Papers

High-accuracy velocity estimation over orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) links is challenging because Doppler shifts and local oscillator (LO) drift contribute the same way to the observed carrier frequency offset (CFO). We propose a bidirectional CFO separation method for a frequency range-1 (FR1) time division duplex (TDD) Uu link between a roadside gNB/TRP and a vehicle user equipment (UE). Downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) CFO estimates are obtained from the physical downlink and uplink shared channel phase tracking reference signals (PT-RS), respectively, their sum isolates the radial Doppler and allow for the extraction of the radial velocity, while their difference recovers the relative LO offset. The estimates are obtained in closed form, without any iterative processing, using only a compact scalar CFO report fed back on the UL, the method can be co-scheduled with an new radio (NR) round trip time (RTT) positioning event to enable simultaneous ranging measurements along velocity estimates. We derive an idealized Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB), show that a linear phase slope estimator attains it at high signal to noise ratio, evaluate sensitivity to angle of arrival uncertainty and multipath, and discuss RF chain mismatch. The resulting link level implementation is aligned with NR PDSCH/PUSCH PT-RS procedures and is suitable for network assisted vehicle to everything (V2X) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC).

We study initialization bias in spherical $K$-means for weakly informative directional mixtures. We model the observations by a $K$-component von Mises-Fisher mixture with a small concentration parameter $\kappa$, corresponding to a high-dispersion regime in which the data provide limited information about the underlying directions. Our analysis begins with the limiting case $\kappa=0$ (corresponding to a uniform distribution over the sphere), where one population spherical $K$-means update is governed entirely by the Voronoi tessellation induced by the initialized templates. For uniformly random initializations in fixed dimension $d$, the updated templates become asymptotically aligned with their initial values as $K\to\infty$: the average squared geodesic error scales as $O(K^{-2/(d-1)})$, while the worst-case error is $O((\log K/K)^{2/(d-1)})$. We then show that, in the weak-signal regime of small positive $\kappa$, the population update remains an $O(\kappa)$ perturbation of this limiting map. Thus, in the weak-signal regime, spherical $K$-means can preserve initialization-induced structure despite the presence of a genuine but highly dispersed directional signal.

The rapid deployment of distributed energy resources, including heat pumps, electric vehicles, photovoltaics, and battery storage, is reshaping the operation of low-voltage networks. While distribution system operators often aim to develop time-varying tariffs to incentivise network-friendly behaviour and defer reinforcements, they risk triggering prosumer synchronisation. As prosumers follow price signals, their behaviour may synchronise, avoiding existing load peaks while creating undesirable peaks at other times. This paper quantifies the impact on low-voltage network reinforcement needs when shifting from flat tariffs to two time-varying tariffs: Time-of-Use and Real-Time Pricing. Applying a mixed-integer linear model across 471 low-voltage reference networks in Switzerland, we evaluate expansion requirements under projections of distributed energy resource deployment for 2050. In the model, prosumers operate their distributed energy resources in accordance with their subscribed electricity tariff to minimise costs, and the distribution system operator subsequently optimises reinforcements. Our results demonstrate that while adopting time-varying tariffs can reduce reinforcement investment costs by more than 50%, high adoption rates can reverse this declining trend. Specifically, once prosumer adoption exceeds the optimal thresholds of 50% for Time-of-Use and 40% for Real-Time Pricing, reinforcement needs increase by 39% and 134%, respectively, for an additional 20% of tariff adoption.

Clear capture of the wearer's own voice (OV) is essential when using earbuds for mobile communication. However, OV capture remains challenging in noisy environments. Bone-conducted (BC) speech, which can be sensed as vibrations of the earbud housing, can be used to improve OV capture. However, neither bandwidth nor spatial characteristics of OV-induced earbud vibrations have been analyzed in detail, despite both characteristics being relevant, e.g., for sensor choice and placement. This study investigates both characteristics, based on measurements with two earbud models. Spectrally, results indicate that OV-induced earbud vibrations exhibit a low-pass characteristic, with a steep roll-off of -93 dB per decade above 400 Hz. Thus, sensors with comparatively low noise floors are required to sense the vibrations above \SI{1}{\kilo\hertz}. Spatially, results indicate that the earbuds mainly vibrate in and out of the ear canal entrance, with high consistency between subjects and fits. Simulations confirm that this enables capture of the high-power vibrations below 400 Hz by a single-axis sensor with less than 1.5 dB mean attenuation.

