A Traffic Model for Machine-Type Communications Using Spatial Point Processes

A source traffic model for machine-to-machine communications is presented in this paper. We consider a model in which devices operate in a regular mode until they are triggered into an alarm mode by an alarm event. The positions of devices and events are modeled by means of Poisson point processes, where the generated traffic by a given device depends on its position and event positions. We first consider the case where devices and events are static and devices generate traffic according to a Bernoulli process, where we derive the total rate from the devices at the base station. We then extend the model by defining a two-state Markov chain for each device, which allows for devices to stay in alarm mode for a geometrically distributed holding time. The temporal characteristics of this model are analyzed via the autocovariance function, where the effect of event density and mean holding time are shown.Comment: Accepted at the 2017 IEEE 28th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC) - Workshop WS-07 on "The Internet of Things (IoT), the Road Ahead: Applications, Challenges, and Solutions

Turbo-Equalization Using Partial Gaussian Approximation

This paper deals with turbo-equalization for coded data transmission over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. We propose a message-passing algorithm that uses the expectation-propagation rule to convert messages passed from the demodulator-decoder to the equalizer and computes messages returned by the equalizer by using a partial Gaussian approximation (PGA). Results from Monte Carlo simulations show that this approach leads to a significant performance improvement compared to state-of-the-art turbo-equalizers and allows for trading performance with complexity. We exploit the specific structure of the ISI channel model to significantly reduce the complexity of the PGA compared to that considered in the initial paper proposing the method.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, submitted to IEEE Signal Processing Letters on 8 March, 201

Merging Belief Propagation and the Mean Field Approximation: A Free Energy Approach

We present a joint message passing approach that combines belief propagation and the mean field approximation. Our analysis is based on the region-based free energy approximation method proposed by Yedidia et al. We show that the message passing fixed-point equations obtained with this combination correspond to stationary points of a constrained region-based free energy approximation. Moreover, we present a convergent implementation of these message passing fixedpoint equations provided that the underlying factor graph fulfills certain technical conditions. In addition, we show how to include hard constraints in the part of the factor graph corresponding to belief propagation. Finally, we demonstrate an application of our method to iterative channel estimation and decoding in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system

Device-Agnostic Millimeter Wave Beam Selection using Machine Learning

Most research in the area of machine learning-based user beam selection considers a structure where the model proposes appropriate user beams. However, this design requires a specific model for each user-device beam codebook, where a model learned for a device with a particular codebook can not be reused for another device with a different codebook. Moreover, this design requires training and test samples for each antenna placement configuration/codebook. This paper proposes a device-agnostic beam selection framework that leverages context information to propose appropriate user beams using a generic model and a post processing unit. The generic neural network predicts the potential angles of arrival, and the post processing unit maps these directions to beams based on the specific device's codebook. The proposed beam selection framework works well for user devices with antenna configuration/codebook unseen in the training dataset. Also, the proposed generic network has the option to be trained with a dataset mixed of samples with different antenna configurations/codebooks, which significantly eases the burden of effective model training.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figures. This article was submitted to IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. on Nov 14 202