OFDM

The elements of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are commonly modeled either as frequency-selective time-invariant reflectors or as instantaneous time-varying reflection coefficients. In practice, however, time-modulated metasurfaces exhibit both frequency selectivity and periodic time variation. We develop a physically consistent linear periodically time-varying (LPTV) model that jointly captures these effects and characterizes their impact on wideband orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communications. From a canonical equivalent circuit of a generic RIS element, we derive a single-resonance model whose physically meaningful parameters determine both the frequency-selective reflection coefficient and the effective impulse-response duration, i.e., the finite memory of the element. The periodically switched dispersive responses are then represented through harmonic transfer functions, leading to a closed-form per-subcarrier OFDM input-output relation. The resulting coupling is generally non-diagonal: each received subcarrier collects contributions from multiple transmitted subcarriers through the RIS harmonics, each weighted by the element response at the corresponding absolute input frequency. We further derive a generalized cyclic-prefix (CP) condition requiring the guard interval to accommodate both the propagation-channel delay spread and the RIS memory. Under this condition, intersymbol interference and out-of-grid spectral leakage are suppressed, while deterministic on-grid harmonic coupling remains. Full-wave simulations of an OpenRIS unit cell designed for a 5G NR channel validate the proposed resonant model and reveal appreciable in-band dispersion despite nearly ideal binary phase switching. Simulations over 3GPP tapped-delay-line (TDL) channels confirm the generalized CP condition and show its relevance for high-quality-factor RIS elements.
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All authors Ivan Iudice, Donatella Darsena, Giacinto Gelli, Vincenzo Galdi

Signal Processing

SemISAC: Semantic Integrated Sensing and Communications

Conventional integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) systems primarily integrate communications and sensing through shared physical resources, without explicitly exploiting task-relevant semantic information. To move beyond such physical-level integration, we propose semantic ISAC (SemISAC), a general framework that unifies semantic communication (SemCom) and semantic sensing (SemS) to convey source meaning and acquire environmental meaning. Specifically, the transmitter combines source semantics and sensing task information with available side information to design the shared waveform and allocate radio resources, while the receiver-side communication and sensing task decoders recover the source meaning and infer the required environmental information, respectively. We also provide an information-theoretic interpretation to characterize the relationship between physical and task-relevant information and the resulting semantic trade-off in SemISAC. Building on this framework, we formulate the general SemISAC design problem and propose two realization methods, namely end-to-end (E2E) SemISAC optimization and modular SemISAC optimization. As a concrete realization, we apply modular SemISAC optimization to jointly design a learnable time-frequency (TF) precoder in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system for representative SemCom and SemS tasks. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed realization reduces sensing semantic distortion under a given communication requirement and achieves a more favorable communication-sensing trade-off than baseline designs.
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All authors Xiaoqi Zhang, J. Andrew Zhang, Zhongqin Wang, Chang Liu, Weijie Yuan, Giuseppe Caire, Geoffrey Ye Li

Signal Processing

Imaging-Communication Trade-off in VLEO ISAC-SAR Using CP-OFDM

This paper investigates the imaging–communication trade-off in very-low-Earth-orbit (VLEO) integrated sensing and communication synthetic aperture radar (ISAC-SAR) using cyclic-prefix orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (CP-OFDM) as the shared waveform. We develop a unified analytical framework that jointly accounts for random communication payloads, range-dependent CP deficit across the swath, and slow-time-varying platform Doppler over the synthetic aperture. The resulting signal model separates the coherently retained component from inter-carrier interference (ICI) and inter-symbol interference (ISI) through common subcarrier-coupling coefficients. By propagating these effects through receive filtering, range compression, and azimuth focusing, we derive image-domain statistics for matched- and reciprocal-filter receivers. Based on the derived statistics, an effective noise-equivalent sigma zero (ENESZ) is formulated to characterize data-dependent sidelobes, ICI/ISI, and noise enhancement on a common backscatter-equivalent scale. The analysis reveals that the CP duration acts as a system-level design parameter bringing scalable trade-off. Increasing the CP improves coherent retention and suppresses range-dependent interference, but simultaneously reduces coherent processing gain and communication payload throughput. Accordingly, the sufficient-CP duration does not generally coincide with the imaging-optimal CP duration. End-to-end simulations for a representative VLEO scenario validate the derived image-domain statistics and demonstrate the resulting trade-off between ENESZ and communication throughput as a function of CP duration.
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Signal Processing

