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Electrical Engineering and Systems Science

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Friday 22 May

Signal Processing

A Measurement-Based Parameterization of Physics Reflection Models for Terahertz Communication

The accurate modeling of reflection coefficients is pivotal for developing reliable channel models in emerging terahertz (THz) communications. This study establishes a 300$\sim$400 GHz channel measurement platform to measure the reflection coefficients of various materials. Based on the analysis of measured data, we propose the single-layer interference with an extended-parameterized Lorentz/Drude (SLI-EPLD) reflection coefficient model. In this model, a sub-band modeling strategy is adopted to characterize the variation of reflection coefficients with frequency, while a parameterized mapping approach is employed to ensure the stability of model parameters. Furthermore, the weighted sub-band fitting for trend regression (WF-TREND) algorithm is introduced to achieve precise sub-band parameter fitting. Validation results demonstrate superior performance to existing models across multiple materials. The reflection coefficient model established in this work serves as a critical foundation for channel modeling in 300$\sim$400 GHz for high-THz communication.
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All authors Taihao Zhang, Chenzhou Lin, Cunhua Pan, Hong Ren, Ruyi Liu, Yongchao He, Tian Qiu, Bingchang Hua, Jiangzhou Wang

Systems and Control · Cross-listed from cs.GT

Routing Equilibrium in Mixed-Autonomy Traffic Networks with Altruistic Autonomous Agents

Recent advancements in vehicle autonomy have drawn interest in understanding the impact of autonomous vehicles on traffic systems. In this paper, we study a traffic assignment problem in a mixed-autonomy setting where both human-driven and autonomous vehicles coexist. We model the interaction as a simultaneous routing game where human drivers are self-interested and aim to minimize their own travel times, while autonomous agents are altruistic and aim to minimize the total social cost. The standard nonatomic congestion game analysis establishes the existence of equilibrium to this game under convex cost functions, and does not have any implication of its uniqueness. In this work, we formulate the equilibrium as a variational inequality (VI), which enables us to establish the equilibrium existence without convexity assumption, and guarantees the uniqueness of the aggregated link flow and social cost at equilibrium under a specific class of cost functions. Leveraging this VI framework, we provide sufficient conditions under which including autonomous agents improves, deteriorates, or has no effect on social cost. While the possibility of deterioration has been established in prior work, our results complement existing worst-case bounds by explicitly characterizing sufficient conditions under which each outcome occurs, thereby providing a deeper understanding of mixed-autonomy traffic systems. Furthermore, we consider a centralized scenario where a social planner optimizes the routing of autonomous agents, and show that the same equilibrium is achieved as in the decentralized scenario when assuming convex costs.Finally, we conduct numerical experiments that illustrate how social cost changes with the amount of autonomous vehicles under different system parameters.
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Signal Processing

SIM-Aided Near-Field Channel and Localization Estimation With Dimensionality Reduction: A Multiport Network Theory Approach

The deployment of Extremely Large-Scale Antenna Arrays for 6G enables radiative near-field sensing but poses significant challenges in terms of hardware complexity and interference. Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces (SIMs) address these limitations by enabling wave-domain dimensionality reduction. This paper proposes a rigorous SIM-aided framework for near-field channel and localization estimation based on Multiport Network Theory, which provides an electromagnetically consistent characterization accounting for mutual coupling and non-unilateral inter-layer propagation effects. An indirect estimation approach is adopted, where the SIM is optimized to perform analog spatial filtering by projecting the received signal onto a relevant subspace identified through coarse prior location information. Within this realistic setting, we analytically characterize the impact of SIM approximation errors on channel estimation and quantify the resulting effects on localization performance. The results show that the proposed architecture preserves the essential wavefront curvature information required for accurate near-field localization, achieving performance comparable to fully digital solutions while drastically reducing the number of radio-frequency chains.
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Systems and Control

Reachability for Low-Thrust Trajectories via Maximum Initial Mass

Reachability analysis plays a central role in low-thrust spacecraft trajectory optimization by identifying which target states can be achieved under constraints on time, thrust, and propellant. Classical approaches construct reachable sets by solving many optimal control problems over grids of terminal states, requiring extensive forward simulations with fixed initial conditions. While effective, this approach is computationally expensive and becomes impractical for high-dimensional systems or strongly nonlinear dynamics, such as those encountered in cislunar environments or solar sail missions. This work introduces a dual formulation of the reachability problem. Instead of computing reachable sets directly, we determine, for fixed transfer time and boundary conditions, the maximum allowable initial mass (or, for solar sails, a scalar sail-strength parameter) that permits a successful transfer. A target is reachable if the spacecraft's initial mass does not exceed this threshold. This reformulation reduces reachability assessment to a scalar optimization problem for each target, producing a smooth scalar field that encodes equivalent feasibility information to classical reachable sets. We develop indirect maximum-initial-mass (MIM) formulations for both electric low-thrust and solar-sail dynamics and show how they can serve as efficient reachability oracles. Building on this formulation, we construct data-driven surrogate models to approximate the MIM-based reachability indicator. We investigate fully connected neural networks and demonstrate that residual networks provide the best trade-off between accuracy, training stability, and model complexity. The resulting surrogates enable rapid reachability evaluation while preserving the numerical advantages of the dual formulation, offering a practical tool for preliminary mission design and feasibility assessment.
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Signal Processing

Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces (SIM) in the Nonlinear Regime: A Multiport Network Model Approach

We present a physically consistent multiport framework for stacked intelligent metasurfaces (SIMs) with linear and explicit nonlinear terminations. The model provides closed-form input–output relations in the linear case and fixed-point forward evaluation in the nonlinear case, with adjoint-based gradients for optimization in both settings. Under stage-isolated SIM structure, complexity remains $\mathcal{O}(QK^3)$. In a 28 GHz near-field localization case study, nonlinear terminations improve transfer-function matching and reduce mean localization error, close to the ideal benchmark.
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Systems and Control · Cross-listed from cs.LG

Learning Dynamic Stability Landscapes in Synchronization Networks

The robustness of synchronization is typically characterized by scalar, per-node stability indices whose dependence on topology is studied via network science or graph neural networks (GNNs). We propose a novel upstream task, learning stability landscapes, which provide deeper insights into synchronization behavior and from which many such scalar indices can be derived. Crucially, we pioneer a graph-to-image prediction paradigm: learning image-like landscapes as per-node targets directly from graph topology, a formulation we are not aware of having been established elsewhere in the literature. To support this task, we release two datasets of 10,000 graphs each at 20 and 100 nodes with per-node landscape labels, based on a conceptual oscillator model, capturing power grid synchronization behavior. A GNN encodes topology and a CNN decoder renders per-node images, learned end-to-end with good in-distribution accuracy, generalizing across graph sizes and to realistic power grid topologies. This demonstrates that stability landscapes, while beyond the reach of conventional network science, are learnable from topology and open new avenues for moving beyond scalar stability indices in biology, neuroscience, and power grids.
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All authors Christian Nauck, Junyou Zhu, Michael Lindner, Frank Hellmann

Signal Processing

Tri-Domain Multiuser MIMO Precoding Optimization and Channel Estimation with Spatial-EM Reconfigurable Antenna

In this paper, we propose a tri-domain reconfigurable multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system that integrates the electromagnetic (EM) reconfigurable antenna (EMRA) with the spatially movable antenna (SMA), termed the spatial-EM reconfigurable antenna (SEMRA). The proposed system offers EM, spatial, and digital domain degrees of freedom (DoFs) for joint channel reconfiguration, yet introduces new challenges in channel estimation (CE) and precoding optimization. Specifically, for multiuser orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) downlink, the precoding design is formulated as a tri-domain optimization problem over antenna positions, EM-domain radiation-pattern weights, and digital precoders. We first develop a zero-forcing (ZF)-based baseline algorithm to decouple the design of spatial reconfiguration, and then propose a weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE)-based tri-domain joint optimization algorithm for further improving the spectral efficiency (SE). Furthermore, we propose a low-overhead movement-aided channel estimation scheme in which coordinated antenna repositioning across pilot slots synthesizes a denser virtual array, enabling more accurate angle-of-departure (AoD) estimation and EM-domain channel state information (eCSI) reconstruction under the same per-user pilot overhead as the EMRA baseline. The resulting parametric representation enables eCSI assembly at desired antenna positions without additional pilots. Simulation results show that the proposed CE scheme improves eCSI estimation accuracy and the proposed SEMRA achieves higher SE than the EMRA baseline under the same pilot overhead.
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All authors Yining Li, Ziwei Wan, Zhen Gao, Keke Ying, Lipeng Zhu, Rui Zhang

Systems and Control · Cross-listed from math.OC

A Non-Iterative Algorithm for Clearing Two-Layer Energy-Sharing Markets with Voltage Constraints

Real-time hierarchical energy-sharing markets are promising to coordinate large numbers of prosumers. Still, most existing clearing methods rely on linearized or DC power-flow models and do not explicitly handle reactive power or voltage-security constraints. With AC network constraints, the problem becomes a large-scale bilevel Mathematical Program with Equilibrium Constraints (MPEC) that is difficult to solve in real time. This paper develops a non-iterative clearing algorithm for two-layer energy-sharing markets with voltage constraints. We first derive an efficient best-response function for each lower-layer energy-sharing market and reduce the equilibrium search to one dimension by exploiting the pricing-coupling structure. We then embed this function into the upper-layer network-constrained problem and reformulate the bilevel MPEC as a single-level mixed-integer second-order cone program (MISOCP), which is computationally tractable. Case studies on the IEEE 123-bus system with 12,300 prosumers show that the proposed method preserves nodal voltages within prescribed limits and delivers solutions with maximum errors below 0.01% in 0.829 s.
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All authors Tonghua Liu, Yifan Su, Zhaojian Wang, Feng Liu

