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Electrical Engineering and Systems Science

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Friday 27 February

Systems and Control · Cross-listed from cs.RO

Modeling PWM-Time-SOC Interaction in a Simulated Robot

Accurate prediction of battery state of charge is needed for autonomous robots to plan movements without using up all available power. This work develops a physics and data-informed model from a simulation that predicts SOC depletion as a function of time and PWM duty cycle for a simulated 4-wheel Arduino robot. A forward-motion simulation incorporating motor electrical characteristics (resistance, inductance, back-EMF, torque constant) and mechanical dynamics (mass, drag, rolling resistance, wheel radius) was used to generate SOC time-series data across PWM values from 1-100%. Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (SINDy), combined with least-squares regression, was applied to construct a unified nonlinear model that captures SOC(t, p). The framework allows for energy-aware planning for similar robots and can be extended to incorporate arbitrary initial SOC levels and environment-dependent parameters for real-world deployment.
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Signal Processing

Index Modulation for Modulation on Conjugate-Reciprocal Zeros (IM-MOCZ)

This paper investigates the application of Index Modulation (IM) to Modulation on Conjugate-Reciprocal Zeros (MOCZ) to enhance spectral efficiency (SE) in short packet communications. The proposed IM-MOCZ scheme splits an $N$-bit message into two streams: $N-K$ bits select one of $2^{N-K}$ uniquely designed codebooks, while the remaining $K$ bits are transmitted with conventional binary-MOCZ (BMOCZ) using the selected codebook. At the receiver, Root Finding Minimum Distance (RFMD) or Direct Zero-Testing (DiZeT) detectors evaluate all candidate codebooks and compute penalty metrics, with a majority vote rule selecting the most confident codebook and recovering the transmitted message. The proposed IM-MOCZ can provide higher SE gains than conventional BMOCZ at the cost of increasing the computational complexity, with simulations demonstrating improved bit error rate (BER) and block error rate (BLER) performance for larger $K$ relative to $N$, when compared to conventional BMOCZ.
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Systems and Control

Robust Adaptive MPC in the Presence of Nonlinear Time-Varying Uncertainties: An Uncertainty Compensation Approach

This paper introduces an uncertainty compensation-based robust adaptive model predictive control (MPC) framework for linear systems with nonlinear time-varying uncertainties. The framework integrates an L1 adaptive controller to compensate for the matched uncertainty and a robust feedback controller, designed using linear matrix inequalities, to mitigate the effect of unmatched uncertainty on target output channels. Uniform bounds on the errors between the system's states and control inputs and those of a nominal (i.e., uncertainty-free) system are derived. These error bounds are then used to tighten the actual system's state and input constraints, enabling the design of an MPC for the nominal system under these tightened constraints. Referred to as uncertainty compensation-based MPC (UC-MPC), this approach ensures constraint satisfaction while delivering enhanced performance compared to existing methods. Simulation results for a flight control example and a spacecraft landing on an asteroid demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
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All authors Ran Tao, Pan Zhao, Ilya Kolmanovsky, Naira Hovakimyan

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.CV

Ozone Cues Mitigate Reflected Downwelling Radiance in LWIR Absorption-Based Ranging

Passive long-wave infrared (LWIR) absorption-based ranging relies on atmospheric absorption to estimate distances to objects from their emitted thermal radiation. First demonstrated decades ago for objects much hotter than the air and recently extended to scenes with low temperature variations, this ranging has depended on reflected radiance being negligible. Downwelling radiance is especially problematic, sometimes causing large inaccuracies. In two new ranging methods, we use characteristic features from ozone absorption to estimate the contribution of reflected downwelling radiance. The quadspectral method gives a simple closed-form range estimate from four narrowband measurements, two at a water vapor absorption line and two at an ozone absorption line. The hyperspectral method uses a broader spectral range to improve accuracy while also providing estimates of temperature, emissivity profiles, and contributions of downwelling from a collection of zenith angles. Experimental results demonstrate improved ranging accuracy, in one case reducing error from over 100 m when reflected light is not modeled to 6.8 m with the quadspectral method and 1.2 m with the hyperspectral method.
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All authors Unay Dorken Gallastegi, Wentao Shangguan, Vaibhav Choudhary, Akshay Agarwal, Hoover Rueda-Chacón, Martin J. Stevens, Vivek K Goyal