Beyond Direct Sensing: Harnessing Indirect Observations from Third-Party Sensors in Vehicle Tracking

Vehicle tracking is fundamental to applications ranging from urban mobility and public safety to security and defense. Conventional tracking relies on direct access to sensors that provide strong observations such as vehicle identity and location. In practice, however, factors such as ownership, privacy, cost, and operational constraints may limit directly accessible sensors, leaving sparse observations and long tracking gaps. Meanwhile, many additional third-party sensing assets may be present across the environment but remain inaccessible at the raw-data level, preventing their direct integration into the tracking system. In this work, we investigate whether weak, indirect observations with uncertain spatial and temporal cues can complement sparse direct sensing for vehicle tracking. Specifically, we propose GrayTrack, which fuses weak anonymous events with sparse direct observations using a road-constrained particle filter. We build a CARLA-Mininet-WiFi pipeline to evaluate the system under controlled conditions, generating direct observations from accessible cameras and indirect observations from third-party cameras. Our learning-based detector achieves an F1 score of 0.989 for anonymous vehicle passages. Further, incorporating indirect third-party observations reduces trajectory RMSE by 60.1% and catastrophic track loss from 35.8% to 0.3%. These results demonstrate that GrayTrack can effectively exploit weak indirect observations to extend tracking capabilities.
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All authors Gaofeng Dong, Vamsi Eyunni, Pragya Sharma, Kang Yang, Mani Srivastava

Signal Processing

Joint Structure Identification and Newton Acceleration via Proximal Line Search for Nonconvex Optimization

We consider composite optimization with a smooth, possibly nonconvex function and a separable convex polyhedral term. Such problems have a simple nonsmooth structure but arise widely in applications. Existing Newton-type methods may fail to identify nonsmooth coordinates during direction computation, move coordinates away from those reached by the full step during line search, or rely on separate first-order steps for identification. In this work, we propose a unified inexact proximal Newton method that couples structure identification with second-order acceleration through a proximal line search designed to retain the nonsmooth structure revealed at the local model. In particular, on a predicted working set, we solve a quadratic model inexactly but enforce its constraints exactly, allowing coordinates to reach new kinks without leaving the selected affine intervals. This set also includes small-margin kink coordinates to exploit the Hessian coupling effect. To globalize the direction, we construct a proximal line search using an isotropic proximal model whose linear term is chosen so that the initial trial exactly recovers the full step. Backtracking increases the proximal curvature until sufficient decrease holds, allowing coordinates to remain at kinks reached by the full step while damping other components. Generating each trial point requires only proximal operator evaluations. We prove finite backtracking and finite active-set identification under strict complementarity and a non-singular reduced Hessian, together with local Q-superlinear convergence under a directional Dennis-More condition and vanishing relative inexactness. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
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Signal Processing

Antenna Placement for Monostatic Near-Field Wireless Sensing

The emergence of movable antenna technology enables flexible antenna placement, allowing transceiver antennas to more effectively exploit spatial degrees of freedom. In this paper, we investigate a monostatic near-field sensing system, aiming to minimize the worst-case squared position error bound (SPEB) over the entire near-field region by jointly optimizing the transmit and receive antenna placements, along with the transmit power allocation. Toward this end, we first derive the closed-form expression of SPEB by calculating the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for estimating the target's angle and distance. It is shown that the derived SPEB is governed by the power-weighted moments of the transmit antenna locations and the moments of the receive antenna locations, motivating the development of a moment-based optimization algorithm. Functional analysis of the SPEB's moment structure proves that the optimal antenna distributions can be realized by a centro-symmetric structure, and shows that the worst-case target is located at the array broadside on the Rayleigh boundary. Moreover, by leveraging moment-based analysis and the Richter-Tchakaloff theorem, we derive closed-form antenna distributions with three points supported at the aperture center and two edges. Specifically, the optimal transmit antenna distribution can be exactly realized by activating only three transmit antennas while the optimal receive antenna distribution consists of three clusters. Numerical results show that the proposed closed-form design significantly outperforms conventional antenna placements and power allocation benchmark schemes.
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Tuesday 15 September

