Receiver design for SPAD-based VLC systems under Poisson-Gaussian mixed noise model

Single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is a promising photosensor because of its high sensitivity to optical signals in weak illuminance environment. Recently, it has drawn much attention from researchers in visible light communications (VLC). However, existing literature only deals with the simplified channel model, which only considers the effects of Poisson noise introduced by SPAD, but neglects other noise sources. Specifically, when an analog SPAD detector is applied, there exists Gaussian thermal noise generated by the transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and the digital-to-analog converter (D/A). Therefore, in this paper, we propose an SPAD-based VLC system with pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM) under Poisson-Gaussian mixed noise model, where Gaussian-distributed thermal noise at the receiver is also investigated. The closed-form conditional likelihood of received signals is derived using the Laplace transform and the saddle-point approximation method, and the corresponding quasi-maximum-likelihood (quasi-ML) detector is proposed. Furthermore, the Poisson-Gaussian-distributed signals are converted to Gaussian variables with the aid of the generalized Anscombe transform (GAT), leading to an equivalent additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, and a hard-decision-based detector is invoked. Simulation results demonstrate that, the proposed GAT-based detector can reduce the computational complexity with marginal performance loss compared with the proposed quasi-ML detector, and both detectors are capable of accurately demodulating the SPAD-based PAM signals

Index Modulation-Aided OFDM for Visible Light Communications

Index modulation-aided orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing(IM-OFDM) is a promising modulation technique to achieve high spectral and energy efficiency. In this chapter, the conventional optical OFDM schemes are firstly reviewed, followed by the principles of IM-OFDM. The application of IM-OFDM in visible light communication (VLC) systems is introduced, and its performance is compared with conventional optical OFDM, which verifies its superiority. Finally, the challenges and opportunities of IM-OFDM are discussed for the VLC applications

Generalized dual-mode index modulation aided OFDM

Dual-mode index modulation aided orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DM-OFDM) is recently proposed, where subcarriers are partitioned into OFDM subblocks, divided into two groups within each subblock, and modulated by two differentiable constellation alphabets. In DM-OFDM, additional bits can be transmitted through indices of subcarriers modulated by the same constellation alphabet. In this letter, generalized DM-OFDM (GDM-OFDM) is proposed, where the number of subcarriers modulated by the same constellation mode in each subblock is alterable. By applying such enhancement, the spectral efficiency can be improved at the cost of marginal performance loss. Moreover, since the BER performance of GDM-OFDM degrades at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), an interleaving technique is employed to address this issue. At the receiver, a maximum-likelihood (ML) detector and a reduced-complexity log-likelihood ratio (LLR) detector are employed for demodulation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed GDMOFDM is capable of enhancing the spectral efficiency compared with DM-OFDM at the cost of negligible performance loss, and the interleaved GDM-OFDM (IGDM-OFDM) can harvest on performance gain over GDM-OFDM

Ellipse-based DCO-OFDM for visible light communications

Ellipse-based DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (E-DCO-OFDM) is proposed for visible light communications (VLC), which achieves a significant peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction, thus enhancing the overall performance when light-emitting diode (LED) nonlinearity is considered. In E-DCO-OFDM, the real-valued output of OFDM is modulated onto an ellipse, whereby only the imaginary part of the complex point on the ellipse is transmitted. Although the PAPR of E-DCO-OFDM decreases as the ratio of major radius to minor radius becomes larger, it may be more vulnerable to the effect of noise, leading to the performance loss. Therefore, the relationship between the system performance and the critical parameters in E-DCO-OFDM, such as the ratio between the major and minor radius of the ellipse, is investigated. Meanwhile, simulations demonstrate that E-DCO-OFDM adopting the optimal parameters achieves a considerable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain over the conventional DCO-OFDM

Dual-mode index modulation aided OFDM

Index modulation has become a promising technique in the context of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), whereby the specific activation of the frequency domain subcarriers is used for implicitly conveying extra information, hence improving the achievable throughput at a given bit error ratio (BER) performance. In this paper, a dual-mode OFDM technique (DM-OFDM) is proposed, which is combined with index modulation and enhances the attainable throughput of conventional index-modulation-based OFDM. Specifically, the subcarriers are divided into several subblocks, and in each subblock, all the subcarriers are partitioned into two groups, modulated by a pair of distinguishable modem-mode constellations, respectively. Hence the information bits are conveyed not only by the classic constellation symbols, but implicitly also by the specific activated subcarrier indices, representing the subcarriers’ constellation mode. At the receiver, a maximum likelihood (ML) detector and a reduced-complexity near optimal log-likelihood ratio (LLR) based detector are invoked for demodulation. The minimum distance between the different legitimate realizations of the OFDM subblocks is calculated for characterizing the performance of DM-OFDM. Then the associated theoretical analysis based on the pairwise error probability is carried out for estimating the BER of DM-OFDM. Furthermore, the simulation results confirm that at a given throughput DM-OFDM achieves a considerably better BER performance than other OFDM systems using index modulation, while imposing the same or lower computational complexity. The results also demonstrate that the performance of the proposed low-complexity detector is indistinguishable from that of the ML detector, provided that the system’s signal to noise ratio is sufficiently high