Opacity is a fundamental system property for confidentiality in discrete-event systems (DES). Classical opacity is typically defined under event-based observations, requiring that any secret system behavior remains indistinguishable from some non-secret behavior to an external intruder. However, in many applications such as path planning or opacity-preserving tasks, the intruder observes system states rather than events. Moreover, it often suffices that the system exhibits secret behaviors that can be exploited for opacity-preserving task execution, but such a system property cannot be fully captured by existing notions of state-observation-based opacity. Motivated by this limitation, we propose a relaxed notion of existing state-observation-based opacity, called existential opacity (EO), which only requires the existence of secret behaviors (instead of all secret behaviors) that are indistinguishable from a non-secret behavior under the state observations of the intruder. We show that the notion of EO is more expressive than existing state-observation-based opacity notions. In addition, a class of EO properties together with their corresponding verification approaches are developed, enabling the analysis of existential opacity in discrete-event systems and providing a new criterion for determining the feasibility of opacity-preserving problems.

The Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) represents a transformative paradigm that redefines the construction, operation, and governance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in the Web 3.0 era. DePIN integrates physical resources, such as networking equipment, storage, and computing power, with decentralized digital governance, forming a self-incentivized ecosystem that is collaboratively built, shared, and governed by the community. It provides a foundational framework for future communication networks, facilitating decentralized edge intelligence, efficient resource sharing, and trustworthy coordination among heterogeneous devices. Focusing on the feasibility of this emerging paradigm, this paper examines the technology landscape in the pre-DePIN era and gaps between existing methodologies and the forthcoming decentralized infrastructure for Web 3.0. It provides a systematic and comprehensive survey of the background, core characteristics, technical architecture, and applications of DePIN across various vertical domains. The paper analyzes the DePIN technology stack from six layers: physical infrastructure, blockchain, interaction, trust, incentive, and application, with special attention to their cross-layer feedback loops, implementation readiness, and deployment limitations. To further bridge conceptual analysis and practical deployment, we propose a DePIN feasibility assessment framework covering technical, governance, and economic dimensions. Moreover, we highlight promising research directions, providing insights and guidance for further exploration and deployment of DePIN.

This paper develops a unified framework for instance optimal sparse recovery from nonlinear observations. The main ingredient is a signal-dependent restricted approximate invertibility condition (RAIC) of some gradient, which leads to the instance optimality of iterative hard thresholding. Under Gaussian designs, we apply the proposed framework to phaseless, one-bit, and ReLU measurements, which correspond to the problems of sparse phase retrieval, one-bit compressed sensing, and sparse ReLU regression, respectively. For sparse phase retrieval, we propose a variant of thresholded amplitude flow and show its instance optimality under $O(s^3)$ measurements (up to logarithmic factors), where $s$ is the sparsity level. To our best knowledge, this is the first instance optimal efficient algorithm for sparse phase retrieval and complements Gao, Wang and Xu (2016) that achieved this via a computationally intractable program. In one-bit compressed sensing, we establish the instance optimality of normalized binary iterative hard thresholding and strengthen the recent result of Matsumoto and Mazumdar (2024). In sparse ReLU regression, it is shown that a slight variant of the algorithm in Soltanolkotabi (2017) is instance optimal. Moreover, $(\ell_2,\ell_2)$ non-uniform instance optimal guarantees are obtained for these problems. The analysis is built upon a number of high-dimensional concentration bounds, including bounds on restricted eigenvalues and a novel instance-dependent hyperplane tessellation result.

Intermittent state measurements pose fundamental challenges to model predictive control of constrained nonlinear systems because prediction uncertainty grows during feedback outages and measurement-triggered resets disrupt nominal state propagation, potentially compromising closed-loop stability and recursive feasibility. This paper develops a Koopman-based stochastic MPC framework with probabilistically truncated soft constraints. Specifically, a Lipschitz-constrained deep Koopman model provides a linear latent predictor, enabling computationally efficient online optimization. The intermittent measurement process is modeled as a two-mode discrete-time Markov chain, yielding a unified Markov jump error model for open-loop propagation and measurement-triggered resets. Under numerically verifiable sufficient conditions, the prediction error is shown to be mean-square ultimately bounded, and an explicit uniform second-moment bound is obtained. A distribution-free probabilistic error radius is then constructed for a prescribed confidence level and used to truncate dropout-dependent constraint tightening. An exact-penalty soft-constraint mechanism accommodates reset-induced jumps and prolonged dropouts. Under the stated terminal compatibility and bounded-disturbance conditions, recursive feasibility and mean-square ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop regulation error are established. Numerical simulations on a visual-servoing tracking task corroborate these theoretical results and demonstrate effective tracking under stochastic measurement unavailability.

