Mobile Communications
6G Localization and Sensing
Student ID: 101950693
2.3 BEAMSPACE PROCESSING FOR ACCURATE POSITIONING
Definition: Beamforming is essentially the transmission of coherent signals, thus
forming a concentrated field in a certain direction to increase the signal-to-noise
ratio or throughput as a beamforming gain.
Beam-space refers to the spatial domain where beamforming operation takes
place. It involves steering the beam in different directions to establish efficient
communication links.
Beam-space and beam-forming in 6G leverage advanced signal processing
techniques and antenna technology to enhance the reliability and efficiency of
wireless communication in mmWave. ( millimetre wave) and μmWave. ( Micro
meter wave) frequencies.
Path loss: This refers to the weaking of signals as they travel through air or
other mediums.
Beam-forming can be categorized into Analog, digital and hybrid.
Analog Beamforming – Involves manipulating the phase and Or amplitude of
signals at the level of radio frequency (RF) front end using analog components
e.g shifters or variable gain amplifiers. The idea is to shape the signal at the
antenna level before any digital processing occurs. Its efficient for simple
beaming task and is often used when number of antennas are large.
Challenge: its impractical in terms of power consumption.
Digital Beamforming – manipulates the signal in the base band domain. Involves
using digital processing techniques to adjust the phase and amplitude of signals
after they have been converted form RF to base band. This approach the signal
is first converted to digital form and sophisticated algorithm are applied to adjust
the signal characteristics. This allows for more flexibly precision in steering the
beam.
Challenge: computationally demanding
Hybrid Beamforming – The combination of both analog and digital beamforming.
It aims to leverage the advantages of both approaches while mitigation their
respective draw backs. This strikes a balance between efficiency of analog and
flexibility of digital.
Challenge: Hybrid beamforming involves the integration of both analog and
digital beamforming techniques, leading to increased system complexity.
Managing the interactions between analog and digital components requires
careful design and implementation.
Tracking and Localizing
In the context tracking and localizing mobile users in a dynamic environment,
dynamic beam management is essential. It involves continuously adjusting and
optimizing the beams used in beamforming based in the evolving conditions of
wireless channels. The process of dynamic beam management responds to
changes in the environment or movement of mobiles users. It achieves this by
dynamically modifying the directions and focus of beams to ensure optimal
communication conditions. Channel estimation of the angle (AOA) is a key
component of this approach.
Challenges: Beamspace processing faces critical challenges, particularly in
scenarios with high mobility and potential blockage from moving background
objects causing deep fading. Deep fading can temporarily disrupt the localization
and sensing functions of a Mobile Ad-Hoc System (MAS), necessitating a
coordinated switch to another MAS for real-time tracking. To mitigate blockage,
strategies such as image-based mobility-behavior prediction, environmental
identification, and radio channel simulation are vital, aiming for runtime in the
order of milliseconds. High-frequency beamforming (>40 GHz) introduces risks
like increased phase noise and non-linearity, impacting signal quality and leading
to channel estimation errors. In near-field situations, robust direction estimation
algorithms for beamspace channels are required. The influence of beamspace
separation on accurately identifying closely located multiple targets remains
unexplored. AI-enabled precoding for digital beamforming, coupled with dynamic
multipath simulation, enhances system attributes but necessitates a delicate
balance between algorithm complexity, hardware capabilities, and time
consumption. Integration with learning algorithms for target recognition holds
promise, demanding comprehensive performance evaluation metrics, current
and future localization accuracy, and the Cramér-Rao bound on estimation
accuracy in alignment with system specifications. Addressing these challenges is
crucial for advancing beamspace processing in dynamic, high-mobility scenarios .
2.4 MACHINE LEARNING FOR INTELLIGENT LOCALIZATION AND
SENSING
In the transition towards the data-rich 6G era, AI techniques play a pivotal role,
driving intelligent systems and agents capable of rational decision-making in
uncertain environments. The reliance on Machine Learning (ML) in modern AI
systems, offering data-driven multidisciplinary approaches, is crucial for the
development of 6G systems and beyond. These systems, operating in the
mmWave and μmWave frequency ranges, extend beyond wireless
communication to advanced localization and sensing techniques.
Localization in 6G heavily leverages ML methods, particularly in challenging
environments like poor indoor and urban outdoor conditions where traditional
mathematical models and signal processing fall short. AI methodologies model
system behavior, accounting for sensor noise and uncertainties, essential for
solving complex problems with numerous multi-modal, indirect, and noisy
observations. Predictive models and pattern recognition based on ML techniques
are vital for achieving high-level sensing and localization from low-level raw
measurements, such as Channel State Information (CSI) in massive MIMO
systems. Hybrid models combining physics-based models with data-driven
learning approaches are anticipated to support future localization and mapping
systems. Machine learning, particularly deep learning and probabilistic methods,
provides a flexible and accurate framework for addressing the intricate
challenges of 6G localization and sensing.
Sensing in 6G, especially at high carrier frequencies, promises more accurate
techniques for environment measurement and object detection. The wider
spectral range opens up opportunities to sense and identify new targets and
variables not detectable in current frequency bands. As data complexity
increases, AI- and ML-aided sensing, alongside novel sensing capabilities, extract
high-level information and patterns from raw data, enabling unprecedented
sensing approaches. ML algorithms, either acting as virtual sensors or trained
directly, contribute to dynamic environment characterization, object detection,
user identification, and behavior recognition. Applications of ML-aided
localization and sensing span low-level feature extraction, pattern discovery,
object detection, location tracking, environmental mapping, cooperative
localization, channel charting, and autonomous navigation and planning.
Challenges: Despite the existing toolbox of AI and ML techniques, challenges
persist, notably the data-hungry nature of many methods requiring substantial
labeled training data and computing power. Overcoming this limitation
necessitates the development of novel hierarchical models and advanced
inference techniques. To address the cost of collecting labeled data, semi-
supervised learning and online adaptive ML techniques, such as federated
learning and reinforcement learning, become essential. The characteristics of
next-generation communication systems, being autonomous, non-stationary, and
time-evolving, further emphasize the need for adaptive ML approaches. Solving
these challenges is paramount for successfully applying AI and ML as enablers
for the next-generation, highly dynamic, large-scale localization, and sensing
systems in 6G and beyond.
