Zhi Ding

Kaidi Wang, Yi Ma, Mahdi Boloursaz Mashhadi et al.

This paper studies issues that arise with respect to the joint optimization for convergence time in federated learning over wireless networks (FLOWN). We consider the criterion and protocol for selection of participating devices in FLOWN under the energy constraint and derive its impact on device selection. In order to improve the training efficiency, age-of-information (AoI) enables FLOWN to assess the freshness of gradient updates among participants. Aiming to speed up convergence, we jointly investigate global loss minimization and latency minimization in a Stackelberg game based framework. Specifically, we formulate global loss minimization as a leader-level problem for reducing the number of required rounds, and latency minimization as a follower-level problem to reduce time consumption of each round. By decoupling the follower-level problem into two sub-problems, including resource allocation and sub-channel assignment, we achieve an optimal strategy of the follower through monotonic optimization and matching theory. At the leader-level, we derive an upper bound of convergence rate and subsequently reformulate the global loss minimization problem and propose a new age-of-update (AoU) based device selection algorithm. Simulation results indicate the superior performance of the proposed AoU based device selection scheme in terms of the convergence rate, as well as efficient utilization of available sub-channels.

Haoming Ma, Xiaojun Yuan, Zhi Ding et al.

To achieve communication-efficient federated multitask learning (FMTL), we propose an over-the-air FMTL (OAFMTL) framework, where multiple learning tasks deployed on edge devices share a non-orthogonal fading channel under the coordination of an edge server (ES). In OA-FMTL, the local updates of edge devices are sparsified, compressed, and then sent over the uplink channel in a superimposed fashion. The ES employs over-the-air computation in the presence of intertask interference. More specifically, the model aggregations of all the tasks are reconstructed from the channel observations concurrently, based on a modified version of the turbo compressed sensing (Turbo-CS) algorithm (named as M-Turbo-CS). We analyze the performance of the proposed OA-FMTL framework together with the M-Turbo-CS algorithm. Furthermore, based on the analysis, we formulate a communication-learning optimization problem to improve the system performance by adjusting the power allocation among the tasks at the edge devices. Numerical simulations show that our proposed OAFMTL effectively suppresses the inter-task interference, and achieves a learning performance comparable to its counterpart with orthogonal multi-task transmission. It is also shown that the proposed inter-task power allocation optimization algorithm substantially reduces the overall communication overhead by appropriately adjusting the power allocation among the tasks.

Achintha Wijesinghe, Songyang Zhang, Zhi Ding

Recent advances of generative learning models are accompanied by the growing interest in federated learning (FL) based on generative adversarial network (GAN) models. In the context of FL, GAN can capture the underlying client data structure, and regenerate samples resembling the original data distribution without compromising the private raw data. Although most existing GAN-based FL works focus on training a global model, Personalized FL (PFL) sometimes can be more effective in view of client data heterogeneity in terms of distinct data sample distributions, feature spaces, and labels. To cope with client heterogeneity in GAN-based FL, we propose a novel GAN sharing and aggregation strategy for PFL. The proposed PFL-GAN addresses the client heterogeneity in different scenarios. More specially, we first learn the similarity among clients and then develop an weighted collaborative data aggregation. The empirical results through the rigorous experimentation on several well-known datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of PFL-GAN.

Achintha Wijesinghe, Songyang Zhang, Siyu Qi et al.

To satisfy the broad applications and insatiable hunger for deploying low latency multimedia data classification and data privacy in a cloud-based setting, federated learning (FL) has emerged as an important learning paradigm. For the practical cases involving limited computational power and only unlabeled data in many wireless communications applications, this work investigates FL paradigm in a resource-constrained and label-missing environment. Specifically, we propose a novel framework of UFed-GAN: Unsupervised Federated Generative Adversarial Network, which can capture user-side data distribution without local classification training. We also analyze the convergence and privacy of the proposed UFed-GAN. Our experimental results demonstrate the strong potential of UFed-GAN in addressing limited computational resources and unlabeled data while preserving privacy.

Achintha Wijesinghe, Songyang Zhang, Suchinthaka Wanninayaka et al.