Signal Processing

Spike Sorting with VanillaSort

Training spike detectors on real recordings is challenging because algorithmically generated labels can be noisy and incomplete. We propose VanillaSort, combining multichannel detection with spatially augmented, template-guided clustering. VanillaDet uses visibility-aware masking, truncated Gaussian targets and a temporally tolerant positive-bag loss, followed by conditional event-SNR gating. VanillaCluster combines HuiduRep embeddings with relative-amplitude features for Gaussian mixture clustering and refines assignments using cross-fitted waveform templates built from selected core events. VanillaDet improves detection accuracy over SimSort by two and three percentage points on the static and drift subsets of Hybrid Janelia, respectively. The complete pipeline also improves sorting performance over the corresponding HuiduRep baselines. These results support learning from imperfect real-data labels and incorporating waveform consistency into neuronal assignment.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.CV

Yarn tracking of large-scale 3D textile reinforcements using topological material features

Automated segmentation of CT images has become increasingly important to enhance the reliability of simulations through the generation of high fidelity numerical models. This study addresses the challenging task of semi-automatically tracking textile reinforcements in fan blade dry preforms using X-ray CT images captured at coarse resolutions (i.e., above 140 $\mu$m). Our approach offers a scalable, slice-based analysis conducted on planes orthogonal to the main yarn directions, applied to a large-scale real industrial component. This enables accurate identification and tracking of yarn paths while requiring minimal training. The method models three key yarn properties statistically: their typical cross-section shape, their continuity and movement in the 3D space, and their spatial relative arrangement with respect to neighboring yarns. These statistical properties are integrated into a tracking framework via a variational formulation that optimizes all yarn center positions in successive cross-section planes. The method tracks more than 3,000 warp yarns across 1,500 slices and achieves a tracking success rate above 90%. Overall, this work demonstrates a promising approach toward large-scale, automated textile reinforcement annotation, paving the way for more efficient material characterization in complex composite structures.
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All authors Hafsa El Herichi, Arturo Mendoza, Yanneck Wielhorski, Hugues Talbot, Stéphane Roux

Signal Processing

Integrated Sensing and Communications: A Tutorial on Mathematical Foundations, Signal Processing and System Design for 6G

Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is a cornerstone of sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks: a single waveform, aperture, and hardware platform simultaneously conveys information and senses the physical environment. Its literature, however, is spread across radar signal processing, estimation and information theory, and wireless communications, which makes it difficult for a newcomer to assemble the full mathematical picture. This tutorial fills that gap. Starting from complex-baseband signal models, we build the required foundations step by step, with self-contained derivations. We develop the sensing toolkit (matched filter, ambiguity function, maximum-likelihood estimation, Fisher information, the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB), and Neyman-Pearson detection) and the communication toolkit (Shannon and MIMO capacity, water-filling, and multiuser precoding), and then unify them into the fundamental limits of ISAC: the CRB-rate region, the capacity-distortion function, and the deterministic-random tradeoff. On these foundations we treat waveform design (OFDM radar with two-dimensional FFT processing, OTFS, and jointly optimized waveforms), transmit beamforming as explicit optimization, including semidefinite relaxation, and receiver-side estimation and detection. We then survey the architectures that scale ISAC to the network level (millimeter-wave and terahertz operation, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and cell-free networks), together with applications, standardization, and security. A worked MIMO-OFDM design example with concrete numerology ties the mathematics together. Throughout, notation is unified and tabulated, key results are derived rather than merely cited, and seminal contributions are placed in context, so that the reader finishes with both the mathematical fluency and the literature map required to begin research in ISAC.
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Signal Processing