Systems and Control · Cross-listed from cs.SE

GENAI WORKBENCH: AI-Assisted Analysis and Synthesis of Engineering Systems from Multimodal Engineering Data

Modern engineering design platforms excel at discipline-specific tasks such as CAD, CAM, and CAE, but often lack native systems engineering frameworks. This creates a disconnect where system-level requirements and architectures are managed separately from detailed component design, hindering holistic development and increasing integration risks. To address this, we present the conceptual framework for the GenAI Workbench, a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) environment that integrates systems engineering principles into the designer's workflow. Built on an open-source PLM platform, it establishes a unified digital thread by linking semantic data from documents, physical B-rep geometry, and relational system graphs. The workbench facilitates an AI-assisted workflow where a designer can ingest source documents, from which the system automatically extracts requirements and uses vision-language models to generate an initial system architecture, such as a Design Structure Matrix (DSM). This paper presents the conceptual architecture, proposed methodology, and anticipated impact of this work-in-progress framework, which aims to foster a more integrated, data-driven, and informed engineering design methodology.
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Image and Video Processing

GLIDE-Reg: Global-to-Local Deformable Registration Using Co-Optimized Foundation and Handcrafted Features

Deformable registration is crucial in medical imaging. Several existing applications include lesion tracking, probabilistic atlas generation, and treatment response evaluation. However, current methods often lack robustness and generalizability across two key factors: spatial resolution and differences in anatomical coverage. We jointly optimize a registration field and a learnable dimensionality reduction module so that compressed VFM embeddings remain registration-relevant, and fuse these global semantic cues with MIND local descriptors. GLIDE-Reg achieves average dice similarity coefficients (DSC) across 6 anatomical structures of 0.859, 0.862, and 0.901 in two public cohorts (Lung250M and NLST) and one institution cohort (UCLA5DCT), and outperforms the state-of-the-art DEEDS (0.834, 0.858, 0.900) with relative improvements of 3.0%, 0.5%, and 0.1%. For target registration errors, GLIDE-Reg achieves 1.58 mm on Lung250M landmarks (compared to 1.25 mm on corrField and 1.91 mm on DEEDS) and 1.11 mm on NLST nodule centers (compared to 1.11 mm on DEEDS). The substantiated performance on the nodule centers also demonstrates its robustness across challenging downstream tasks, such as nodule tracking, which is an essential prior step for early-stage lung cancer diagnosis.
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All authors Yunzheng Zhu, Aichi Chien, Kimaya kulkarni, Luoting Zhuang, Stephen Park, Ricky Savjani, Daniel Low, William Hsu

Image and Video Processing

Efficient Flow Matching for Sparse-View CT Reconstruction

Generative models, particularly Diffusion Models (DM), have shown strong potential for Computed Tomography (CT) reconstruction serving as expressive priors for solving ill-posed inverse problems. However, diffusion-based reconstruction relies on Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) for forward diffusion and reverse denoising, where such stochasticity can interfere with repeated data consistency corrections in CT reconstruction. Since CT reconstruction is often time-critical in clinical and interventional scenarios, improving reconstruction efficiency is essential. In contrast, Flow Matching (FM) models sampling as a deterministic Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE), yielding smooth trajectories without stochastic noise injection. This deterministic formulation is naturally compatible with repeated data consistency operations. Furthermore, we observe that FM-predicted velocity fields exhibit strong correlations across adjacent steps. Motivated by this, we propose an FM-based CT reconstruction framework (FMCT) and an efficient variant (EFMCT) that reuses previously predicted velocity fields over consecutive steps to substantially reduce the number of Neural network Function Evaluations (NFEs), thereby improving inference efficiency. We provide theoretical analysis showing that the error introduced by velocity reuse is bounded when combined with data consistency operations. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FMCT/EFMCT achieve competitive reconstruction quality while significantly improving computational efficiency compared with diffusion-based methods. The codebase is open-sourced at https://github.com/EFMCT/EFMCT.
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All authors Jiayang Shi, Lincen Yang, Zhong Li, Tristan van Leeuwen, Daniel M. Pelt, K. Joost Batenburg

Image and Video Processing

Optimisation of SOUP-GAN and CSR-GAN for High Resolution MR Images Reconstruction

Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging is a diagnostic tool used in modern medicine; however, its output can be affected by motion artefacts and may be limited by equipment. This research focuses on MRI image quality enhancement using two efficient Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) models: SOUP-GAN and CSR-GAN. In both models, meaningful architectural modifications were introduced. The generator and discriminator of each were further deepened by adding convolutional layers and were enhanced in filter sizes as well. The LeakyReLU activation function was used to improve gradient flow, and hyperparameter tuning strategies were applied, including a reduced learning rate and an optimal batch size. Moreover, spectral normalisation was proposed to address mode collapse and improve training stability. The experiment shows that CSR-GAN has better performance in reconstructing the image with higher frequency details and reducing noise compared to other methods, with an optimised PSNR of 34.6 and SSIM of 0.89. However, SOUP-GAN performed the best in terms of delivering less noisy images with good structures, achieving a PSNR of 34.4 and SSIM of 0.83. The obtained results indicate that the proposed enhanced GAN model can be a useful tool for MR image quality improvement for subsequent better disease diagnostics.
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All authors Muneeba Rashid, Hina Shakir, Humaira Mehwish, Asarim Amir, Reema Qaiser Khan

Systems and Control

Virtual Constraint for a Quadrotor UAV Enforcing a Body-Axis Pointing Direction

We propose a geometric control framework on $SE(3)$ for quadrotors that enforces pointing-driven missions without completing a full attitude reference. The mission is encoded through virtual constraints defining a task manifold and an associated set of admissible velocities, and invariance is achieved by a feedback law obtained from a linear system in selected inputs. Under a transversality condition with the effective actuation distribution, the invariance-enforcing input is uniquely defined, yielding a constructive control law and, for relevant tasks, closed-form expressions. We further derive a local off-manifold stabilization extension. As a case study, we lock a body axis to a prescribed line-of-sight direction while maintaining fixed altitude.
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All authors Alexandre Anahory Simoes, Leonardo Colombo, Juan Giribet, Efstratios Stratoglou

Systems and Control

Observer-Based Estimation and Hydrostatic Inertia Modeling for Cooperative Transport of Variable-Inertia Loads with Quadrotors

We address load-parameter estimation in cooperative aerial transport with time-varying mass and inertia, as in fluid-carrying payloads. Using an intrinsic manifold model of the multi-quadrotor-load dynamics, we combine a geometric tracking controller with an observer for parameter identification. We estimate mass from measurable kinematics and commanded forces, and handle variable inertia via an inertia surrogate that reproduces the load's rotational dynamics for control and state propagation. Instead of real-time identification of the true inertia tensor, driven by high-dimensional internal fluid motion, we leverage known tank geometry and fluid-mechanical structure to pre-compute inertia tensors and update them through a lookup table indexed by fill level and attitude. The surrogate is justified via the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in the translating/rotating load frame: when effective forcing is gravity-dominated (i.e., translational/rotational accelerations and especially jerk are limited), the fluid approaches hydrostatic equilibrium and the free surface is well approximated by a plane orthogonal to the body-frame gravity direction.
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Systems and Control

Curriculum-Based Soft Actor-Critic for Multi-Section R2R Tension Control

Precise tension control in roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing is difficult under varying operating conditions and process uncertainty. This paper presents a curriculum-based Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) controller for multi-section R2R tension control. The policy is trained in three phases with progressively wider reference ranges, from 27 to 33 N to the full operating envelope of 20 to 40 N, so it can generalize across nominal and disturbed conditions. On a three-section R2R benchmark, the learned controller achieves accurate tracking in nominal operation and handles large disturbances, including 20 N to 40 N step changes, with a single policy and no scenario-specific retuning. These results indicate that curriculum-trained SAC is a practical alternative to model-based control when system parameters vary and process uncertainty is significant.
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All authors Shihao Li, Jiachen Li, Christopher Martin, Zijun Chen, Dongmei Chen, Wei Li

Systems and Control

FaultXformer: A Transformer-Encoder Based Fault Classification and Location Identification model in PMU-Integrated Active Electrical Distribution System