We analyze the problem of learning general discrete-time nonlinear state-space models using the simulation error minimization (SEM) method. In this setting, model parameters are typically learned by minimizing the mismatch between simulated and measured outputs over a training dataset, or shorter subsequences extracted from it. Specifically, we study the cumulative output turnpike property of the underlying SEM optimization problem, which requires optimal output sequences emanating from a fixed initial state to approach and remain close to an optimal output sequence of the corresponding SEM problem with free initial state. In the presence of non-unique optimal output sequences—as may arise, for instance, in fully black-box system identification using neural networks—the property is formulated with respect to the closest such sequence. Turnpike behavior is generally desirable in practice, as it provides a theoretical justification for employing computationally more tractable SEM formulations with fixed initial states while ensuring that their optimal output sequences remain close to unconstrained optimal ones. Under a mild reachability condition, we establish equivalence between the cumulative turnpike property, coercivity of the value function, and a tailored notion of strict dissipativity. We additionally introduce a cardinality turnpike property and show that it is strictly weaker than the cumulative notion. Finally, we establish sufficient conditions for turnpike behavior based on incremental output stability, convexity of the stage cost, and a suitable optimality condition, and illustrate the theory by means of a numerical example.

A novel two-timescale optimization framework is proposed for pinching-antenna systems (PASS)-enabled secure integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). Specifically, a base station (BS) equipped with pinching antennas (PAs) transmits signals to a legitimate user under the existence of an eavesdropper (Eve), while employing leaky coaxial cables (LCXs) for receiving echo signals to track Eve's mobility states, i.e., locations and velocities. Considering the practical PAs activation overhead, the pinching beamforming and baseband processing are optimized in the large and small timescales, respectively. The multiple-waveguide scenario is first considered, where the BS can transmit the artificial noise together with communication signals for both jamming and sensing purposes. A joint baseband and pinching beamforming design problem is formulated to maximize the average secrecy rate. To address this problem, an alternating optimization algorithm is first invoked for jointly optimizing the pinching and baseband beamforming with predicted Eve's mobility states. With determined PAs positions, the baseband beamforming is updated with refined Eve's states obtained from real-time echo signal processing. The single-waveguide scenario is then considered. Since a single waveguide carries at most one independent data stream, an ISAC framework with separate communication and sensing phases is proposed. The element-wise algorithm proposed for the multiple-waveguide scenario is extended to solve the resultant pinching beamforming problem. Numerical results demonstrate that: 1) Eve's velocities and positions can be accurately tracked with the proposed two-timescale framework in both multiple- and single-waveguide scenarios; and 2) PASS achieves superior secrecy rate compared to conventional multiple-antenna benchmarks.

Image super-resolution, which aims to reconstruct high-resolution images from their low-resolution observations, is fundamental to medical imaging, remote sensing, surveillance, microscopy, and scientific visualization. Traditional model-based methods formulate super-resolution as an inverse problem with hand-crafted regularization priors. While interpretable and theoretically grounded, they rely on fixed assumptions and require computationally intensive iterative solvers. Deep learning methods offer data-driven flexibility by learning nonlinear mappings from low- to high-resolution images, among which diffusion models have achieved particularly impressive perceptual quality. However, the standard diffusion training objective is a pixel-domain noise-prediction loss that does not explicitly enforce perceptual fidelity, which can lead to oversmoothing and loss of fine image structure. To address these limitations, we propose a perceptually regularized diffusion framework that incorporates prior knowledge through perceptual-loss-based regularization, improving training convergence and encouraging the recovery of meaningful image features. Experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate improved perceptual quality and competitive distortion metrics, highlighting the effectiveness of regularization for diffusion-based super resolution.