Systems and Control

Output Feedback MPC with Adaptive Tubes

An output feedback model predictive control (MPC) framework with adaptive tubes is proposed for linear time-invariant systems subject to parametric and additive uncertainties. An adaptive observer provides point estimates of the system state, model parameters, and initial condition, while jointly updating the corresponding sets containing the true parameters and initial state. These estimates parameterize the constrained optimal control problem, enabling constraint tightening, terminal ingredients, and tube geometry to be updated as the estimates evolve. In contrast to standard robust tube-based MPC formulations, the proposed approach does not require a common quadratically stabilizing linear feedback gain across the parametric uncertainty set. As the available uncertainty information improves, the tube geometry evolves accordingly, resulting in an adaptive tube MPC framework with improved performance over time. Recursive feasibility and robust exponential stability are established, and a numerical example is presented.
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Signal Processing

Diffusion Fluid Antenna Systems for Resilient ISAC

Most existing integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) studies focus on enabling a base station (BS) to support sensing and communication over shared resources through advanced waveform design and power allocation. In contrast, the object-side perspective remains underexplored. For example, an object may wish to remain difficult to detect for security reasons, while another object in close proximity may generate dominant reflections that confuse the BS and impair sensing reliability for the intended target. These challenges motivate the fluid antenna system (FAS) paradigm which introduces a reconfigurable spatial degree of freedom (DoF) that can reshape sensing signatures via port selection, beyond what waveform and power control alone can provide. In this paper, we devise diffusion FAS, a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven framework that exploits spatial agility to steer ISAC performance over the electromagnetic fading manifold. Instead of optimizing ISAC solely in the power domain, diffusion FAS casts ISAC as a dynamic spatial selection problem in which antenna states (i.e., ports) are chosen to shape sensing signatures while maintaining communication objectives. To work under sparse measurements, we employ a conditional denoising diffusion probabilistic model (DDPM) to reconstruct the latent spatial correlation structure from a small set of observed ports, enabling efficient exploration of the reconfigurable aperture. We demonstrate two FAS-enabled ISAC modes: (1) generative spatial stealth, which identifies localized deep fades to suppress a target's sensing visibility by up to two orders of magnitude, and (2) target isolation, which synthesizes spatial nulls that reject interference from adjacent objects.
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All authors Noor Waqar, Kai-Kit Wong, Chan-Byoung Chae, Ross Murch

Signal Processing

Fast Fluid Antenna Multiple Access

Fast fluid antenna multiple access (FAMA) is an idea that promises to overcome severe interference in massive access scenarios by reconfiguring the antenna's position at the receiver side on a symbol-by-symbol basis, without the need of precoding nor any other interference mitigation techniques. However, this idea is commonly studied under a genie-aided premise: each user terminal (UT) can probe all fluid-antenna ports in every symbol instance and ideally knows the instantaneous signal-interference split for the received signals at all the ports. Such assumption is unrealistic since it implies impractical hardware and switching limits, pilot overhead, as well as an unknown ability to determine the signal-interference split. This paper revisits the fast FAMA communication problem and asks a key question: can a UT act as if it had full per-port interference knowledge while observing only a small fraction of ports? To this end, we propose a copula-aided FAMA framework that learns the joint dependence structure of the complex triplets $(r_k,h_k,I_k)$ across ports, where $r_k$, $h_k$ and $I_k$ denote, respectively, the received signal, the channel coefficient and the aggregate interference signal at the $k$-th port, and uses this learned model to infer unobserved channels and interference. Concretely, we devise an attention-copula time-series model that is trained under random partial-observation masks and evaluated under both rich and finite-scattering channel models. Simulation results indicate that the reconstruction normalized mean-square-error (NMSE) for $h$, $r$, and $I$ drops to the order of $10^{-4}$ once the number of observed ports, $M$, exceeds the spatial degrees of freedom (DoF).
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All authors Noor Waqar, Kai-Kit Wong, Chan-Byoung Chae, Ross Murch

Systems and Control

RF Instrument Agent (RFIA): Empowering RF Instruments with Natural Language Understanding, Scheduling and Execution of Complex Tasks