Accurate fault detection and localization in electrical distribution systems is crucial, especially with the increasing integration of distributed energy resources (DERs), which inject greater variability and complexity into grid operations. In this study, FaultXformer is proposed, a Transformer encoder-based architecture developed for automatic fault analysis using real-time current data obtained from phasor measurement unit (PMU). The approach utilizes time-series current data to initially extract rich temporal information in stage 1, which is crucial for identifying the fault type and precisely determining its location across multiple nodes. In Stage 2, these extracted features are processed to differentiate among distinct fault types and identify the respective fault location within the distribution system. Thus, this dual-stage transformer encoder pipeline enables high-fidelity representation learning, considerably boosting the performance of the work. The model was validated on a dataset generated from the IEEE 13-node test feeder, simulated with 20 separate fault locations and several DER integration scenarios, utilizing current measurements from four strategically located PMUs. To demonstrate robust performance evaluation, stratified 10-fold cross-validation is performed. FaultXformer achieved average accuracies of 98.76% in fault type classification and 98.92% in fault location identification across cross-validation, consistently surpassing conventional deep learning baselines convolutional neural network (CNN), recurrent neural network (RNN). long short-term memory (LSTM) by 1.70%, 34.95%, and 2.04% in classification accuracy and by 10.82%, 40.89%, and 6.27% in location accuracy, respectively. These results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed model with significant DER penetration.
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Systems and Control

Neural Luenberger state observer for nonautonomous nonlinear systems

This work proposes a method for model-free synthesis of a state observer for nonlinear systems with manipulated inputs, where the observer is trained offline using a historical or simulation dataset of state measurements. We use the structure of the Kazantzis-Kravaris/Luenberger (KKL) observer, extended to nonautonomous systems by adding an additional input-affine term to the linear time-invariant (LTI) observer-state dynamics, which determines a nonlinear injective mapping of the true states. Both this input-affine term and the nonlinear mapping from the observer states to the system states are learned from data using fully connected feedforward multi-layer perceptron neural networks. Furthermore, we theoretically prove that trained neural networks, when given new input-output data, can be used to observe the states with a guaranteed error bound. To validate the proposed observer synthesis method, case studies are performed on a bioreactor and a Williams-Otto reactor.
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Systems and Control

Data-Driven Linearization based Arc Fault Prediction in Medium Voltage Electrical Distribution System

High-impedance arc faults (HIAFs) in medium-voltage electrical distribution systems are difficult to detect due to their low fault current levels and nonlinear transient behavior. Traditional detection algorithms generally struggle with predictions under dynamic waveform scenarios. This research provides our approach of using a unique data-driven linearization (DDL) framework for early prediction of HIAFs, giving both interpretability and scalability. The proposed method translates nonlinear current waveforms into a linearized space using coordinate embeddings and polynomial transformation, enabling precise modelling of fault precursors.The total duration of the test waveform is 0.5 seconds, within which the arc fault occurs between 0.2 seconds to 0.3 seconds. Our proposed approach using DDL, trained solely on the pre-fault healthy region (0.10 seconds to 0.18 seconds) effectively captures certain invisible fault precursors, to accurately predict the onset of fault at 0.189 seconds, which is approximately 0.011 seconds (i.e., 11 milliseconds) earlier than the actual fault occurrence. In particular, the framework predicts the start of arc faults at 0.189 seconds, significantly earlier of the actual fault incidence at 0.200 seconds, demonstrating substantial early warning capability. Performance evaluation comprises eigenvalue analysis, prediction error measures, error growth rate and waveform regeneration fidelity. Such early prediction proves that the model is capable of correctly foreseeing faults which is especially helpful in preventing real-world faults and accidents. It confirms that our proposed approach reliably predicts arc faults in medium-voltage power distribution systems
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All authors Mihir Sinha, Kriti Thakur, Prasanta K. Panigrahi, Alivelu Manga Parimi, Mayukha Pal

Signal Processing

Joint Subcarrier Phase Recovery for Nonlinearity Mitigation

We propose a low-complexity phase recovery scheme that simultaneously mitigates laser phase noise and fiber nonlinearity across several subcarriers. In a long single-span link with Raman amplification, the scheme achieves 0.9 dB gain with 99 real multiplications per complex symbol.
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Signal Processing