Large language model question answering over power-grid models must respect a fixed context budget. We introduce seed-anchored graph rendering, a deterministic method that prioritizes query-local graph evidence without adding method-specific tuned or learned parameters beyond the shared hop bound and context budget. The method provides a checkable condition under which predefined seed-local answer-bearing render units are preserved in a greedy bounded-context prefix. We evaluate the approach on Common Information Model (CIM) network models exchanged through the Common Grid Model Exchange Standard (CGMES). On two budget-binding CGMES encodings, naive descriptions-first rendering retains local evidence for every single-hop item but only 0.12 and 0.00 of multi-hop items, whereas seed-anchored rendering retains all such evidence. On a preregistered fresh 100-item bank from the SmallGrid topology family, accuracy rises from 0.450 to 0.970 under a fixed 8,000-character context budget. Under a common retrieval and rendering pipeline, the standards-native seed-anchored graph matches or exceeds extracted graph representations produced by LightRAG, Microsoft GraphRAG, and HippoRAG, while avoiding LLM graph-construction tokens. The results are specific to the evaluated CIM/CGMES models, reader, and context budget; they concern budget-bounded retrieval rather than general question answering.

Observation decimation is frequently employed in state estimation to reduce sensing, communication, and computational requirements, but decreasing the measurement assimilation frequency increases estimation uncertainty. Selecting an appropriate observation decimation factor therefore requires accurately predicting the resulting estimator performance. While the discrete algebraic Riccati equation (DARE) provides the steady-state estimation-error covariance for standard linear time-invariant Kalman filters, it is not directly applicable to estimators employing decimated measurement updates. Existing approaches address this limitation through lifted system representations or periodic Riccati equation formulations, both of which incur additional computational complexity. This paper presents a covariance-constrained observation decimation (CCOD) framework that reformulates the DARE inputs using equivalent decimated system and process-noise matrices that capture covariance growth between measurement updates. The proposed reformulation enables direct prediction of the steady-state estimation-error covariance through a single DARE evaluation without increasing the system dimension or solving coupled periodic Riccati equations. The resulting covariance prediction is used to determine the maximum observation decimation factor that satisfies a prescribed estimation uncertainty bound. Validation using a high dimensional linear time-invariant system and a space object tracking application demonstrates that the proposed approach accurately predicts steady-state estimator performance while reducing the measurement assimilation frequency required to satisfy specified covariance constraints.

This paper proposes a dimension-reduced approximate dynamic programming (ADP) method for real-time microgrid operation with massive air-conditioning loads under multiple uncertainties. The operation problem is formulated as a multi-stage Markov decision process, and a post-decision value function is introduced to characterize the impact of current decisions on future operating costs. To address the curse of dimensionality caused by massive air-conditioning loads, a consistency-based value function projection is developed to map the high-dimensional state space at each node into a tractable aggregated state space. Based on the reduced states, piecewise linear approximation is further employed for efficient value function training. Case studies on 33-bus and 123-bus systems show that the proposed method achieves near-optimal operation performance with low computational cost and good scalability under both deterministic and stochastic conditions.

Data-driven process simulation aims to generate realistic case trajectories from historical event logs without requiring an explicitly specified model of the underlying dynamics. Deep sequence models can capture complex temporal dependencies through next-activity probabilities and conditional time distributions. However, event logs provide only a partial view of the underlying process state, often recording activity completions without the corresponding service-start times. Consequently, the same observed process history may be consistent with multiple plausible latent process conditions, whereas standard recurrent models compress each process prefix into a single deterministic recurrent state. We propose a Unified Particle Filter LSTM (Unified PF-LSTM) that maintains and sequentially updates a weighted set of recurrent-state hypotheses. We summarize this particle belief using its weighted mean and learned features based on the moment-generating function. The resulting representation is used to predict a categorical distribution over the next activity and conditional quantiles of the current activity's sojourn time. The framework is trained end-to-end from event-log data and evaluated on three real-world emergency department datasets. The results show that the proposed framework consistently outperforms the considered data-driven baselines in reproducing routing, duration, and system-level behavior across all datasets, with particularly strong gains in settings where complex process dynamics are only partially reflected in the available event logs.

