Meta-surfaces intend to improve significantly the performance of future wireless networks by controlling the wireless propagation and shaping the radio waves according to the generalized Snell's law. A recent application of meta-surfaces is reconfigurable intelligent surfaces which are practically limited by the requirement for perfect knowledge of the user's position. For the case where the user's position cannot be obtained, we introduce randomly reconfigurable surfaces (RRSs) aiming to diffuse the incoming wave. A RRS is defined as a reconfigurable meta-surface that each of its elements induces a randomly selected time-variant phase shift on the reflected signal. To facilitate the performance analysis of a RRS-assisted system, first, we present novel closed-form expressions for the probability density function, the cumulative distribution function, the moments, and the characteristic function of the distribution of the sum of double-Nakagami-m random vectors, whose amplitudes follow the double-Nakagami-m distribution, i.e., the distribution of the product of two Nakagami-m random variables, and phases follow the circular uniform distribution. We also consider a special case of this distribution, namely the distribution of the sum of Rayleigh-Nakagami-m random vectors. Then, we exploit these expressions to investigate the performance of the RRS-assisted composite channel, assuming that the two links undergo Nakagami-m fading and the equivalent phase follows the circular uniform distribution. Closed-form expressions for the outage probability, the average received signal-to-noise ratio, the ergodic capacity, the bit error probability, the amount of fading, and the channel quality estimation index are provided to evaluate the performance of the considered system. These metrics are also derived for the practical special case where one of the two links undergoes Rayleigh fading.
In this paper we develop efficient first-order algorithms for the generalized trust-region subproblem (GTRS), which has applications in signal processing, compressed sensing, and engineering. Although the GTRS, as stated, is nonlinear and nonconvex, it is well-known that objective value exactness holds for its SDP relaxation under a Slater condition. While polynomial-time SDP-based algorithms exist for the GTRS, their relatively large computational complexity has motivated and spurred the development of custom approaches for solving the GTRS. In particular, recent work in this direction has developed first-order methods for the GTRS whose running times are linear in the sparsity (the number of nonzero entries) of the input data. In contrast to these algorithms, in this paper we develop algorithms for computing $\epsilon$-approximate solutions to the GTRS whose running times are linear in both the input sparsity and the precision $\log(1/\epsilon)$ whenever a regularity parameter is positive. We complement our theoretical guarantees with numerical experiments comparing our approach against algorithms from the literature. Our numerical experiments highlight that our new algorithms significantly outperform prior state-of-the-art algorithms on sparse large-scale instances.
This paper investigates the information theoretical limit of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) aided communication scenario in which the RIS and the transmitter either jointly or independently send information to the receiver. The RIS is an emerging technology that uses a large number of passive reflective elements with adjustable phases to intelligently reflect the transmit signal to the intended receiver. While most previous studies of the RIS focus on its ability to beamform and to boost the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), this paper shows that if the information data stream is also available at the RIS and can be modulated through the adjustable phases at the RIS, significant improvement in the {degree-of-freedom} (DoF) of the overall channel is possible. For example, for an RIS system in which the signals are reflected from a transmitter with $M$ antennas to a receiver with $K$ antennas through an RIS with $N$ reflective elements, assuming no direct path between the transmitter and the receiver, joint transmission of the transmitter and the RIS can achieve a DoF of $\min(M+\frac{N}{2}-\frac{1}{2},N,K)$ as compared to the DoF of $\min(M,K)$ for the conventional multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel. This result is obtained by establishing a connection between the RIS system and the MIMO channel with phase noises and by using results for characterizing the information dimension under projection. The result is further extended to the case with a direct path between the transmitter and the receiver, and also to the multiple access scenario, in which the transmitter and the RIS send independent information. Finally, this paper proposes a symbol-level precoding approach for modulating data through the phases of the RIS, and provides numerical simulation results to verify the theoretical DoF results.
The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has arose an upsurging research interest recently due to its promising outlook in 5G-and-beyond wireless networks. With the assistance of RIS, the wireless propagation environment is no longer static and could be customized to support diverse service requirements. In this paper, we will approach the rate maximization problems in RIS-aided wireless networks by considering the beamforming and reflecting design jointly. Three representative design problems from different system settings are investigated based on a proposed unified algorithmic framework via the block minorization-maximization (BMM) method. Extensions and generalizations of the proposed framework in dealing with some other related problems are further presented. Merits of the proposed algorithms are demonstrated through numerical simulations in comparison with the state-of-the-art methods.
The familiar adjunction between ordered sets and completely distributive lattices can be extended to generalised metric spaces, that is, categories enriched over a quantale (a lattice of "truth values"), via an appropriate distributive law between the "down-set" monad and the "up-set" monad on the category of quantale-enriched categories. If the underlying lattice of the quantale is completely distributive, and if powers distribute over non-empty joins in the quantale, then this distributive law can be concretely formulated in terms of operations, equations and choice functions, similar to the familiar distributive law of lattices.
This paper investigates the interference nulling capability of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) in a multiuser environment where multiple single-antenna transceivers communicate simultaneously in a shared spectrum. From a theoretical perspective, we show that when the channels between the RIS and the transceivers have line-of-sight and the direct paths are blocked, it is possible to adjust the phases of the RIS elements to null out all the interference completely and to achieve the maximum $K$ degrees-of-freedom (DoF) in the overall $K$-user interference channel, provided that the number of RIS elements exceeds some finite value that depends on $K$. Algorithmically, for any fixed channel realization we formulate the interference nulling problem as a feasibility problem, and propose an alternating projection algorithm to efficiently solve the resulting nonconvex problem with local convergence guarantee. Numerical results show that the proposed alternating projection algorithm can null all the interference if the number of RIS elements is only slightly larger than a threshold of $2K(K-1)$. For the practical sum-rate maximization objective, this paper proposes to use the zero-forcing solution obtained from alternating projection as an initial point for subsequent Riemannian conjugate gradient optimization, and shows that it has a significant performance advantage over random initializations. For the objective of maximizing the minimum rate, this paper proposes a subgradient projection method which is capable of achieving good performance at low complexity.