Channel Estimation for Beyond Diagonal RIS Exploiting Core Tensor Sparsity

Beyond diagonal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (BD-RISs) enhance wave manipulation through inter-element couplings but pose significant channel estimation challenges due to cascaded channels and block-Kronecker structures. This paper proposes a compressive sensing framework exploiting the sparse Tucker decomposition of the measurement tensor and the Kronecker rank-one structure of channel components. Two algorithms are developed: Sparse Tensor Orthogonal Recovery Method (STORM), which uses orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) for greedy support recovery, and Sparse Tensor subspace- Aided Recovery (STAR), which leverages subspace-based projection to enhance robustness to noise. Both perform joint sparse support identification, followed by a Kronecker rank-one factorization via singular value decomposition (SVD) to recover the channel parameters. Simulations show that STAR achieves oracle-assisted least squares (LS) performance at moderate-to-high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with significantly fewer measurements than baseline methods, enabling practical BD-RIS deployment in next-generation millimeter wave (mmWave)/sub-terahertz (sub-THz) networks.
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Systems and Control · Cross-listed from physics.ins-det

A 200 dB Dynamic Range Radiation-Hard Delta-Sigma Current Digitizer for Beam Loss Monitoring

This manuscript describes a radiation-hardened current-mode delta-sigma ADC fabricated in a standard 130 nm CMOS technology and qualified for total ionizing doses up to 100 Mrad. The operational signal range achieved with a 100 s integration window exceeds 200 dB. The converter is designed for beam loss monitoring applications in high-energy physics, where it must handle input currents spanning nine decades, from 1 mA down to 1 pA, while providing a fast 10 us response time for machine protection. To meet these conflicting requirements, the architecture exploits the inherent trade-off between resolution and acquisition time provided by delta-sigma conversion: a first-order architecture, sampling at 20 MHz, delivers 11-bit effective resolution within the critical 10 us window for critical currents around 1 mA. Integration times above 10 s enable the sub-picoampere resolution required for precise beam alignment and background monitoring. The chip integrates two independent channels, consumes 25 mW from a 1.2 V supply, and relies on radiation-hardening techniques such as triple-redundant digital logic, custom ESD protections, and manual enclosed layout for critical analog transistors. Post-irradiation measurements up to 100 Mrad show no significant performance degradation, and the uncalibrated integral nonlinearity remains within [+4, -5] LSBs over the 1 mA to 5 uA range. The converter's flexibility and radiation tolerance make it suitable not only for the HL-LHC beam loss monitoring upgrade but also for other precision current measurement applications in harsh environments.
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Signal Processing

Master-Assisted Channel Estimation for Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks

Cell-free massive-multiple-input-multiple-output (CFmMIMO) is a key enabler for sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication networks, where distributed access points (APs) jointly serve user equipments (UEs). In commonly adopted channel models for CFmMIMO networks, inter-AP channel correlation is assumed to be absent, thereby eliminating the potential benefits of centralized processing. However, by carefully designing the pilot transmission phase, the AP received signals during pilot transmission can become correlated, and thus, centralization can improve channel estimation performance, despite the absence of inter-AP channel correlation. In this paper, we propose a channel estimation scheme, termed master-assisted channel estimation (MACE), that aims to leverage inter-AP signal correlation by means of partially centralized processing and hence improve channel estimation performance. In MACE, a subset of APs fuse and forward their received pilot signals to a master AP, which then performs channel estimation using the fused signals together with its locally received signals. This scheme strikes a balance between local and fully centralized processing by leveraging inter-AP signal correlation, while reducing fronthaul signaling and computational complexity. Numerical experiments demonstrate that MACE consistently outperforms local channel estimation, where inter-AP signal correlation is neglected.
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Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.LG

InfoNCE Induces Gaussian Distribution

Contrastive learning has become a cornerstone of modern representation learning, allowing training with massive unlabeled data for both task-specific and general (foundation) models. A prototypical loss in contrastive training is InfoNCE and its variants. In this work, we show that the InfoNCE objective induces Gaussian structure in representations that emerge from contrastive training. We establish this result in two complementary regimes. First, we show that under certain alignment and concentration assumptions, projections of the high-dimensional representation asymptotically approach a multivariate Gaussian distribution. Next, under less strict assumptions, we show that adding a small asymptotically vanishing regularization term that promotes low feature norm and high feature entropy leads to similar asymptotic results. We support our analysis with experiments on synthetic and CIFAR-10 datasets across multiple encoder architectures and sizes, demonstrating consistent Gaussian behavior. This perspective provides a principled explanation for commonly observed Gaussianity in contrastive representations. The resulting Gaussian model enables principled analytical treatment of learned representations and is expected to support a wide range of applications in contrastive learning.
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All authors Roy Betser, Eyal Gofer, Meir Yossef Levi, Guy Gilboa