Modern radio-frequency (RF) instruments, such as vector network analyzers (VNAs), already provide mature remote-control interfaces. However, practical RF measurement workflows still rely on manual operation or custom scripting, which is time-consuming and expertise-intensive. This paper presents RF Instrument Agent (RFIA), a natural-language agent framework for reliable task-driven RF instrument control. RFIA adopts a decoupled intent–planning–execution architecture, where the LLM is used only for task understanding and high-level planning, while instrument-facing operations are handled by a deterministic runtime. Verified skills, workflow templates, RF analysis tools, instrument-specific rules, and retrieval-assisted SCPI knowledge are organized in a structured knowledge base, and hybrid execution graphs are used for closed-loop measurement tasks. A hardware-in-the-loop prototype is implemented on a commercial VNA and evaluated using a 16-task benchmark covering configuration, query, acquisition, rule-aware operation, RF-data analysis, and closed-loop measurement. RFIA handles all benchmark tasks under predefined execution and safety policies, including one expected safety rejection. Hardware-in-the-loop results with both a 230B-scale MiniMax-M2.7 model and a smaller 27B-scale Qwen3.6-27B model confirm that the decoupled architecture supports reliable natural-language RF measurement automation across different LLM backends.
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Audio and Speech Processing

Frame-Aligned Fusion of Canary and WavLM for Non-Intrusive Intelligibility Prediction of Hearing-Aid-Processed Speech

Non-intrusive intelligibility prediction estimates how well hearing-impaired listeners understand hearing-aid-processed speech without a clean reference. We study this task in the 3rd Clarity Prediction Challenge using two frozen speech encoders, Canary and WavLM. The central question is not only whether complementary pretrained representations should be combined, but where their interaction should occur. We compare single-backbone baselines, uniform score averaging, pool-late fusion, cross-attention, frame-aligned fusion, and reverse alignment under a shared left/right-preserving binaural framework. Among the compared systems, the best model temporally prepares WavLM with a learnable strided convolution and fuses it with Canary on the coarser Canary timeline before pooling, reaching Eval RMSE 24.96$\pm$0.06 and Eval Corr 0.796$\pm$0.001. Severity, enhancement-system, layer-window, and temporal-shift analyses indicate that coarse local temporal correspondence before pooling is a useful inductive bias for this task.
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Audio and Speech Processing

Word-Level Modeling with Alignment-Aware Acoustic Fusion for Text-Assisted Intelligibility Prediction in Listeners with Hearing Loss

We address text-assisted speech intelligibility prediction for hearing-impaired listeners in CPC3. Although the target is a sentence-level percentage, it is determined by reference-word recognition outcomes. We formulate prediction as reference-conditioned word-level correctness modeling: a frozen Whisper encoder analyzes degraded speech, a teacher-forced decoder conditions on the canonical transcript, and sentence intelligibility is obtained by averaging predicted correctness probabilities over valid reference words. To complement transcript-conditioned decoder states, we add a word-aligned local acoustic branch based on character-level cross-attention alignment and an utterance-level global acoustic branch for calibration. On the official evaluation set, the decoder baseline obtains RMSE 24.92 and correlation 0.795, while joint fusion improves to incorrect-word F1 0.778, MCC 0.626, correlation 0.806, and RMSE 24.39. A similar trend with Whisper medium suggests that the gain comes from prediction granularity and alignment-aware fusion.
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Audio and Speech Processing

A study on weakly-supervised training approaches for phoneme-level pronunciation scoring

Phoneme-level computer-assisted pronunciation training systems typically rely on phoneme-level annotations, which are costly and scarce. In this work, we investigate whether phoneme-level mispronunciation information can be learned without phoneme-level supervision by exploiting higher-level pronunciation labels. Specifically, we study a weakly supervised setting in which models are trained using only utterance- or word-level pronunciation labels and analyze whether this supervision induces useful phoneme-level score predictions. We further consider a two-stage training scenario in which a model trained only with utterance-level labels is finetuned using a limited number of carefully-selected phoneme-level labeled utterances. We find that, using our proposed architecture and selection process, the two-stage process leads to comparable results to those obtained with full phoneme-level supervision, requiring only a small fraction of phoneme-level labels.
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Signal Processing

Low-cost Parallel Transmission for Dense Indoor Data Collection with LoRaWAN: Time Synchronization and Resource Allocation

LoRaWAN is a compelling low-cost solution for large-scale indoor Internet of Things (IoT) data backhaul, owing to its strong penetration capability and low power consumption. However, its default pure ALOHA access mechanism leads to severe channel contention, substantial packet loss, and reduced throughput under dense, concurrent transmissions. To overcome this, we propose a lightweight out-of-band (OOB) synchronization scheme that integrates a time division multiple access (TDMA) mechanism into commercial LoRaWAN Class~A networks. Unlike approaches requiring gateway scheduling, frequent downlink signaling, or custom hardware, our method introduces a single low-cost node providing millisecond-level alignment via a dedicated OOB synchronization channel. End devices seamlessly access this channel by briefly retuning their existing LoRa transceivers. Consequently, the scheme imposes zero downlink overhead during the steady-state reporting phase, requires no hardware modifications to gateways or end devices, and remains fully backward-compatible. This design enables collision-free scheduled channel access within the configured nominal resource capacity, thereby improving throughput and reducing contention. Real-world experiments using an indoor positioning prototype demonstrate that the proposed TDMA-LoRaWAN architecture improves system throughput by over 30% and reduces the packet loss rate from 25.8% to 5.02% in a 20-node indoor deployment. Furthermore, large-scale simulations corroborate these empirical findings, support the scalability analysis under larger network sizes, and indicate improved energy efficiency per successful packet in dense network settings. These combined results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for dense indoor IoT data collection and indicate its practical potential under high uplink reporting demands.
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All authors Junxiao Liu, Xinyu Fan, Luping Xiang, Kun Yang