The latest advances in artificial intelligence (AI) present many unprecedented opportunities to achieve much improved bandwidth saving in communications. Unlike conventional communication systems focusing on packet transport, rich datasets and AI makes it possible to efficiently transfer only the information most critical to the goals of message recipients. One of the most exciting advances in generative AI known as diffusion model presents a unique opportunity for designing ultra-fast communication systems well beyond language-based messages. This work presents an ultra-efficient communication design by utilizing generative AI-based on diffusion models as a specific example of the general goal-oriented communication framework. To better control the regenerated message at the receiver output, our diffusion system design includes a local regeneration module with finite dimensional noise latent. The critical significance of noise latent control and sharing residing on our Diff-GO is the ability to introduce the concept of "local generative feedback" (Local-GF), which enables the transmitter to monitor the quality and gauge the quality or accuracy of the message recovery at the semantic system receiver. To this end, we propose a new low-dimensional noise space for the training of diffusion models, which significantly reduces the communication overhead and achieves satisfactory message recovery performance. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed noise space and the diffusion-based generative model achieve ultra-high spectrum efficiency and accurate recovery of transmitted image signals. By trading off computation for bandwidth efficiency (C4BE), this new framework provides an important avenue to achieve exceptional computation-bandwidth tradeoff.

Siyu Qi, Achintha Wijesinghe, Lahiru D. Chamain et al.

Among applications of deep learning (DL) involving low cost sensors, remote image classification involves a physical channel that separates edge sensors and cloud classifiers. Traditional DL models must be divided between an encoder for the sensor and the decoder + classifier at the edge server. An important challenge is to effectively train such distributed models when the connecting channels have limited rate/capacity. Our goal is to optimize DL models such that the encoder latent requires low channel bandwidth while still delivers feature information for high classification accuracy. This work proposes a three-step joint learning strategy to guide encoders to extract features that are compact, discriminative, and amenable to common augmentations/transformations. We optimize latent dimension through an initial screening phase before end-to-end (E2E) training. To obtain an adjustable bit rate via a single pre-deployed encoder, we apply entropy-based quantization and/or manual truncation on the latent representations. Tests show that our proposed method achieves accuracy improvement of up to 1.5% on CIFAR-10 and 3% on CIFAR-100 over conventional E2E cross-entropy training.

Yu-Chien Lin, Yan Xin, Ta-Sung Lee et al.

Acquiring downlink channel state information (CSI) at the base station is vital for optimizing performance in massive Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) Frequency-Division Duplexing (FDD) systems. While deep learning architectures have been successful in facilitating UE-side CSI feedback and gNB-side recovery, the undersampling issue prior to CSI feedback is often overlooked. This issue, which arises from low density pilot placement in current standards, results in significant aliasing effects in outdoor channels and consequently limits CSI recovery performance. To this end, this work introduces a new CSI upsampling framework at the gNB as a post-processing solution to address the gaps caused by undersampling. Leveraging the physical principles of discrete Fourier transform shifting theorem and multipath reciprocity, our framework effectively uses uplink CSI to mitigate aliasing effects. We further develop a learning-based method that integrates the proposed algorithm with the Iterative Shrinkage-Thresholding Algorithm Net (ISTA-Net) architecture, enhancing our approach for non-uniform sampling recovery. Our numerical results show that both our rule-based and deep learning methods significantly outperform traditional interpolation techniques and current state-of-the-art approaches in terms of performance.

Yu-Chieh Chao, Yubei Chen, Weiwei Wang et al.

Semantic communication marks a new paradigm shift from bit-wise data transmission to semantic information delivery for the purpose of bandwidth reduction. To more effectively carry out specialized downstream tasks at the receiver end, it is crucial to define the most critical semantic message in the data based on the task or goal-oriented features. In this work, we propose a novel goal-oriented communication (GO-COM) framework, namely Goal-Oriented Semantic Variational Autoencoder (GOS-VAE), by focusing on the extraction of the semantics vital to the downstream tasks. Specifically, we adopt a Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder (VQ-VAE) to compress media data at the transmitter side. Instead of targeting the pixel-wise image data reconstruction, we measure the quality-of-service at the receiver end based on a pre-defined task-incentivized model. Moreover, to capture the relevant semantic features in the data reconstruction, imitation learning is adopted to measure the data regeneration quality in terms of goal-oriented semantics. Our experimental results demonstrate the power of imitation learning in characterizing goal-oriented semantics and bandwidth efficiency of our proposed GOS-VAE.