Data-Aided Bayesian Learning for CSI Estimation over Doubly-Selective DCO-OTFS MIMO VLC Channels with Affine-Precoded Superimposed Training Sequences

An orthogonal affine-precoded superimposed training sequence (AP-STS)-based framework is conceived for cyclic prefix (CP)-assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) direct-current-biased orthogonal time frequency space (DCOOTFS) visible light communication (VLC) links using arbitrary transmit-receive pulse shaping for transmission over doubly selective channels. For each light-emitting diode (LED), the pilot and data matrices are jointly affine-precoded and overlaid in the delay-Doppler (DD)-domain. Then, a unified end-to-end DD-domain input-output relationship is derived. At each photodiode (PD), orthogonal precoders are utilized to separate the pilot and data components, thereby suppressing mutual interference. Building on this model, an expectation-maximization (EM)-driven DD-domain pilot-aided Bayesian learning (DD-PBL) scheme is developed to estimate the channel state information (CSI). A DD-domain data-aided Bayesian learning (DD-DBL) procedure is then proposed for jointly refining the CSI and detecting data by exploiting the detected symbols as virtual pilots in the spirit of decision-directed channel estimation. The linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) detector harnessed explicitly accounts for CSI uncertainty due to realistic estimation errors. In addition, Bayesian Cramer-Rao lower bounds (BCRLBs) are derived for the MIMO DCO-OTFS VLC setting considered. Numerical results confirm improved normalized mean-square-error (NMSE), reduced pilot overhead, and mitigated symbol error-rate (SER) relative to recent benchmarks.
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All authors Shubham Saxena, Suraj Srivastava, Aditya K. Jagannatham, Lajos Hanzo

Signal Processing

Differentiable Synthesis and Yield Optimization of Cross-Coupled Resonator Filters

Coupling-matrix synthesis of cross-coupled resonator filters is difficult when the desired topology is noncanonical. Automatic differentiation removes the need for problem-specific sensitivity expressions, but does not by itself overcome the nonconvex optimization landscape. This work develops a staged differentiable synthesis framework and identifies the importance of its initial objective through a controlled comparison that varies only the objective of the first optimization phase. For tenth- and sixteenth-order benchmarks, directly matching a frequency-sampled response under the prescribed topology reaches the target from $0$ of $24$ and $0$ of $12$ random starts, respectively. Replacing the first-stage objective with characteristic-polynomial matching increases the success rate to $18$ of $24$ and $12$ of $12$ (exact paired $p=7.6\times10^{-6}$ and $4.9\times10^{-4}$). The observed difference is not explained by local conditioning and is consistent with saturation of the bounded response residual far from the solution. A differentiable front end converts symmetric multiband specifications into target polynomials and, when applied end to end to a fabricated dual-band filter specification, finds a realization with one fewer cross-coupling than the published design. Finally, differentiating through Monte Carlo tolerance simulations enables yield-driven design centering, increasing the model-predicted yield from $50.9\%$ to $67.0\pm0.5\%$ under an additive coupling-error model, an improvement of $16.1$ percentage points.
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Signal Processing

OTFS-Enabled Delayed SINR-Feedback Power Control for Reliable and Fair High-Mobility UAV Communications