Systems and Control · Cross-listed from cs.RO

TactileReflex: Noise-Statistics-Driven Vision-Tactile Reflex Control for Force-Sensitive Manipulation

Manipulating fragile deformable containers, such as disposable plastic cups filled with liquid, demands real-time grip-force adaptation within an extremely narrow force margin: insufficient force causes slip, while excessive force irreversibly deforms the thin wall. Existing approaches struggle to achieve such force-sensitive manipulation tasks. We propose a noise-statistics-based calibration-driven reflex control paradigm with vision-based tactile sensing: by analyzing the sensor's intrinsic noise characteristics (via a brief static-hold-and-unload protocol), we directly derive all controller thresholds, eliminating external force calibration, trial-and-error manual tuning, or material-specific physical models. Instantiating this paradigm, we present TactileReflex, a three-channel closed-loop controller that extracts three image-level proxies, shear intensity ($S_y$), contact intensity ($F_n$), and center of pressure ($C$), from dual visuo-tactile sensors and drives prioritized reflex channels at ~12 Hz for slip suppression, weight-adaptive release, and force protection. Each channel closes the loop directly on its proxy via noise-derived thresholds. Ablation demonstrates that only the full three-channel system is able to prevent irreversible container deformation (5/5 success vs. at most 1/5 for partial configurations). In a dynamic pouring task, fixed-effort baselines fail in all 10 attempts due to pose drift, while TactileReflex achieves 9/10 success across two water volumes. As a self-contained and interpretable controller, TactileReflex can serve as a plug-and-play safety layer beneath high-level manipulation pipelines, including haptic-free VR teleoperation and vision-language-action (VLA) policies.
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All authors Ziyan Feng, Yulong Fu, Zheng Li, Yuxin He, Jieji Ren, Yudong Zhong, Lujia Wang, Jinni Zhou, Qiang Nie

Signal Processing

FMCW-Based Integrated Sensing and Communication System: Design, Implementation, and Experimental Measurements

This study proposes a radar-centric integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system utilizing a two-layer modulation scheme for vehicular networks. Frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) chirps are jointly modulated via phase modulation (PM) and index modulation (IM) to transmit data while maintaining sensing as the primary function. To support this, a novel radar signal processing technique is developed to mitigate the impacts of IM and PM on sensing accuracy, alongside a communication receiver architecture designed to successfully demodulate IM and PM data within FMCW chirps. System performance is evaluated through simulations in the 2.4 GHz and 24 GHz bands under Doppler effects, achieving communication throughputs of 25 Mbps and 50 Mbps, respectively. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept hardware implementation is realized, and experimental measurements via a loopback cable are performed to verify the feasibility of the architecture. Finally, it evaluates the fundamental trade-off between communication throughput, sensing accuracy, and out-of-band emission, demonstrating the system's flexibility to dynamically adjust waveform parameters to meet varying operational requirements.
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All authors Murat Temiz, Colin Horne, Matthew A. Ritchie, Christos Masouros

Signal Processing

Reliable UAV Detection with ISAC

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) detection is one prominent use case of Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) systems in 5G-Advanced and future 6G networks. In this paper, we present experimental results for the detection of a small UAV using unmodified commercial 5G hardware for mono-static Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) radar and compare them with the expected performance based on models for link budget and hardware impairments. We show that reliable detection with sub-meter accuracy is still possible in over 500 meters distance in a challenging radio environment rich of strong clutter.
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All authors Stephan Saur, Mark Doll, Artjom Grudnitsky, Silvio Mandelli, Lucas Giroto, Marcus Henninger, Thorsten Wild