Signal Processing

Formation Control for CRLB-Optimal Cooperative Sensing in Low-Altitude Wireless Networks

Cooperative sensing with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a key enabler for low-altitude wireless networks (LAWNs), where sensing accuracy critically depends on the spatial configuration of the UAV formation. In this paper, we study formation design and control for Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB)-optimal cooperative target sensing. We first establish a sensing performance model based on range measurements and derive the Fisher information matrix (FIM) of the target location. By adopting the A-optimality criterion, we analytically characterize the formation geometry that minimizes the CRLB of the estimation error. The optimal formation is shown to exhibit isotropic Fisher information in the horizontal plane, leading to a regular polygon geometry with an elevation angle determined by the tradeoff between path loss and geometric diversity. Building on this result, we further develop a distributed formation control strategy that steers UAVs from arbitrary initial deployments toward the sensing-optimal configuration while maintaining formation motion and obstacle avoidance. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme consistently outperforms benchmark formations in terms of CRLB and achieves reliable convergence under practical constraints.
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All authors Jun Wu, Haijia Jin, Nanchi Su, Jinna Li, Haoyuan Pan, Tse-Tin Chan

Signal Processing

From Signals to Causes: A Causal Signal Processing Framework for Robust and Interpretable Clinical Risk Prediction

Learning-based signal processing systems increasingly support high-stakes medical decisions using heterogeneous biomedical signals, including medical images, physiological time series, and clinical records. Despite strong predictive performance, many models rely on statistical correlations that are unstable across acquisition settings, patient populations, and institutional practices, limiting robustness, interpretability, and clinical trust. We advocate a causal signal processing perspective in which biomedical signals are treated as effects of latent generative mechanisms rather than as isolated predictive inputs. Using clinical risk prediction as a motivating example, we show how disease-related factors generate observable biomarkers, while acquisition processes act as confounders influencing signal appearance. In clinical disease risk prediction from chest CT scans and patient risk factors, correlational models may fail under scanner changes, whereas causal abstractions remain invariant. Building on this view, we propose a unifying conceptual framework integrating causal modeling with learning-based signal processing and neuro-symbolic reasoning. Statistical models extract multimodal representations that are mapped to interpretable causal abstractions and combined with symbolic knowledge encoding clinical risk factors and guidelines. This structure enables clinically grounded explanations, counterfactual reasoning about hypothetical interventions, and improved robustness to distribution shifts arising from changes in acquisition conditions or screening policies. Rather than introducing a specific algorithm, this article presents schematic causal structures and a comparative analysis of correlation-based, causal, and neuro-symbolic approaches to guide the design of robust and interpretable medical decision-support systems.
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Image and Video Processing

Extending 2D foundational DINOv3 representations to 3D segmentation of neonatal brain MR images

Precise volumetric delineation of hippocampal structures is essential for quantifying neurodevelopmental trajectories in pre-term and term infants, where subtle morphological variations may carry prognostic significance. While foundation encoders trained on large-scale visual data offer discriminative representations, their 2D formulation is a limitation with respect to the $3$D organization of brain anatomy. We propose a volumetric segmentation strategy that reconciles this tension through a structured window-based disassembly-reassembly mechanism: the global MRI volume is decomposed into non-overlapping 3D windows or sub-cubes, each processed via a separate decoding arm built upon frozen high-fidelity features, and subsequently reassembled prior to a ground-truth correspendence using a dense-prediction head. This architecture preserves constant a decoder memory footprint while forcing predictions to lie within an anatomically consistent geometry. Evaluated on the ALBERT dataset for hippocampal segmentation, the proposed approach achieves a Dice score of 0.65 for a single 3D window. The method demonstrates that volumetric anatomical structure could be recovered from frozen 2D foundation representations through structured compositional decoding, and offers a principled and generalizable extension for foundation models for 3D medical applications.
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Image and Video Processing

Clinically-aligned ischemic stroke segmentation and ASPECTS scoring on NCCT imaging using a slice-gated loss on foundation representations