Achintha Wijesinghe, Suchinthaka Wanninayaka, Weiwei Wang et al.

The recent rise of semantic-style communications includes the development of goal-oriented communications (GOCOMs) remarkably efficient multimedia information transmissions. The concept of GO-COMS leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tools to address the rising demand for bandwidth efficiency in applications, such as edge computing and Internet-of-Things (IoT). Unlike traditional communication systems focusing on source data accuracy, GO-COMs provide intelligent message delivery catering to the special needs critical to accomplishing downstream tasks at the receiver. In this work, we present a novel GO-COM framework, namely LaMI-GO that utilizes emerging generative AI for better quality-of-service (QoS) with ultra-high communication efficiency. Specifically, we design our LaMI-GO system backbone based on a latent diffusion model followed by a vector-quantized generative adversarial network (VQGAN) for efficient latent embedding and information representation. The system trains a common feature codebook the receiver side. Our experimental results demonstrate substantial improvement in perceptual quality, accuracy of downstream tasks, and bandwidth consumption over the state-of-the-art GOCOM systems and establish the power of our proposed LaMI-GO communication framework.

Fupei Guo, Kerry Pan, Songyang Zhang et al.

Radiomap serves as a vital tool for wireless network management and deployment by providing powerful spatial knowledge of signal propagation and coverage. However, increasingly complex radio propagation behavior and surrounding environments pose strong challenges for radiomap estimation (RME). In this work, we propose a knowledge-guided RME framework that integrates Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KAN) with Mixture-of-Experts (MoE), namely RadioKMoE. Specifically, we design a KAN module to predict an initial coarse coverage map, leveraging KAN's strength in approximating physics models and global radio propagation patterns. The initial coarse map, together with environmental information, drives our MoE network for precise radiomap estimation. Unlike conventional deep learning models, the MoE module comprises expert networks specializing in distinct radiomap patterns to improve local details while preserving global consistency. Experimental results in both multi- and single-band RME demonstrate the enhanced accuracy and robustness of the proposed RadioKMoE in radiomap estimation.

Zhenyu Liu, Yi Ma, Rahim Tafazolli et al.

Real-time transmission of video over wireless networks remains highly challenging, even with advanced deep models, particularly under severe channel conditions such as limited bandwidth and weak connectivity. In this paper, we propose Resi-VidTok, a Resilient Tokenization-Enabled framework designed for ultra-low-rate and lightweight video transmission that delivers strong robustness while preserving perceptual and semantic fidelity on commodity digital hardware. By reorganizing spatio--temporal content into a discrete, importance-ordered token stream composed of key tokens and refinement tokens, Resi-VidTok enables progressive encoding, prefix-decodable reconstruction, and graceful quality degradation under constrained channels. A key contribution is a resilient 1D tokenization pipeline for video that integrates differential temporal token coding, explicitly supporting reliable recovery from incomplete token sets using a single shared framewise decoder--without auxiliary temporal extractors or heavy generative models. Furthermore, stride-controlled frame sparsification combined with a lightweight decoder-side interpolator reduces transmission load while maintaining motion continuity. Finally, a channel-adaptive source--channel coding and modulation scheme dynamically allocates rate and protection according to token importance and channel condition, yielding stable quality across adverse SNRs. Evaluation results indicate robust visual and semantic consistency at channel bandwidth ratios (CBR) as low as 0.0004 and real-time reconstruction at over 30 fps, demonstrating the practicality of Resi-VidTok for energy-efficient, latency-sensitive, and reliability-critical wireless applications.

Fupei Guo, Achintha Wijesinghe, Songyang Zhang et al.

Semantic communications represent a new paradigm of next-generation networking that shifts bit-wise data delivery to conveying the semantic meanings for bandwidth efficiency. To effectively accommodate various potential downstream tasks at the receiver side, one should adaptively convey the most critical semantic information. This work presents a novel task-adaptive semantic communication framework based on diffusion models that is capable of dynamically adjusting the semantic message delivery according to various downstream tasks. Specifically, we initialize the transmission of a deep-compressed general semantic representation from the transmitter to enable diffusion-based coarse data reconstruction at the receiver. The receiver identifies the task-specific demands and generates textual prompts as feedback. Integrated with the attention mechanism, the transmitter updates the semantic transmission with more details to better align with the objectives of the intended receivers. Our test results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in adaptively preserving critical task-relevant information for semantic communications while preserving high compression efficiency.