Systems and Control

SafeSABR: Risk-Calibrated Adaptive Bitrate Streaming over Starlink Networks

Starlink, as a representative low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband system, makes high-bitrate video streaming possible in regions where terrestrial broadband is unavailable. However, its access links exhibit rapid throughput fluctuations caused by satellite mobility and handovers. Existing learned adaptive bitrate (ABR) algorithms can achieve high average quality of experience (QoE), yet high-bitrate Starlink streaming exposes severe session-level rebuffering that is not captured by average QoE alone. To address it, this paper proposes SafeSABR, a risk-calibrated learned ABR framework for Starlink networks. SafeSABR formulates Starlink ABR as a QoE–severe-risk tradeoff and follows a three-stage design: behavior-cloning pretraining learns a high-QoE ABR prior, risk-calibrated reinforcement learning (RL) fine-tuning reduces severe-tail action tendencies, and a runtime safety auditor uses safe-capacity lower bounds to check policy-requested bitrates before execution. Experiments on real Starlink traces compare SafeSABR with online, prediction-assisted, and learned ABR baselines. Compared with advanced methods, SafeSABR reduces severe-stall sessions from 22.8% to 7.2% and worst-5% session rebuffering from 54.30 s to 22.68 s, with a 1.8% QoE cost. Component analyses further show that risk-calibrated fine-tuning and safe-capacity auditing reduce unsafe bitrate decisions and downstream severe-session rebuffering. These results show that combining risk-calibrated policy learning with decision-aware safe throughput forecasting can move learned ABR toward a safer QoE–severe-risk operating point under volatile Starlink networks.
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All authors Hongjun Xie, Jiahang Zhu, Zhiming Shao, Chao Fan, Zenghui Zhang, Genke Yang, Pengcheng Luo

Signal Processing · Cross-listed from stat.ML

Concomitant DAG Learning: On the Roles of Noise Adaptivity, Sparsity, and Non-negativity

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) constitute a central modeling tool to enable principled reasoning about cause-effect interactions in complex systems. However, since the causal structure underlying a group of variables is often unknown and interventions may be infeasible or ethically challenging to implement, there is a need to address the task of inferring DAGs from observational data. However, most classical structure identification approaches face two key obstacles: the combinatorial challenge of enforcing acyclicity, which severely limits scalability, and identifiability challenges arising from latent confounding or heterogeneous noise. This tutorial offers an overview of recent signal processing and optimization advances that address these issues by recasting DAG structure learning as a continuous, score-based estimation problem over adjacency matrices. We begin with a didactic introduction to structural equation models and the formulation of causal graph recovery, followed by a historical survey of score-based methods ranging from early combinatorial search schemes and greedy heuristics to modern continuous frameworks that leverage smooth characterizations of acyclicity. Building on this foundation, we describe concomitant DAG estimation methods that jointly infer sparse causal structure and exogenous noise levels, improving robustness under heteroscedasticity and distribution shifts by rendering the estimator noise adaptive. All in all, the tutorial introduces readers to challenges and opportunities for signal processing research at the crossroads of causal inference, high-dimensional statistics, and scalable graph learning, while outlining emerging directions including online, nonlinear, and neural causal discovery.
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All authors Gonzalo Mateos, Samuel Rey, Hamed Ajorlou, Mariano Tepper

Signal Processing

Utilizing Missed Detections in Directional Sensitivity-Based DOA Estimation

This paper introduces a signal strength-based direction of arrival (DOA) estimation approach for directional sensors that explicitly accounts for missed detections. In traditional phase-based DOA estimation frameworks, negative information from expected emitters that fall below the detection threshold fall outside the scope of standard measurement models. Unlike phase-based DOA estimation methods, the proposed approach relies only on received signal strength measurements. As a result, missed detections arise naturally from the sensing and detection process and convey valuable information via the known detection thresholds. By incorporating both detected signals and missed detections into the likelihood function, we develop a probabilistic estimation method that fully leverages the underlying measurement and detection models. Simulation results show that the proposed method significantly improves DOA estimation accuracy compared to baseline techniques, particularly in challenging scenarios with high missed-detection rates. Real-world experiments using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals and directional antennas further validate the effectiveness of the approach, demonstrating substantial performance gains. These findings highlight the value of modeling missed detections in sensor array processing and open new avenues for enhancing localization performance in wireless communication systems.
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Systems and Control

Beyond Shrinkage: Foundations of Data-Driven Control for Piecewise Affine Systems

Data-enabled predictive control (DeePC) has recently attracted attention as a promising approach for controlling systems directly from raw data, without requiring an explicit identification step. However, DeePC has not yet been extended to piecewise affine (PWA) systems, despite their extensive use in the (predictive) control literature and their universal approximation capabilities. To address this gap, in this work, we lay the foundations for data-enabled predictive control of PWA systems, providing: $(i)$ their behavioral characterization; $(ii)$ an extension of Willems' Fundamental Lemma to represent their behavior from raw data; $(iii)$ an analysis of the coherence of DeePC strategies using a linear predictor and shrinkage regularizers; and $(iv)$ a study of the impact of misclassification errors on structuring data for prediction. Our theoretical findings are validated by numerical results on a simple example, emphasizing the need to extend beyond a regularized version of the foundational DeePC framework to design control actions that are both effective and coherent with a PWA system's behavior, thus ensuring the controller's explainability.
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All authors Gianluca Giacomelli, Victor G. Lopez, Simone Formentin, Matthias A. Müller, Valentina Breschi

