Electromagnetic Lens-focusing Antenna Enabled Massive MIMO: Performance Improvement and Cost Reduction

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques have been recently advanced to tremendously improve the performance of wireless communication networks. However, the use of very large antenna arrays at the base stations (BSs) brings new issues, such as the significantly increased hardware and signal processing costs. In order to reap the enormous gain of massive MIMO and yet reduce its cost to an affordable level, this paper proposes a novel system design by integrating an electromagnetic (EM) lens with the large antenna array, termed the EM-lens enabled MIMO. The EM lens has the capability of focusing the power of an incident wave to a small area of the antenna array, while the location of the focal area varies with the angle of arrival (AoA) of the wave. Therefore, in practical scenarios where the arriving signals from geographically separated users have different AoAs, the EM-lens enabled system provides two new benefits, namely energy focusing and spatial interference rejection. By taking into account the effects of imperfect channel estimation via pilot-assisted training, in this paper we analytically show that the average received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in both the single-user and multiuser uplink transmissions can be strictly improved by the EM-lens enabled system. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed design makes it possible to considerably reduce the hardware and signal processing costs with only slight degradations in performance. To this end, two complexity/cost reduction schemes are proposed, which are small-MIMO processing with parallel receiver filtering applied over subgroups of antennas to reduce the computational complexity, and channel covariance based antenna selection to reduce the required number of radio frequency (RF) chains. Numerical results are provided to corroborate our analysis.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure

Wireless Communications in the Era of Big Data

The rapidly growing wave of wireless data service is pushing against the boundary of our communication network's processing power. The pervasive and exponentially increasing data traffic present imminent challenges to all the aspects of the wireless system design, such as spectrum efficiency, computing capabilities and fronthaul/backhaul link capacity. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the design of scalable wireless systems to embrace such a "bigdata" era. On one hand, we review the state-of-the-art networking architectures and signal processing techniques adaptable for managing the bigdata traffic in wireless networks. On the other hand, instead of viewing mobile bigdata as a unwanted burden, we introduce methods to capitalize from the vast data traffic, for building a bigdata-aware wireless network with better wireless service quality and new mobile applications. We highlight several promising future research directions for wireless communications in the mobile bigdata era.Comment: This article is accepted and to appear in IEEE Communications Magazin

Optimal Distributed Beamforming for MISO Interference Channels

We consider the problem of quantifying the Pareto optimal boundary in the achievable rate region over multiple-input single-output (MISO) interference channels, where the problem boils down to solving a sequence of convex feasibility problems after certain transformations. The feasibility problem is solved by two new distributed optimal beamforming algorithms, where the first one is to parallelize the computation based on the method of alternating projections, and the second one is to localize the computation based on the method of cyclic projections. Convergence proofs are established for both algorithms.Comment: 7 Pages, 6 figures, extended version for the one in Proceeding of Asilomar, CA, 201

Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of the supernova remnant HESS J1731-347

Context: HESS J1731-347 has been identified as one of the few TeV-bright shell-type supernova remnants (SNRs). These remnants are dominated by nonthermal emission, and the nature of TeV emission has been continuously debated for nearly a decade. Aims: We carry out the detailed modeling of the radio to gamma-ray spectrum of HESS J1731-347 to constrain the magnetic field and energetic particles sources, which we compare with those of the other TeV-bright shell-type SNRs explored before. Methods: Four years of data from Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations for regions around this remnant are analyzed, leading to no detection correlated with the source discovered in the TeV band. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is used to constrain parameters of one-zone models for the overall emission spectrum. Results: Based on the 99.9% upper limits of fluxes in the GeV range, one-zone hadronic models with an energetic proton spectral slope greater than 1.8 can be ruled out, which favors a leptonic origin for the gamma-ray emission, making this remnant a sibling of the brightest TeV SNR RX J1713.7-3946, the Vela Junior SNR RX J0852.0-4622, and RCW 86. The best-fit leptonic model has an electron spectral slope of 1.8 and a magnetic field of about 30 muG, which is at least a factor of 2 higher than those of RX J1713.7-3946 and RX J0852.0-4622, posing a challenge to the distance estimate and/or the energy equipartition between energetic electrons and the magnetic field of this source. A measurement of the shock speed will address this challenge and has implications on the magnetic field evolution and electron acceleration driven by shocks of SNRs.Comment: 7 pages, 3 fogures, A&A in pres

Finite time decoherence could be suppressed efficiently in photonic crystal

The decoherence of two initially entangled qubits in anisotropic band gap photonic crystal has been studied analytically without Born or Markovian approximation. It is shown that the decoherence dynamics of two qubits in photonic crystal is greatly different from that of two qubits in vacuum or subjected to usual non-Markovian reservoir. The results also show that the finite time decoherence invoked by spontaneous emission could be suppressed efficiently and the entanglement of the Bell state possesses odd parity is more easily preserved in photonic crystal than that of the Bell state possesses even parity under the same condition. A store scheme for entangled particle pair is proposed.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure

Perfect valley filter based on topological phase in disordered Sb\rm{Sb} Monolayer Heterostructure

The hydrogenated $\rm{Sb}$ monolayer epitaxially grown on a $\rm{LaFeO_3}$ substrate is a novel type of two-dimensional material hosting quantum spin-quantum anomalous Hall (QS-QAH) states. For a device formed by $\rm{Sb}$ monolayer ribbon, the QAH edge states, belong to a single valley, are located at opposite edges of the ribbon. The QSH edge states, on the other hand, belong to the other valley and are distributed in a very narrow region at the same edge. In this paper, we find such material can be used to fabricate perfect valley filter. Adopting scattering matrix method and Green's function method, the valley resolved transport and spatial distribution of local current are calculated, in the present of Anderson disorder, edge defects and edge deformations. The numerical results demonstrate that, in the presence of above three types of disorder with moderate strength, the carriers can flow disspationless with nearly perfect valley polarization. Moreover, when the device becomes longer, the transport current does not decrease while the valley filter works even better. The origin is that the disorder can destroy the QSH edge states, but the valley-polarized QAH edge states can well hold.Comment: 5 figure