PM-DCO-OFDM for PAPR reduction in visible light communications

Phase modulation is used in DCO-OFDM for visible light communications, whereby around 10 dB PAPR reduction is achieved. Considering the nonlinearity of LED emitters, our proposed method achieves better BER performance than that of conventional DCO-OFDM

Near-Field Sparse Channel Estimation for Extremely Large-Scale RIS-Aided Wireless Communications

A significant increase in the number of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) elements results in a spherical wavefront in the near field of extremely large-scale RIS (XL-RIS). Although the channel matrix of the cascaded two-hop link may become sparse in the polar-domain representation, their accurate estimation of these polar-domain parameters cannot be readily guaranteed. To tackle this challenge, we exploit the sparsity inherent in the cascaded channel. To elaborate, we first estimate the significant path-angles and distances corresponding to the common paths between the BS and the XL-RIS. Then, the individual path parameters associated with different users are recovered. This results in a two-stage channel estimation scheme, in which distinct learning-based networks are used for channel training at each stage. More explicitly, in stage I, a denoising convolutional neural network (DnCNN) is employed for treating the grid mismatches as noise to determine the true grid index of the angles and distances. By contrast, an iterative shrinkage thresholding algorithm (ISTA) based network is proposed for adaptively adjusting the column coherence of the dictionary matrix in stage II. Finally, our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed two-stage learning-based channel estimation outperforms the state-of-the-art benchmarks.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in the IEEE GLOBECOM 2023 Workshops Proceeding

6G Enabled Advanced Transportation Systems

The 6th generation (6G) wireless communication network is envisaged to be able to change our lives drastically, including transportation. In this paper, two ways of interactions between 6G communication networks and transportation are introduced. With the new usage scenarios and capabilities 6G is going to support, passengers on all sorts of transportation systems will be able to get data more easily, even in the most remote areas on the planet. The quality of communication will also be improved significantly, thanks to the advanced capabilities of 6G. On top of providing seamless and ubiquitous connectivity to all forms of transportation, 6G will also transform the transportation systems to make them more intelligent, more efficient, and safer. Based on the latest research and standardization progresses, technical analysis on how 6G can empower advanced transportation systems are provided, as well as challenges and insights for a possible road ahead.Comment: Submitted to an open access journa

The stress regulator FKBP51: a novel and promising druggable target for the treatment of persistent pain states across sexes

It is well established that FKBP51 regulates the stress system by modulating the sensitivity of the glucocorticoid receptor to stress hormones. Recently, we have demonstrated that FKBP51 also drives long-term inflammatory pain states in male mice by modulating glucocorticoid signalling at spinal cord level. Here, we explored the potential of FKBP51 as a new pharmacological target for the treatment of persistent pain across the sexes. First, we demonstrated that FKBP51 regulates long-term pain states of different aetiologies independently of sex. Deletion of FKBP51 reduced the mechanical hypersensitivity seen in joint inflammatory and neuropathic pain states in female and male mice. Furthermore, FKBP51 deletion also reduced the hypersensitivity seen in a translational model of chemotherapy-induced pain. Interestingly, these 3 pain states were associated with changes in glucocorticoid signalling, as indicated by the increased expression, at spinal cord level, of the glucocorticoid receptor isoform associated with glucocorticoid resistance, GRβ, and increased levels of plasma corticosterone. These pain states were also accompanied by an upregulation of interleukin-6 in the spinal cord. Crucially, we were able to pharmacologically reduce the severity of the mechanical hypersensitivity seen in these 3 models of persistent pain with the unique FKBP51 ligand SAFit2. When SAFit2 was combined with a state-of-the-art vesicular phospholipid gel formulation for slow release, a single injection of SAFit2 offered pain relief for at least 7 days. We therefore propose the pharmacological blockade of FKBP51 as a new approach for the treatment of persistent pain across sexes, likely in humans as well as rodents