Signal Processing

Comprehensive Dataset and Signal Processing Framework for Phonocardiogram-Based Heart Rate and Blood Pressure Estimation

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent significant global health challenges today, necessitating regular and reliable monitoring to enable early intervention. Phonocardiogram (PCG) signals present a promising non-invasive method for assessing cardiovascular health. While recent studies have focused on estimating heart rate (HR) from PCG signals and blood pressure (BP) through multimodal combinations with other physiological data, reliable and cost-effective systems that can predict both HR and BP using only PCG signals remain largely unexplored. In this study, we proposed and developed a lab-scale cost-effective Phonocardiogram Tracking (PhonoTrack) system that can measure both HR and BP using only the PCG signal. We also introduced a corresponding dataset collected from 15 participants to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system. HR was determined using several peak detection methods, such as Hilbert Transform (HT), Shannon Entropy (SE), and WES, achieving notable Pearson correlation coefficients of 0.965, 0.973, and 0.955, respectively. The corresponding root mean square errors (RMSEs) were 2.467 bpm, 1.688 bpm, and 1.992 bpm for HT, SE, and WES, respectively. Additionally, we developed an advanced semi-empirical model based on multiple regression techniques to estimate systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). This model demonstrated standard deviations of 2.10 mmHg for SBP and 3.20 mmHg for DBP across all subjects, with Pearson correlation coefficients of 0.89 and 0.70, respectively. These findings pave the way for developing a non-invasive, low-cost, and portable PhonoTrack device, positioning it as a promising solution for continuous cardiovascular monitoring settings.
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All authors Abdul Ahad Mamun, Utsab Saha, Md Hasibul Hasan, Shahed Ahmed, MD Jahin Alam

Image and Video Processing · Cross-listed from cs.GR

DrawVideo: Grounded and Faithful Multi-Shot Video Generation from Storyboard Keyframe Sketches

Long video generation requires high-fidelity visual synthesis, coherent narrative organization, shot-level structure, and explicit user control. Existing text-to-video methods typically generate videos from a single long-form prompt, making it difficult for creators to directly control character pose, camera composition, spatial layout, and local motion. We propose DrawVideo, a sketch-guided and storyboard-driven framework that grounds multi-shot video generation in creator-provided spatial structure, appearance, and motion. Each shot is specified by a black-and-white sketch, an appearance prompt, and a motion prompt. DrawVideo first generates a structure-aligned reference keyframe, expands the motion description into derivative keyframes representing ordered action states, and then synthesizes local video clips between adjacent keyframes. We further introduce SketchLongVideo, to the best of our knowledge the first evaluation dataset of ordered multi-shot storyboards with aligned sketch, appearance, and motion conditions. Extensive experiments demonstrate strong structural controllability, appearance consistency, intra-shot visual stability, and motion alignment, providing an effective solution for director-oriented video creation.
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All authors Chuanzhi Xu, Huiqi Liang, Bang Shi, Huiming Zhang, Guangcheng Lin, Yifan Xiao, Haodong Chen, Qiang Qu, Zhicheng Lu, Weidong Cai

Systems and Control

OptiQU: Coordinated Multi-Level Voltage and Reactive Power Control for Enhanced Voltage Quality and Secure Grid Operation

Modern low-voltage (LV) distribution grids face rising shares of photovoltaic generation and high-power loads such as heat pumps and electric vehicle charging stations. Due to high simultaneity, voltage constraints often become binding before thermal limits, triggering costly conventional grid reinforcement measures. Existing voltage and reactive power control in LV grids - e.g., fixed cos($\phi$) or Q(V) control of distributed generators, on-load tap-changing distribution transformers, and line voltage regulators - is typically applied locally and independently, leaving reactive power flexibility potential unused. This paper presents OptiQU, a coordinated voltage and reactive power control concept for medium-voltage (MV) and LV distribution grids, combining centralised optimisation with decentralised local control and fallback strategies. The approach coordinates operational targets and setpoints across MV and LV (e.g., DER reactive power and substation equipment) to mitigate voltage violations and curtailment and to increase hosting capacity, while enabling robust operation under limited communication. The concepts are being evaluated using representative MV/LV models in simulation and lab environments and will be validated in field tests with two German DSOs. Based on existing research, the coordinated approach is expected to increase the exploitable flexibility for upstream voltage and reactive power control. The planned evaluation will quantify this potential and investigate trade-offs between performance, communication effort, and resilience.
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All authors Irene Hammermeister, Eric Tönges, Nils Bornhorst, Johannes Heid, Gabriela Fritzler, Timo Rehwald, Andrea Schoen, Ronald Halbauer, Jan Meschede, Michael Kramer, Julia Holl, Sina Straußberger, Andrey Luzhbin, Maximilian Niedhammer, Mischa Geiger, Aaron Eicker, Maurice Raetsch, Alfio Spina, Johannes Dieplinger, Christian Mayer, Josef Bayer, Thorsten Reske, Dominik Hilbrich