We consider the dynamic pricing problem with covariates under a generalized linear demand model: a seller can dynamically adjust the price of a product over a horizon of $T$ time periods, and at each time period $t$, the demand of the product is jointly determined by the price and an observable covariate vector $x_t\in\mathbb{R}^d$ through an unknown generalized linear model. Most of the existing literature assumes the covariate vectors $x_t$'s are independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.); the few papers that relax this assumption either sacrifice model generality or yield sub-optimal regret bounds. In this paper we show that a simple pricing algorithm has an $O(d\sqrt{T}\log T)$ regret upper bound without assuming any statistical structure on the covariates $x_t$ (which can even be arbitrarily chosen). The upper bound on the regret matches the lower bound (even under the i.i.d. assumption) up to logarithmic factors. Our paper thus shows that (i) the i.i.d. assumption is not necessary for obtaining low regret, and (ii) the regret bound can be independent of the (inverse) minimum eigenvalue of the covariance matrix of the $x_t$'s, a quantity present in previous bounds. Furthermore, we discuss a condition under which a better regret is achievable and how a Thompson sampling algorithm can be applied to give an efficient computation of the prices.
Inferential models (IMs) are data-dependent, probability-like structures designed to quantify uncertainty about unknowns. As the name suggests, the focus has been on uncertainty quantification for inference, and on establishing a validity property that ensures the IM is reliable in a specific sense. The present paper develops an IM framework for decision problems and, in particular, investigates the decision-theoretic implications of the aforementioned validity property. I show that a valid IM's assessment of an action's quality, defined by a Choquet integral, will not be too optimistic compared to that of an oracle. This ensures that a valid IM tends not to favor actions that the oracle doesn't also favor, hence a valid IM is reliable for decision-making too. In a certain special class of structured statistical models, further connections can be made between the valid IM's favored actions and those favored by other more familiar frameworks, from which certain optimality conclusions can be drawn. An important step in these decision-theoretic developments is a characterization of the valid IM's credal set in terms of confidence distributions, which may be of independent interest.
In this paper, with the aid of the mathematical tool of stochastic geometry, we introduce analytical and computational frameworks for the distribution of three different definitions of delay, i.e., the time that it takes for a user to successfully receive a data packet, in large-scale cellular networks. We also provide an asymptotic analysis of one of the delay distributions, which can be regarded as the packet loss probability of a given network. To mitigate the inherent computational difficulties of the obtained analytical formulations in some cases, we propose efficient numerical approximations based on the numerical inversion method, the Riemann sum, and the Beta distribution. Finally, we demonstrate the accuracy of the obtained analytical formulations and the corresponding approximations against Monte Carlo simulation results, and unveil insights on the delay performance with respect to several design parameters, such as the decoding threshold, the transmit power, and the deployment density of the base stations. The proposed methods can facilitate the analysis and optimization of cellular networks subject to reliability constraints on the network packet delay that are not restricted to the local (average) delay, e.g., in the context of delay sensitive applications.
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is an excellent use case for line-of-sight (LOS) based technologies such as free-space optical (FSO) communications. In this paper, we analyze the performance of RIS-empowered FSO (RISE-FSO) systems by unifying Fisher-Snedecor (F), Gamma-Gamma (GG), and Malaga (M) distributions for atmospheric turbulence with zero-boresight pointing errors over deterministic as well as random path-loss in foggy conditions with heterodyne detection (HD) and intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) methods. By deriving the probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the direct-link (DL) with the statistical effect of atmospheric turbulence, pointing errors, and random fog, we develop exact expressions of PDF and CDF of the resultant channel for the RISE-FSO system. Using the derived statistical results, we present exact expressions of outage probability, average bit-error-rate (BER), ergodic capacity, and moments of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for both DL-FSO and RISE-FSO systems. We also develop an asymptotic analysis of the outage probability and average BER and derive the diversity order of the considered systems. We validate the analytical expressions using Monte-Carlo simulations and demonstrate the performance scaling of the FSO system with the number of RIS elements for various turbulence channels, detection techniques, and weather conditions.
Optical wireless communication (OWC) over atmospheric turbulence and pointing errors is a well-studied topic. Still, there is limited research on signal fading due to random fog in an outdoor environment for terrestrial wireless communications. In this paper, we analyze the performance of a decode-and-forward (DF) relaying under the combined effect of random fog, pointing errors, and atmospheric turbulence with a negligible line-of-sight (LOS) direct link. We consider a generalized model for the end-to-end channel with independent and not identically distributed (i.ni.d.) pointing errors, random fog with Gamma distributed attenuation coefficient, double generalized gamma (DGG) atmospheric turbulence, and asymmetrical distance between the source and destination. We develop density and distribution functions of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) under the combined effect of random fog, pointing errors, and atmospheric turbulence (FPT) channel and distribution function for the combined channel with random fog and pointing errors (FP). Using the derived statistical results, we present analytical expressions of the outage probability, average SNR, ergodic rate, and average bit error rate (BER) for both FP and FPT channels in terms of OWC system parameters. We also develop simplified and asymptotic performance analysis to provide insight on the system behavior analytically under various practically relevant scenarios. We demonstrate the mutual effects of channel impairments and pointing errors on the OWC performance, and show that the relaying system provides significant performance improvement compared with the direct transmissions, especially when pointing errors and fog becomes more pronounced.