This paper develops a power control framework driven by delayed signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) feedback for orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications operating under high mobility, with reliability and fairness as the primary design targets.A base station with a uniform linear array serves several UAVs on a common OTFS frame, while the path delays, Doppler shifts, and inter-UAV interference are determined by the three-dimensional propagation geometry and the base-station array response rather than by a postulated coupling model. In place of instantaneous channel state information, the proposed controller refreshes the transmit-power vector from delayed SINR measurements alone, which matches the practical limitations of fast-fading aerial links. A prediction-smoothing-projection rule mixes a reliability share, a fairness share and a spectral-efficiency share, each normalized separately, so that the utility weights control the closed loop directly. Simulations show that the effective SINR of OTFS changes 37.8% less per frame than that of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) at 70 m/s under the same numerology, and that the resulting controller raises the average minimum SINR by 1.21 dB over equal power allocation at 40 m/s while lifting Jain's fairness index from 0.833 to 0.970, at a sum-rate cost of 24.6% that the utility weights keep under the designer's control. The margin of OTFS over OFDM within the same controller widens from 0.18 dB at 10 m/s to 0.81 dB at 90 m/s, showing that the waveform contribution to the usefulness of stale SINR feedback increases with mobility.
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All authors Thuan Van Le, Nguyen Cong Luong, Trong-Dai Hoang, Vo Nguyen Quoc Bao, Thien Huynh-The, Xingwang Li, Ngo Hoang Tu

Signal Processing

Joint Beamforming Optimization and Dynamic Tracking in RIS-Enabled Secure ISAC Systems

This paper investigates a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-enabled secure integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, where the direct links between the base station (BS) and users are blocked and a mobile eavesdropper is treated as both a potential wiretapper and a sensing target. The time-varying eavesdropper state leads to dynamically changing wiretap channels, which may degrade the effectiveness of conventional transmission designs based on outdated eavesdropper information. To address this issue, the BS tracks the eavesdropper over consecutive time slots and exploits the predicted state information to adapt secure transmission. An optimization problem is formulated to maximize the sum secrecy rate by jointly designing the BS beamforming, artificial noise, and the RIS reflection coefficients for secure transmission and echo sensing. Meanwhile, an error-covariance constraint is imposed to guarantee the required tracking accuracy. To solve the nonconvex and temporally coupled problem, we propose an optimization algorithm integrating the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and block coordinate optimization framework, in which the eavesdropper state is recursively predicted and updated, while the joint design problem is decomposed into four tractable subproblems. Simulation results demonstrate that compared with benchmark schemes, the proposed algorithm can better guarantee the secrecy rate and effectively track the moving trajectory of the eavesdropper.
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All authors Zhendong Li, Weichun Zhao, Zhou Su, Yan Yang, Xiaoyan Hu, Jiakang Zheng, Ying Wang, Wen Chen

Signal Processing

Set-membership localization of intermittent RF sources using a fleet of collaborating UAVs

This paper proposes a set-membership approach (SMA) to localize radio frequency (RF) sources observed by a collaborating fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Considering frequency-separable RF transmitters with intermittent and periodic emission patterns, %and unknown but bounded periods the SMA evaluates set estimates of the source locations and a set free of sources. Simulation results show that SMA outperforms a Bayesian baseline approach in terms of localization accuracy and convergence speed.
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Signal Processing

Toward Ku-Band Surface Acoustic Wave Delay Lines on AlScN-on-Diamond with Decoupled Phase and Group Velocities

This work reports surface acoustic wave (SAW) acoustic delay lines (ADLs) on an aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN) on diamond platform operating in the X band and approaching the Ku band. The large acoustic-velocity contrast between the AlScN film and the diamond substrate produces a strongly dispersive Sezawa branch that decouples the phase velocity from the group velocity. Delay lines with a 1 $\mu$m wavelength show a Sezawa passband at 9.55 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of 1.05%, a propagation loss of 0.094 dB per wavelength, a propagation-limited quality factor of 465, and a group velocity of 5979 m/s, while co-fabricated resonators give a phase velocity of 9560 m/s, a ratio of about 1.6. Scaling the wavelength to 0.5 $\mu$m moves the passband to 16.5 GHz with a fractional bandwidth of 0.7%. The platform therefore reaches an operating frequency about 1.5 times higher than AlScN on sapphire at the same lithographic pitch while preserving group delay per unit length.
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All authors Tzu-Hsuan Hsu, Kapil Saha, Yuchen Ma, Vakhtang Chulukhadze, Pietro Simeoni, Matteo Rinaldi, Ruochen Lu