Multi-contrast MR scans contain redundant structural information that can be leveraged during reconstruction and potentially accelerate acquisition times. This idea has inspired end-to-end guided reconstruction models, leveraging one or more contrasts to guide the reconstruction of a different contrast. However, these models require large paired multi-contrast raw datasets for training, limiting their application in low-data regimes. In this work, we propose a modular framework, namely CoSMo-RecNet, for learning guided reconstruction models in the low-data regime. At its core is a reusable multi-contrast representation based on a content/style model, which can be learned from large-scale, publicly accessible, unpaired multi-contrast image datasets, without available k-space data. Using this frozen model as a multi-contrast prior and using a set of reference contrasts, the reconstruction problem reduces to a much simpler refinement problem that can be solved by a lightweight unrolled network and thus learned from small, task-specific reconstruction datasets. We demonstrate the efficacy of CoSMo-RecNet by evaluating it on the low-field 0.3 T M4Raw dataset, showing stable reconstruction quality on decreasing the raw training data budget. CoSMo-RecNet achieved higher reconstruction quality with 5 training subjects or lower compared to a parameter-count-matched MoDL trained on 100 subjects. On a data-limited and severely out-of-distribution ultra-low-field 47 mT Halbach scanner dataset, CoSMo-RecNet was superior to other viable strategies, including classical reconstruction, transfer learning, and zero-shot reconstruction.

High-rate neural telemetry requires an implant-towearable link whose circuit partition, waveform mapping, packet processing, and failure semantics are mutually consistent. This paper specifies a chip-oriented, one-way impulse-radio ultrawideband (IR-UWB) uplink comprising an implanted packet engine and free-running transmitter, a tissue-proxy channel, and a wearable mixed-signal receiver and digital baseband.

Received signal strength indicator (RSSI) positioning outdoors has one to two orders of magnitude fewer anchors than the indoor systems its methods come from. In the ten-day cattle-tracking deployment reported here, four gateways cover $4{,}302\,\mathrm{m}^2$, or $0.93$ anchors per $1000\,\mathrm{m}^2$. An animal is heard by $0.99$ gateways per second on average, so the observation vector for a given second is almost never complete. How the gaps are filled is therefore a first-order design choice, not a preprocessing detail. Filling at all is worth $8.1\,\mathrm{m}$, $96\%$ of the improvement the hold-length setting can deliver and a $29\%$ error reduction. How long a value is then held is worth the remaining $4\%$, from four seconds to unbounded. Once a value is available, the gain comes from removing noise rather than rebuilding the lost sample: a filtered channel estimate improves on a held raw sample, whereas filling backwards from future samples makes it worse. As that mechanism predicts, smoothing strength has a real interior optimum that is costly to miss in either direction. A smoother allowed to read the future gains only $0.55\,\mathrm{m}$, one fifteenth of what filling is worth, which bounds what any offline method can add. Three method families do not apply here for structural reasons rather than poor performance: two or more of the four channels are live in only $25\%$ of seconds, so the cross-channel structure generative imputation must learn is largely unobserved.

High classification accuracy alone is insufficient for clinical image analysis, where calibrated confidence and reliable uncertainty estimates are essential. This study proposes a reliability-aware Hybrid-K ensemble selection framework for multiclass cervical cytology classification using the SIPaKMeD dataset. Nine deep learning architectures were evaluated using a fixed stratified five-fold partition and three training seeds. After post-hoc temperature scaling, models were assessed using macro-F1, accuracy, AUROC, expected calibration error (ECE), worst-class ECE (WC-ECE), area under the risk-coverage curve (AURC), Brier score, and negative log-likelihood (NLL). Models were ranked using an equal-weight composite score, and Hybrid-K ensembles were formed from the top-ranked models using soft voting. Robustness was examined using 5,000 Dirichlet-sampled metric-weight vectors, leave-one-metric-out analysis, and corrected paired testing across 15 fold-by-seed evaluations. The final Hybrid-2 ensemble, comprising Swin-Tiny and TinyViT-5M, reduced AURC by 43%, NLL by 17%, and WC-ECE by 36% relative to the best individual model. It was selected in 96.8% of random weighting scenarios, remained unchanged across all leave-one-metric-out analyses, and improved the full composite score. However, per-metric gains were not statistically significant after Holm-Bonferroni correction (all adjusted p >= 0.168). Because post-hoc calibration did not use a fully independent calibration set, calibration-dependent results should be interpreted as exploratory internal estimates. Overall, the framework identified a compact ensemble robust to alternative metric weightings and improved reliability point estimates under internal validation on a single dataset.