Rapid infarct assessment on non-contrast CT (NCCT) is essential for acute ischemic stroke management. Most deep learning methods perform pixel-wise segmentation without modeling the structured anatomical reasoning underlying ASPECTS scoring, where basal ganglia (BG) and supraganglionic (SG) levels are clinically interpreted in a coupled manner. We propose a clinically aligned framework that combines a frozen DINOv3 backbone with a lightweight decoder and introduce a Territory-Aware Gated Loss (TAGL) to enforce BG-SG consistency during training. This anatomically informed supervision adds no inference-time complexity. Our method achieves a Dice score of 0.6385 on AISD, outperforming prior CNN and foundation-model baselines. On a proprietary ASPECTS dataset, TAGL improves mean Dice from 0.698 to 0.767. These results demonstrate that integrating foundation representations with structured clinical priors improves NCCT stroke segmentation and ASPECTS delineation.
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Audio and Speech Processing

An Empirical Analysis of Task-Induced Encoder Bias in Fréchet Audio Distance

Fréchet Audio Distance (FAD) is the de facto standard for evaluating text-to-audio generation, yet its scores depend on the underlying encoder's embedding space. An encoder's training task dictates which acoustic features are preserved or discarded, causing FAD to inherit systematic task-induced biases. We decompose evaluation into Recall, Precision, and Alignment (split into semantic and structural dimensions), using log-scale normalization for fair cross-encoder comparison. Controlled experiments on six encoders across two datasets reveal a four-axis trade-off: reconstruction-based AudioMAE leads precision sensitivity; ASR-trained Whisper dominates structural detection but is blind to signal degradation; classification-trained VGGish maximizes semantic detection but penalizes legitimate intra-class variation. Since no single encoder is a universal evaluator, future metrics must shift toward evaluation-native encoders intrinsically aligned with human perception.
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Signal Processing

Hypercomplex Phase Retrieval

Hypercomplex signal processing (HSP) offers powerful tools for analyzing and processing multidimensional signals by explicitly exploiting inter-dimensional correlations through Clifford algebra. In recent years, hypercomplex formulations of the phase retrieval (PR) problem, wheren a complex-valued signal is recovered from intensity-only measurements, have attracted growing interest. Hypercomplex phase retrieval (HPR) naturally arises in a range of optical imaging and computational sensing applications, where signals are often modeled using quaternion- or octonion-valued representations. Similar to classical PR, HPR problems may involve measurements obtained via complex, hypercomplex, Fourier, or other structured sensing operators. These formulations open new avenues for the development of advanced HSP-based algorithms and theoretical frameworks. This chapter surveys emerging methodologies and applications of HPR, with particular emphasis on optical imaging systems.
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Signal Processing

Modeling and Link Budget Feasibility Analysis of Secure LoRa-Based Peer-to-Peer Communication for Short-Range Tactical Networks

Short-range reliable and secure communication is a major priority in the tactical, military and disaster response settings where the traditional communication infrastructure is either off-line or prone to interception. Current VHF/UHF radios and software-defined radios are popular but large-sized devices and require lots of power, making them not suitable to be used as lightweight wearable devices with seamless hand-free use. In this paper, the design and theoretical framework of a miniature, LoRa based encrypted intercommunication device that can be used in secure field communication over a range of 1-1.5km and under line-of-sight conditions is provided. The suggested system consists of a voice-activated acquisition block, digital audio compression, an embedded microcontroller processor, and AES-128 encryption followed by a low-power transmission via the LoRa protocol. Through the ability of chirp spread spectrum modulation to utilize the long-range and low-energy properties, the system is guaranteed reliable communications coupled with low power consumption and low electromagnetic footprint. The theoretical analysis of the proposed communication range is justified using a link-budget that justifies the practicability of the communication range in the real propagation conditions. This architecture focuses on infrastructural agnosticism, peer-to-peer security as well as wearable ergonomics. The given scheme shows the possibilities of LoRa technology in the scope of other traditional IoT telemetry, and it can be further extended to include secure tactical voice communication platforms.
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All authors Ayush Kumar Agrawal, Soumendu Das, Saptaparna De, Jayendra Kumar

Signal Processing

Optimization-Based Behavioral Modeling of Mixers for Frequency Comb OFDM Radar Processing