Signal Processing

Pinching Antennas for Next-Generation Wireless Communications: A Network Perspective

Pinching antennas enable radiation points to be created and reconfigured along extended waveguides, making the physical locations of wireless transmission and reception controllable after infrastructure deployment. This capability introduces a spatial degree of freedom beyond conventional beamforming and resource allocation, with implications that extend from individual links to network-wide operation. This tutorial develops a network-oriented perspective on pinching-antenna systems. We first review their system architecture, channel characteristics, and fundamental design opportunities. We then examine how radiation-location reconfigurability can support environment-division multiple access by strengthening desired links and suppressing cross-links, and discuss its roles in multi-cell transmission, traffic offloading, and inter-cell cooperation. Moving from instantaneous users to entire service regions, we introduce traffic-aware and geometry-aware designs under a cell-free-inspired multi-waveguide architecture. Representative system models, optimization problems, analytical illustrations, and numerical results are provided to explain the main design tradeoffs and network-level insights. We further discuss generalized physical realizations and representative deployment modes, including standalone, conventional base-station-integrated, and distributed deployments, together with their main implementation considerations. Finally, we identify future research directions involving mobility management, programmable and virtualized radio access, environment knowledge acquisition, AI-native control, low-altitude networks, space-air-ground integration, and integrated sensing and communication. Overall, this tutorial presents radiation locations as configurable network resources and provides a framework for understanding how pinching antennas may reshape future wireless network.
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All authors Yanqing Xu, Shan Shan, Yongxu Zhu, Zhiguo Ding, Mugen Peng, Xiaohu You

Signal Processing

Goal-oriented probabilistic forecasting for dynamic PRB allocation in 5G networks

Efficient physical resource block (PRB) allocation in 5G networks requires accurate demand forecasting. Conventional methods minimize symmetric error metrics (MAE, RMSE), ignoring the operational cost asymmetry where under-provisioning (service degradation) is far costlier than over-provisioning (wasted capacity). We propose a goal-oriented probabilistic forecasting framework that aligns model training with the operator's decision-making objectives. Specifically, we train DeepAR and Temporal Fusion Transformer (TFT) models using the Pinball Loss function and derive the optimal allocation quantile from the operator's cost matrix. Evaluation on a real beam-level 5G traffic dataset shows that the proposed approach reduces operational cost compared to MSE-trained baselines while maintaining calibrated uncertainty estimates. The framework enables dynamic PRB allocation that explicitly balances service reliability against resource efficiency.
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Signal Processing

Trajectory CPHD Filtering for Multiple Turning Vehicles With Decoupled Orientation and Axial-Scale Estimation

Reliable estimation of vehicle orientation, centroid, and footprint is important for representing road-user occupancy during vehicle turns at intersections and other common road maneuvers. During a turn, the vehicle orientation and direction of motion may differ, and coupling the orientation with the axial scales can degrade both orientation and extent estimates. This paper proposes a trajectory cardinalized probability hypothesis density filter with a Decoupled Orientation and Axial-Scale Estimation (DOAM) model for multiple-vehicle tracking. The model represents the kinematic, orientation, and squared semi-axis-length states separately within each trajectory component, reducing the mutual interference between orientation variation and scale estimation without introducing an additional interacting multiple-model structure. A structured coordinate-ascent variational inference recursion jointly updates these state sequences and the measurement-source variables. The trajectory-component likelihood and weight update associated with the decoupled representation are derived while retaining the standard cardinality recursion. A fixed-lag trajectory implementation further uses current measurements to correct historical states within the smoothing window. Evaluation with signalized-intersection simulations and real onboard LiDAR measurements shows improved estimation of vehicle orientation, centroid, and extent, particularly during turns. The resulting vehicle-state and footprint estimates provide information for road-user occupancy perception and subsequent collision-risk assessment and motion planning.
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All authors Yunhe Cao, Yu Wan, Yuanhao Cheng, Tat-Soon Yeo, Jie Fu