This paper presents a one-stage learning framework that maps monocular roadside-camera images directly to vehicle states in a ground-fixed coordinate frame. Unlike conventional approaches that first detect vehicles in the image plane and subsequently apply geometric post-processing, the proposed method leverages features from a pretrained object detector to jointly estimate each vehicle's ground-plane position, dimensions, and yaw angle. The framework therefore uses visual features not only for vehicle detection but also for direct spatial and orientation estimation. To support model training and evaluation, we develop a data-collection and label-generation pipeline based on synchronized video from a roadside camera and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Acting as a temporary top-view sensing platform, the UAV provides vehicle trajectories, dimensions, and orientations, which are transformed into the ground-fixed coordinate frame and temporally aligned with the roadside-camera images to generate ground-truth labels. The framework is evaluated using data collected during multiple experiments at the Mcity Test Facility. Results show that the proposed method can recover vehicle trajectories and orientations from monocular roadside imagery without a separate geometric post-processing stage, demonstrating its potential as a scalable approach to infrastructure-based perception at urban intersections.

The limitations of on-board sensors and blind spots caused by occlusion cause the reduction of perception quality in autonomous vehicles. In such cases, cooperative perception provides additional data via Vehicle-to-Everything communication to enhance local perception, causing a large volume of data transmission. The vehicle can focus on acquiring and utilizing relevant data according to the prevailing road context by identifying the current traffic situation. To achieve this, we propose a concept for the situation identification of the vehicle using Bird's-Eye-View images. Firstly, the situation around the vehicle is identified using object detection with semantic segmentation, followed by understanding the context of the traffic using a situation identification module consisting of an open-source projective transformation network Cam2BEV and a situation identification neural network. The concept was evaluated and validated by running the software on the CARLA simulator using the in-built RGB camera and the semantic segmentation camera. Additionally, the portability of the situation identification module for real-world applications was verified on Cityscapes and nuScenes urban driving datasets. Overall, the proposed situation identification approach enables efficient sensor data management by prioritizing relevant data to the current traffic situation. The source code is available in the following link: https://github.com/akshaynarla/DySi_Select

Audio LLM benchmarks measure understanding and dialogue quality, not whether speech-enabled models respond with relational warmth when a vulnerable user discloses a mental-health concern. We introduce a 7-turn scripted-disclosure probe grounded in WHO mental-health clinical guidelines, with each script run on the same model (Azure OpenAI gpt-realtime) in both audio and text-only conditions, and acoustic-prosody analysis of the generated speech. Across 532 responses we identify two audio-specific patterns transcript-only evaluation would miss: at the elicitation turn the model's voice gets shorter, faster, lower-pitched, and quieter rather than warmer (p < .001 for five of seven acoustic features), and the modality gap on relational acceptance, small in aggregate, concentrates in the highest-stakes self-harm/suicide scripts. A two-rater listener study corroborates that perceived warmth is concentrated at specific turns and on bereavement disclosures. Together these patterns indicate that auditing speech-enabled models in mental-health contexts requires evaluating the combined audio-and-text experience the user encounters, not the transcript in isolation. We release the protocol, scoring pipeline, and scripts as a starting point for evaluating speech-enabled models in mental-health contexts.

In large-scale disaster scenarios, rapid localization of missing persons is a critical challenge for search-and-rescue (SAR) operations. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with radio frequency (RF) receivers can support RF-based localization by collecting signals emitted from mobile devices at spatially distributed sensing locations. This paper addresses the resulting waypoint-selection problem: determining a minimum set of UAV waypoints that provides at least threefold coverage of every potential target location. We formulate this task as an extended k-coverage problem that independently defines the UAV-navigable and target regions, and derive an exact-penalty quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulation with a sufficient penalty condition that preserves feasibility and minimum waypoint cardinality. The QUBO is mapped to an Ising-form cost Hamiltonian and evaluated using the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) on both a noise-free simulator and IBM's 127-qubit Eagle processor. On the tested simulator instances, QAOA recovers the known minimum-cardinality solutions. Across the rectangular hardware test cases, the mean 3-coverage ratio exceeded 95%. In the campus-scale evaluation, ten hardware executions achieved 99.3% mean 3-coverage with a 90% feasible-run rate, while the shortest feasible flight path was up to 37.0% shorter than those of the deterministic grid-based baselines. Additional comparisons with classical optimization and learning-based baselines are provided, together with computational and quantum-resource analyses for larger generated instances. These results establish an exact QUBO representation for RF-based SAR waypoint selection and characterize its implementation on current gate-based quantum hardware.