This paper presents an optimization-based behavioral model for mixers driven by multi-tone local oscillator (LO) signals, considered specifically for frequency comb orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing radar applications. Unlike traditional models, the proposed approach is designed and tested for multi-tone LO excitations. The model uses polynomial nonlinearities for both intermediate frequency and LO ports, supported by spectrum-domain fitting that selectively emphasizes strong intermodulation products. In addition, a polynomial block is introduced to capture input power-dependent phase nonlinearity. The approach is validated using circuit-level simulations and supported by measurements. Radar processing results show the model replicates distortive effects in simulations. The proposed model enables rapid system-level performance estimations and waveform optimization, replacing computationally expensive circuit-level simulations.
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All authors Umut Utku Erdem, Henning Poensgen, Taewon Jeong, Lucas Giroto, Benjamin Nuss, Ibrahim Kagan Aksoyak, Ahmet Cagri Ulusoy, Thomas Zwick

Signal Processing

Secure OFDM Waveform Design for ISAC: Artificial Phase-Doppler Shifts Against Passive Sensing

This paper proposes a novel low probability of intercept (LPI) waveform design approach for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based integrated sensing and communication systems by introducing artificial phase and Doppler shifts. These controlled impairments, unknown to eavesdroppers, effectively disrupt passive radar processing and intercept attempts. At legitimate receivers, they can be fully compensated, so that standard OFDM communication and sensing performance are preserved. To support the effectiveness of the proposed LPI waveform design for OFDM-based ISAC, measurement results with 1 GHz bandwidth at 27 GHz are presented considering different impairment introduction approaches, all with no impact on cooperative system performance, and compensation capabilities at the eavesdropper.
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All authors Umut Utku Erdem, Lucas Giroto, Tobias Chaloun, Tom Schipper, Taewon Jeong, Christian Karle, Benjamin Nuss, Thomas Zwick

Signal Processing

Quantized Precoding for Maximizing Sum Rate in MU-MIMO Systems with Constrained Fronthaul

This paper studies a downlink multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) system, where the precoding matrix is computed at a baseband unit (BBU) and then transmitted to the remote antenna array over a limited-capacity digital fronthaul. The limited bit resolution of the fronthaul introduces quantization effects that are explicitly modeled. We propose a novel sum rate maximization framework that directly incorporates the quantizer's constraints into the precoding design. The resulting maximization problem, a non-convex mixed-integer program, is addressed using a new iterative algorithm inspired by the weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) methodology. The precoding optimization subproblem is reformulated as an integer least-squares problem and solved using a novel sphere decoding (SD) algorithm. Additionally, a low-complexity expectation propagation (EP)-based method is introduced to enable the practical implementation of quantized precoding in MU-massive MIMO (MU-mMIMO) systems. Furthermore, numerical evaluations demonstrate that the proposed precoding schemes outperform conventional approaches that optimize infinite-resolution precoding followed by element-wise quantization. We also propose a heuristic quantization-aware precoding method with comparable complexity to the baseline but superior performance. In particular, the EP-based approach offers near-optimal performance with substantial complexity reduction, making it well-suited for real-time MU-mMIMO applications.
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All authors Yasaman Khorsandmanesh, Alva Kosasih, Emil Björnson, Joakim Jaldén

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from cs.LG

ULW-SleepNet: An Ultra-Lightweight Network for Multimodal Sleep Stage Scoring

Automatic sleep stage scoring is crucial for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Although deep learning models have advanced the field, many existing models are computationally demanding and designed for single-channel electroencephalography (EEG), limiting their practicality for multimodal polysomnography (PSG) data. To overcome this, we propose ULW-SleepNet, an ultra-lightweight multimodal sleep stage scoring framework that efficiently integrates information from multiple physiological signals. ULW-SleepNet incorporates a novel Dual-Stream Separable Convolution (DSSC) Block, depthwise separable convolutions, channel-wise parameter sharing, and global average pooling to reduce computational overhead while maintaining competitive accuracy. Evaluated on the Sleep-EDF-20 and Sleep-EDF-78 datasets, ULW-SleepNet achieves accuracies of 86.9% and 81.4%, respectively, with only 13.3K parameters and 7.89M FLOPs. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, our model reduces parameters by up to 98.6% with only marginal performance loss, demonstrating its strong potential for real-time sleep monitoring on wearable and IoT devices. The source code for this study is publicly available at https://github.com/wzw999/ULW-SLEEPNET.
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All authors Zhaowen Wang, Dongdong Zhou, Qi Xu, Fengyu Cong, Mohammad Al-Sa'd, Jenni Raitoharju