On Deep Learning-based Massive MIMO Indoor User Localization

We examine the usability of deep neural networks for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) user positioning solely based on the orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) complex channel coefficients. In contrast to other indoor positioning systems (IPSs), the proposed method does not require any additional piloting overhead or any other changes in the communications system itself as it is deployed on top of an existing OFDM MIMO system. Supported by actual measurements, we are mainly interested in the more challenging non-line of sight (NLoS) scenario. However, gradient descent optimization is known to require a large amount of data-points for training, i.e., the required database would be too large when compared to conventional methods. Thus, we propose a twostep training procedure, with training on simulated line of sight (LoS) data in the first step, and finetuning on measured NLoS positions in the second step. This turns out to reduce the required measured training positions and thus, reduces the effort for data acquisition.Comment: submitted to SPAWC 201

DNN-based Localization from Channel Estimates: Feature Design and Experimental Results

We consider the use of deep neural networks (DNNs) in the context of channel state information (CSI)-based localization for Massive MIMO cellular systems. We discuss the practical impairments that are likely to be present in practical CSI estimates, and introduce a principled approach to feature design for CSI-based DNN applications based on the objective of making the features invariant to the considered impairments. We demonstrate the efficiency of this approach by applying it to a dataset constituted of geo-tagged CSI measured in an outdoors campus environment, and training a DNN to estimate the position of the UE on the basis of the CSI. We provide an experimental evaluation of several aspects of that learning approach, including localization accuracy, generalization capability, and data aging.Comment: Submitted to Globecom 202

Towards Practical Indoor Positioning Based on Massive MIMO Systems

We showcase the practicability of an indoor positioning system (IPS) solely based on Neural Networks (NNs) and the channel state information (CSI) of a (Massive) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, i.e., only build on the basis of data that is already existent in today's systems. As such our IPS system promises both, a good accuracy without the need of any additional protocol/signaling overhead for the user localization task. In particular, we propose a tailored NN structure with an additional phase branch as feature extractor and (compared to previous results) a significantly reduced amount of trainable parameters, leading to a minimization of the amount of required training data. We provide actual measurements for indoor scenarios with up to 64 antennas covering a large area of 80m2. In the second part, several robustness investigations for real-measurements are conducted, i.e., once trained, we analyze the recall accuracy over a time-period of several days. Further, we analyze the impact of pedestrians walking in-between the measurements and show that finetuning and pre-training of the NN helps to mitigate effects of hardware drifts and alterations in the propagation environment over time. This reduces the amount of required training samples at equal precision and, thereby, decreases the effort of the costly training data acquisitionComment: Submitted to VTC2019 Fal

Improving Channel Charting with Representation-Constrained Autoencoders

Channel charting (CC) has been proposed recently to enable logical positioning of user equipments (UEs) in the neighborhood of a multi-antenna base-station solely from channel-state information (CSI). CC relies on dimensionality reduction of high-dimensional CSI features in order to construct a channel chart that captures spatial and radio geometries so that UEs close in space are close in the channel chart. In this paper, we demonstrate that autoencoder (AE)-based CC can be augmented with side information that is obtained during the CSI acquisition process. More specifically, we propose to include pairwise representation constraints into AEs with the goal of improving the quality of the learned channel charts. We show that such representation-constrained AEs recover the global geometry of the learned channel charts, which enables CC to perform approximate positioning without global navigation satellite systems or supervised learning methods that rely on extensive and expensive measurement campaigns.Comment: Presented at the 20th IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), 201

Deep Learning-based Symbolic Indoor Positioning using the Serving eNodeB

This paper presents a novel indoor positioning method designed for residential apartments. The proposed method makes use of cellular signals emitting from a serving eNodeB which eliminates the need for specialized positioning infrastructure. Additionally, it utilizes Denoising Autoencoders to mitigate the effects of cellular signal loss. We evaluated the proposed method using real-world data collected from two different smartphones inside a representative apartment of eight symbolic spaces. Experimental results verify that the proposed method outperforms conventional symbolic indoor positioning techniques in various performance metrics. To promote reproducibility and foster new research efforts, we made all the data and codes associated with this work publicly available.Comment: - accepted paper (ICMLA 2020) - dataset and code: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13010387.v

Reducing the Complexity of Fingerprinting-Based Positioning using Locality-Sensitive Hashing

Localization of wireless transmitters based on channel state information (CSI) fingerprinting finds widespread use in indoor as well as outdoor scenarios. Fingerprinting localization first builds a database containing CSI with measured location information. One then searches for the most similar CSI in this database to approximate the position of wireless transmitters. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) to reduce the complexity of the nearest neighbor-search (NNS) required by conventional fingerprinting localization systems. More specifically, we propose a low-complexity and memory efficient LSH function based on the sum-to-one (STOne) transform and use approximate hash matches. We evaluate the accuracy and complexity (in terms of the number of searches and storage requirements) of our approach for line-of-sight (LoS) and non-LoS channels, and we show that LSH enables low-complexity fingerprinting localization with comparable accuracy to methods relying on exact NNS or deep neural networks