Signal Processing

Distributed Two-Phase Processing for Modular XL-MIMO with Wireless Fronthaul under Hardware Impairments

Modular extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO) architectures combined with wireless fronthaul provide a scalable alternative to monolithic arrays, but their performance is sensitive to hardware impairments and resource allocation strategies. In this paper, we consider a distributed two-phase processing framework for modular XL-MIMO systems employing amplify-and-forward wireless fronthaul under practical hardware constraints. We jointly model access-side and fronthaul-side distortions and formulate a weighted minimum mean-square error (WMMSE)-based optimization problem that maximizes the uplink sum spectral efficiency (SE) by jointly adjusting UE transmit powers and fronthaul amplification levels. The resulting algorithm alternates between distortion-aware receiver design and convex power-control updates. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed joint optimization significantly improves spectral efficiency compared to fixed transmission strategies, particularly when the CPU has a moderate number of antennas, while also quantifying the relative impact of access and fronthaul impairments.
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Signal Processing

Outlier-Robust unscented Kalman filter based on generalized correntropy induced

Conventional Kalman filtering (KF) approaches exhibit significant limitations in addressing nonlinear state estimation problems contaminated by non-Gaussian noise disturbances. To overcome these challenges, this work proposes a robust iterative square root unscented Kalman Filter based on the generalized correntropy induced (SR-GCI-IUKF). While sharing the maximum correntropy criterion's (MCC) ability to characterize higher-order noise statistics, the proposed GCI framework exhibits intrinsic kernel bandwidth insensitivit a critical advantage enabling robust adaptation to diverse complex noise environments through its generalized kernel structure. For nonlinear state estimation challenges, the algorithm constructs a nonlinear error generalization model that dynamically corrects measurement-induced errors during the state update phase, thereby significantly enhancing estimation accuracy in strongly nonlinear regimes. Furthermore, the square-root decomposition implementation ensures numerical robustness by preserving covariance matrix positive definiteness throughout recursive operations. Theoretical stability guarantees are established through rigorous error dynamics analysis, demonstrating bounded estimation variance under non-Gaussian disturbances. Finally, experiments are carried out in nonlinear systems, land vehicle navigation systems as well as power system FASE to compare other robust algorithms, and it is determined that the proposed algorithm has stronger robustness.
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Signal Processing

Constant-Envelope Quantized Precoding with Power Control for Cell-Free Massive MIMO-OFDM

Cell-free massive MIMO has matured into a key candidate technology for 6G and beyond, owing to its ability to provide nearly uniform service quality to many user equipments (UEs) over the same time-frequency resources. Unlike conventional cellular massive MIMO, the core idea is to distribute a large number of low-cost access points (APs) across the network and enable joint coherent transmission and reception. While early works largely assumed ideal hardware, hardware impairments become inevitable when APs are implemented with low-cost components. In this context, this paper investigates the adverse impact of low-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) on the downlink performance of cell-free massive MIMO-OFDM systems. In contrast to prior studies that mainly quantify spectral-efficiency degradation under low-resolution DACs, we consider the design of quantized constant-envelope (CE) precoding, which additionally enables the use of highly power-efficient amplifiers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on quantized CE precoding for cell-free massive MIMO-OFDM. Beyond adapting the classical maximum-antenna-power method, we propose a novel power-control strategy across APs that mitigates the detrimental effects of severely quantized transmitters by reducing the contribution of harmful APs. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed power-control mechanism significantly improves the uncoded bit error rate performance.
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Signal Processing

Decentralized Variational Bayesian UKF with Maximum Generalized Student's t-kernel Correntropy for Wide-Area Power System state estimation

A Conventional centralized state estimators exhibit limited robustness in large-scale grids and face practical deployment hurdles. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a decentralized maximum generalized Student's t-kernel correntropy Variational Bayesian unscented Kalman filter (D-MGST-VBUKF). The algorithm optimizes the estimation performance at three levels for the regionalized state estimation needs: first, to address non-Gaussian measurement noise in practical systems, we propose the cost function using MGST, retaining Student's t robustness while improving adaptability to complex noise by expanding the degree-of-freedom parameter; secondly, the VB inference framework is constructed to model the unknown noise distribution online, and the joint optimization of the noise statistical characteristics and state estimation is realized by constructing the conjugate prior distribution; finally, the regional state fusion mechanism is established based on the topological correlation characteristics of the power grid, and the global consistency correction of the local estimation results is realized by constructing the state coordination equation of the boundary nodes. Simulation experiments in IEEE 14-bus and IEEE 39-bus system show that the method has stronger robustness compared with the traditional algorithm under non-Gaussian noise environment and unknown noise environment.
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