Xiaojun Yuan, Haoming Ma, Yinuo Huang et al.

Semantic communications leverage artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to extract semantic information for efficient data delivery, thereby significantly reducing communication cost. With the evolution towards artificial general intelligence (AGI), the increasing demands for AGI services pose new challenges to semantic communications. In this context, an AGI application is typically defined on a general-sense task, covering a broad, even unforeseen, set of objectives, as well as driven by the need for a human-friendly interface in forms (e.g., videos, images, or text) easily understood by human users.In response, we introduce an AGI-driven communication paradigm for supporting AGI applications, called generative semantic communication (GSC). We first describe the basic concept of GSC and its difference from existing semantic communications, and then introduce a general framework of GSC based on advanced AI technologies including foundation models and generative models. Two case studies are presented to verify the advantages of GSC. Finally, open challenges and new research directions are discussed to stimulate this line of research and pave the way for practical applications.

Achintha Wijesinghe, Songyang Zhang, Zhi Ding

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as an effective learning paradigm for distributed computation owing to its strong potential in capturing underlying data statistics while preserving data privacy. However, in cases of practical data heterogeneity among FL clients, existing FL frameworks still exhibit deficiency in capturing the overall feature properties of local client data that exhibit disparate distributions. In response, generative adversarial networks (GANs) have recently been exploited in FL to address data heterogeneity since GANs can be integrated for data regeneration without exposing original raw data. Despite some successes, existing GAN-related FL frameworks often incur heavy communication cost and also elicit other privacy concerns, which limit their applications in real scenarios. To this end, this work proposes a novel FL framework that requires only partial GAN model sharing. Named as PS-FedGAN, this new framework enhances the GAN releasing and training mechanism to address heterogeneous data distributions across clients and to strengthen privacy preservation at reduced communication cost, especially over wireless networks. Our analysis demonstrates the convergence and privacy benefits of the proposed PS-FEdGAN framework. Through experimental results based on several well-known benchmark datasets, our proposed PS-FedGAN shows great promise to tackle FL under non-IID client data distributions, while securing data privacy and lowering communication overhead.

Songyang Zhang, Qinwen Deng, Zhi Ding

Hyperspectral imaging is an important sensing technology with broad applications and impact in areas including environmental science, weather, and geo/space exploration. One important task of hyperspectral image (HSI) processing is the extraction of spectral-spatial features. Leveraging on the recent-developed graph signal processing over multilayer networks (M-GSP), this work proposes several approaches to HSI segmentation based on M-GSP feature extraction. To capture joint spectral-spatial information, we first customize a tensor-based multilayer network (MLN) model for HSI, and define a MLN singular space for feature extraction. We then develop an unsupervised HSI segmentation method by utilizing MLN spectral clustering. Regrouping HSI pixels via MLN-based clustering, we further propose a semi-supervised HSI classification based on multi-resolution fusions of superpixels. Our experimental results demonstrate the strength of M-GSP in HSI processing and spectral-spatial information extraction.

Haoming Ma, Xiaojun Yuan, Dian Fan et al.

In this letter, we introduce over-the-air computation into the communication design of federated multi-task learning (FMTL), and propose an over-the-air federated multi-task learning (OA-FMTL) framework, where multiple learning tasks deployed on edge devices share a non-orthogonal fading channel under the coordination of an edge server (ES). Specifically, the model updates for all the tasks are transmitted and superimposed concurrently over a non-orthogonal uplink fading channel, and the model aggregations of all the tasks are reconstructed at the ES through a modified version of the turbo compressed sensing algorithm (Turbo-CS) that overcomes inter-task interference. Both convergence analysis and numerical results show that the OA-FMTL framework can significantly improve the system efficiency in terms of reducing the number of channel uses without causing substantial learning performance degradation.

Hui-Ying Siao, Siyu Qi, Zhi Ding et al.