Siamese Neural Networks for Wireless Positioning and Channel Charting

Neural networks have been proposed recently for positioning and channel charting of user equipments (UEs) in wireless systems. Both of these approaches process channel state information (CSI) that is acquired at a multi-antenna base-station in order to learn a function that maps CSI to location information. CSI-based positioning using deep neural networks requires a dataset that contains both CSI and associated location information. Channel charting (CC) only requires CSI information to extract relative position information. Since CC builds on dimensionality reduction, it can be implemented using autoencoders. In this paper, we propose a unified architecture based on Siamese networks that can be used for supervised UE positioning and unsupervised channel charting. In addition, our framework enables semisupervised positioning, where only a small set of location information is available during training. We use simulations to demonstrate that Siamese networks achieve similar or better performance than existing positioning and CC approaches with a single, unified neural network architecture.Comment: Presented at Allerton 2019; 8 page

Learning to Localize: A 3D CNN Approach to User Positioning in Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems

In this paper, we consider the user positioning problem in the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system with a uniform planner antenna (UPA) array. Taking advantage of the UPA array geometry and wide bandwidth, we advocate the use of the angle-delay channel power matrix (ADCPM) as a new type of fingerprint to replace the traditional ones. The ADCPM embeds the stable and stationary multipath characteristics, e.g. delay, power, and angle in the vertical and horizontal directions, which are beneficial to positioning. Taking ADCPM fingerprints as the inputs, we propose a novel three-dimensional (3D) convolution neural network (CNN) enabled learning method to localize users' 3D positions. In particular, such a 3D CNN model consists of a convolution refinement module to refine the elementary feature maps from the ADCPM fingerprints, three extended Inception modules to extract the advanced feature maps, and a regression module to estimate the 3D positions. By intensive simulations, the proposed 3D CNN-enabled positioning method is demonstrated to achieve higher positioning accuracy than the traditional searching-based ones, with reduced computational complexity and storage overhead, and the ADCPM fingerprints are more robust to noise contamination

A Survey on Deep-Learning based Techniques for Modeling and Estimation of MassiveMIMO Channels

\textit{Why does the literature consider the channel-state-information (CSI) as a 2/3-D image? What are the pros-and-cons of this consideration for accuracy-complexity trade-off?} Next generations of wireless communications require innumerable disciplines according to which a low-latency, low-traffic, high-throughput, high spectral-efficiency and low energy-consumption are guaranteed. Towards this end, the principle of massive multi-input multi-output (MaMIMO) is emerging which is conveniently deployed for millimeter wave (mmWave) bands. However, practical and realistic MaMIMO transceivers suffer from a huge range of challenging bottlenecks in design the majority of which belong to the issue of channel-estimation. Channel modeling and prediction in MaMIMO particularly suffer from computational complexity due to a high number of antenna sets and supported users. This complexity lies dominantly upon the feedback-overhead which even degrades the pilot-data trade-off in the uplink (UL)/downlink (DL) design. This comprehensive survey studies the novel deep-learning (DLg) driven techniques recently proposed in the literature which tackle the challenges discussed-above - which is for the first time. In addition, we consequently propose 7 open trends e.g. in the context of the lack of Q-learning in MaMIMO detection - for which we talk about a possible solution to the saddle-point in the 2-D pilot-data axis for a \textit{Stackelberg game} based scenario.Comment: IEEE Journal

A Comprehensive Survey of Machine Learning Based Localization with Wireless Signals

The last few decades have witnessed a growing interest in location-based services. Using localization systems based on Radio Frequency (RF) signals has proven its efficacy for both indoor and outdoor applications. However, challenges remain with respect to both complexity and accuracy of such systems. Machine Learning (ML) is one of the most promising methods for mitigating these problems, as ML (especially deep learning) offers powerful practical data-driven tools that can be integrated into localization systems. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of ML-based localization solutions that use RF signals. The survey spans different aspects, ranging from the system architectures, to the input features, the ML methods, and the datasets. A main point of the paper is the interaction between the domain knowledge arising from the physics of localization systems, and the various ML approaches. Besides the ML methods, the utilized input features play a major role in shaping the localization solution; we present a detailed discussion of the different features and what could influence them, be it the underlying wireless technology or standards or the preprocessing techniques. A detailed discussion is dedicated to the different ML methods that have been applied to localization problems, discussing the underlying problem and the solution structure. Furthermore, we summarize the different ways the datasets were acquired, and then list the publicly available ones. Overall, the survey categorizes and partly summarizes insights from almost 400 papers in this field. This survey is self-contained, as we provide a concise review of the main ML and wireless propagation concepts, which shall help the researchers in either field navigate through the surveyed solutions, and suggested open problems