This paper develops a robust security-resilient transmission framework for cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems under active pilot spoofing attacks. As a baseline, system performance is characterized under attack-free conditions to establish the target user's pre-attack service level. Upon attack detection, the system enters an absorption phase, during which, power allocation is adaptively adjusted across a limited subset of access points (APs) using contaminated channel state information (CSI). This phase quickly compensates for performance degradation while maintaining low operational overhead. Once the secrecy spectral efficiency (SSE) recovers to a prescribed loss level, the resulting power allocation initializes the restoration phase. Here, the transmit powers of all APs are jointly optimized, and a protective partial zero-forcing (PPZF) strategy further improves secrecy. In parallel, artificial noise (AN) is incorporated under a worst-case eavesdropping scenario accounting for large-scale fading uncertainty. The resulting stage-dependent non-convex problems are formulated within a unified framework and solved using successive convex approximation (SCA). Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves an effective time-quality tradeoff while maintaining the highest recovered secrecy; in a representative setup, it achieves gains of up to 3.6%, 15.7%, and 56% over the respective baseline schemes, with similar improvements under eavesdropper's channel uncertainty.

This work studies the optimization of physical plant characteristics and controller parameters for sustainability. Environmental sustainability is strongly correlated with the development and operation of energy systems, with data centers as the preeminent modern example. Data centers, and the grid technologies that provide their power, consume nonnegligible amounts of global energy and pose a risk to increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and electronic waste. Addressing such issues requires improved plant design and control strategies, often approached through optimization-based methods. However, there are noticeable gaps regarding data center and microgrid design: (i) simultaneous optimization of plant and controller features is rarely explored, and (ii) sustainability criteria are not emphasized. This work addresses these gaps by establishing a generalized, sustainability-centric control co-design (CCD) framework for energy systems. Uniquely, the CCD framework defines and categorizes sustainability metrics into three lifecycle stages - manufacturing, operation, and disposal - supporting optimization and comparative analysis of the metrics for different design options. To exemplify its use, the CCD framework is applied to a microgrid-driven data center system, providing a family of sustainability metrics correlated to plant and controller parameters. The analysis enabled by the framework provides insights into the CCD of microgrids and data centers, such as that GHG-equivalent emissions from manufacturing of components can dwarf those generated during operation of the system. The system designs identified by the proposed framework show substantial improvements to environmental sustainability categories as compared to designs identified through baseline procedures.

The Fokker-Planck partial differential equation (FP-PDE) governs uncertainty evolution in stochastic dynamical systems. In orbital dynamics, solving the FP-PDE is challenging because of nonlinear motion, high-dimensional states, and large space-time domains. We develop a physics-informed neural network (PINN) approach that approximates the FP-PDE solution as a single space-time probability density, while also quantifying its worst-case approximation error. This approach is, in principle, independent of the choice of state coordinates and neural network architecture. Specifically, to enforce probability density function (PDF) properties into the neural network, we design a Physics-informed Gaussian mixture model (PINN-GMM). Then a companion error PINN learns the dynamics of the approximation error and yields time-dependent bounds that define an ambiguity set of PDFs. This ambiguity set enables rigorous computation of upper and lower bounds on event probabilities through tractable linear programs. Numerical studies on illustrative 1D examples and several 4D–6D orbital test cases demonstrate accurate uncertainty propagation, correct and informative error bounds, and improved reliability over common uncertainty-propagation baseline methods (Gaussian approximation, unscented transform, and Gaussian mixture model). Constructing the PINN-GMM requires offline training, making it costlier than the baseline approximations; once trained, however, a single forward pass returns the density at any time in sub-millisecond time $(0.16~\mathrm{ms}$ in our implementation).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) from task-specific neural decoders into adaptive systems that complete language, smooth movement, regulate rehabilitation support and adjust stimulation. These capabilities can increase speed, fluency, usability and clinical reach, yet conventional performance metrics may overlook losses in intent fidelity, authorship, agency, therapeutic challenge and durable clinical benefit. I define neuroadaptive overfitting as a closed-loop failure mode in which an AI-mediated BCI becomes over-optimized to short-term proxies of success, including reduced effort, rapid acceptance, lower workload or smooth task completion, while drifting from the user's durable goals. I then propose Slow-Fast BCI, a framework for pacing AI assistance according to decoder evidence, uncertainty, contextual and clinical stakes, fatigue, and user- or clinician-defined goals. The framework distinguishes fast assistance when intent is clear and stakes are low, guarded assistance under uncertainty and slow assistance when misalignment could compromise safety, agency, authorship, motor learning or therapeutic value. Across communication, motor-control, neurorehabilitation and closed-loop neuromodulation applications, I outline corresponding safeguards and evaluation measures. This Perspective argues that AI-mediated BCIs should be evaluated not only by decoding accuracy and task performance, but also by how AI assistance is deployed: when systems act autonomously, seek confirmation, preserve user effort or return control to the user.