Graphene serves critical application and research purposes in various fields. However, fabricating high-quality and large quantities of graphene is time-consuming and it requires heavy human resource labor costs. In this paper, we propose a Machine Learning-based Automatic Graphene Detection Method with Color Correction (MLA-GDCC), a reliable and autonomous graphene detection from microscopic images. The MLA-GDCC includes a white balance (WB) to correct the color imbalance on the images, a modified U-Net and a support vector machine (SVM) to segment the graphene flakes. Considering the color shifts of the images caused by different cameras, we apply WB correction to correct the imbalance of the color pixels. A modified U-Net model, a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture for fast and precise image segmentation, is introduced to segment the graphene flakes from the background. In order to improve the pixel-level accuracy, we implement a SVM after the modified U-Net model to separate the monolayer and bilayer graphene flakes. The MLA-GDCC achieves flake-level detection rates of 87.09% for monolayer and 90.41% for bilayer graphene, and the pixel-level accuracy of 99.27% for monolayer and 98.92% for bilayer graphene. MLA-GDCC not only achieves high detection rates of the graphene flakes but also speeds up the latency for the graphene detection process from hours to seconds.

Qinwen Deng, Songyang Zhang, Zhi Ding

Efficient processing and feature extraction of largescale point clouds are important in related computer vision and cyber-physical systems. This work investigates point cloud resampling based on hypergraph signal processing (HGSP) to better explore the underlying relationship among different cloud points and to extract contour-enhanced features. Specifically, we design hypergraph spectral filters to capture multi-lateral interactions among the signal nodes of point clouds and to better preserve their surface outlines. Without the need and the computation to first construct the underlying hypergraph, our low complexity approach directly estimates hypergraph spectrum of point clouds by leveraging hypergraph stationary processes from the observed 3D coordinates. Evaluating the proposed resampling methods with several metrics, our test results validate the high efficacy of hypergraph characterization of point clouds and demonstrate the robustness of hypergraph-based resampling under noisy observations.

Qiyu Hu, Yanzhen Liu, Yunlong Cai et al.

The millimeter wave (mmWave) multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems with discrete lens arrays (DLA) have received great attention due to their simple hardware implementation and excellent performance. In this work, we investigate the joint design of beam selection and digital precoding matrices for mmWave MU-MIMO systems with DLA to maximize the sum-rate subject to the transmit power constraint and the constraints of the selection matrix structure. The investigated non-convex problem with discrete variables and coupled constraints is challenging to solve and an efficient framework of joint neural network (NN) design is proposed to tackle it. Specifically, the proposed framework consists of a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based NN and a deep-unfolding NN, which are employed to optimize the beam selection and digital precoding matrices, respectively. As for the DRL-based NN, we formulate the beam selection problem as a Markov decision process and a double deep Q-network algorithm is developed to solve it. The base station is considered to be an agent, where the state, action, and reward function are carefully designed. Regarding the design of the digital precoding matrix, we develop an iterative weighted minimum mean-square error algorithm induced deep-unfolding NN, which unfolds this algorithm into a layerwise structure with introduced trainable parameters. Simulation results verify that this jointly trained NN remarkably outperforms the existing iterative algorithms with reduced complexity and stronger robustness.

Zhenyu Liu, Mason del Rosario, Zhi Ding

Forward channel state information (CSI) often plays a vital role in scheduling and capacity-approaching transmission optimization for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems. In frequency division duplex (FDD) massive MIMO systems, forwardlink CSI reconstruction at the transmitter relies critically on CSI feedback from receiving nodes and must carefully weigh the tradeoff between reconstruction accuracy and feedback bandwidth. Recent studies on the use of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) have demonstrated strong promises, though the cost of computation and memory remains high, for massive MIMO deployment. In this work, we exploit channel coherence in time to substantially improve the feedback efficiency. Using a Markovian model, we develop a deep convolutional neural network (CNN)-based framework MarkovNet to differentially encode forward CSI in time to effectively improve reconstruction accuracy. Furthermore, we explore important physical insights, including spherical normalization of input data and convolutional layers for feedback compression. We demonstrate substantial performance improvement and complexity reduction over the RNN-based work by our proposed MarkovNet to recover forward CSI estimates accurately. We explore additional practical consideration in feedback quantization, and show that MarkovNet outperforms RNN-based CSI estimation networks at a fraction of the computational cost.