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are promising platforms for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), but their limited onboard energy creates a strong coupling among sensing accuracy, communication quality, and propulsion cost. This paper proposes a curriculum-guided soft actor-critic (CG-SAC) framework with propulsion-aware reward shaping for energy-efficient UAV-ISAC, jointly optimizing the 3D trajectory, communication-sensing power split, and per-user power allocation. A rotary-wing propulsion model is incorporated to derive a closed-form propulsion-economic cruising speed, which is used to construct a propulsion-aware speed-shaping term within a normalized composite reward together with navigation, node-visiting, energy-efficiency, and constraint-penalty terms. A log-linear curriculum progressively tightens the communication, sensing, and proximity requirements during training. Across 2000 randomized scenarios, CG-SAC achieves an average energy efficiency of 0.72 Mbits/J, substantially outperforming the evaluated DRL baselines. Among successfully completed missions, it requires 107.6 steps on average, corresponding to a 66%–82% reduction in flight steps relative to the baselines. Crucially, the learned policy exhibits mission-aware speed adaptation by decelerating near service points and accelerating during transit, while achieving a 99.6% communication-rate satisfaction ratio at service instants. Ablation results further demonstrate the complementary roles of the reward components in balancing mission feasibility and energy efficiency.

Text-to-Speech (TTS) foundation models are increasingly fine-tuned on private datasets to synthesize highly personalized voices, introducing severe privacy risks by exposing both biometric identities and sensitive speech content. Existing black-box membership inference attacks (MIAs) follow a two-stage pipeline of query generation and representation engineering, both of which face unique challenges when adapted to TTS. For query generation, dual conditioning on synthesis text and reference speech creates a large and underexplored query design space with no established criterion for identifying an effective query. For representation engineering, the multi-level speech characteristics and temporal variability of speech make low-level representations and direct comparisons inadequate for capturing membership signals. To address these challenges, we present the first black-box MIA framework explicitly tailored to TTS models at both the speaker and record levels. For query generation, we characterize the feasible query space and establish two criteria, scorable extent and memorization elicitation, for evaluating five representative queries, identifying recitation as the strongest. For representation engineering, we obtain multi-level speech representations from embedding models and temporally align the generated and target audio for fine-grained comparison. Evaluations across three state-of-the-art TTS models (CosyVoice2, F5-TTS, and XTTS-v2) fine-tuned on two benchmark datasets (VCTK and British Dialect) reveal severe privacy leakage: speaker-level AUC remains above 0.80 and approaches 1.0 in the strongest settings, while record-level AUC ranges from 0.80 to 0.90 and remains effective even in challenging scenarios where both members and non-members are of the same speakers. We further identify speech characteristics associated with disproportionate vulnerability to memorization.

Low-Frequency AC (LFAC) transmission systems employing power converters are being considered for a varity of applications. This work studies the small-signal stability of an LFAC transmission line controlled by the Droop Control Strategy. Eigenvalue Analysis is used to determine how the controller droop gains, operating frequency, transmission line parameters, and the operating point affect system stability. The results show that the overall system's dynamic is governed by the sum of the droop gains of the AC/AC converters. Analytical results that give insights on how the different system's parameters affect the critical stability point are presented. The results indicate that system stability is affected by the line's length, the line's R/X ratio, operating frequency and voltage.