Songyang Zhang, Han Zhang, Shuguang Cui et al.

Graph convolutional networks (GCN) have been recently utilized to extract the underlying structures of datasets with some labeled data and high-dimensional features. Existing GCNs mostly rely on a first-order Chebyshev approximation of graph wavelet-kernels. Such a generic propagation model does not always suit the various datasets and their features. This work revisits the fundamentals of graph wavelet and explores the utility of signal propagation in the vertex domain to approximate the spectral wavelet-kernels. We first derive the conditions for representing the graph wavelet-kernels via vertex propagation. We next propose alternative propagation models for GCN layers based on Taylor expansions. We further analyze the choices of detailed graph representations for TGCNs. Experiments on citation networks, multimedia datasets and synthetic graphs demonstrate the advantage of Taylor-based GCN (TGCN) in the node classification problems over the traditional GCN methods.

Qiyu Hu, Yunlong Cai, Qingjiang Shi et al.

Optimization theory assisted algorithms have received great attention for precoding design in multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. Although the resultant optimization algorithms are able to provide excellent performance, they generally require considerable computational complexity, which gets in the way of their practical application in real-time systems. In this work, in order to address this issue, we first propose a framework for deep-unfolding, where a general form of iterative algorithm induced deep-unfolding neural network (IAIDNN) is developed in matrix form to better solve the problems in communication systems. Then, we implement the proposed deepunfolding framework to solve the sum-rate maximization problem for precoding design in MU-MIMO systems. An efficient IAIDNN based on the structure of the classic weighted minimum mean-square error (WMMSE) iterative algorithm is developed. Specifically, the iterative WMMSE algorithm is unfolded into a layer-wise structure, where a number of trainable parameters are introduced to replace the highcomplexity operations in the forward propagation. To train the network, a generalized chain rule of the IAIDNN is proposed to depict the recurrence relation of gradients between two adjacent layers in the back propagation. Moreover, we discuss the computational complexity and generalization ability of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed IAIDNN efficiently achieves the performance of the iterative WMMSE algorithm with reduced computational complexity.

Songyang Zhang, Shuguang Cui, Zhi Ding

Along with increasingly popular virtual reality applications, the three-dimensional (3D) point cloud has become a fundamental data structure to characterize 3D objects and surroundings. To process 3D point clouds efficiently, a suitable model for the underlying structure and outlier noises is always critical. In this work, we propose a hypergraph-based new point cloud model that is amenable to efficient analysis and processing. We introduce tensor-based methods to estimate hypergraph spectrum components and frequency coefficients of point clouds in both ideal and noisy settings. We establish an analytical connection between hypergraph frequencies and structural features. We further evaluate the efficacy of hypergraph spectrum estimation in two common point cloud applications of sampling and denoising for which also we elaborate specific hypergraph filter design and spectral properties. The empirical performance demonstrates the strength of hypergraph signal processing as a tool in 3D point clouds and the underlying properties.

Lahiru D. Chamain, Zhi Ding

JPEG2000 (j2k) is a highly popular format for image and video compression.With the rapidly growing applications of cloud based image classification, most existing j2k-compatible schemes would stream compressed color images from the source before reconstruction at the processing center as inputs to deep CNNs. We propose to remove the computationally costly reconstruction step by training a deep CNN image classifier using the CDF 9/7 Discrete Wavelet Transformed (DWT) coefficients directly extracted from j2k-compressed images. We demonstrate additional computation savings by utilizing shallower CNN to achieve classification of good accuracy in the DWT domain. Furthermore, we show that traditional augmentation transforms such as flipping/shifting are ineffective in the DWT domain and present different augmentation transformations to achieve more accurate classification without any additional cost. This way, faster and more accurate classification is possible for j2k encoded images without image reconstruction. Through experiments on CIFAR-10 and Tiny ImageNet data sets, we show that the performance of the proposed solution is consistent for image transmission over limited channel bandwidth.

Kai Yang, Yuanming Shi, Wei Yu et al.

Edge machine learning can deliver low-latency and private artificial intelligent (AI) services for mobile devices by leveraging computation and storage resources at the network edge. This paper presents an energy-efficient edge processing framework to execute deep learning inference tasks at the edge computing nodes whose wireless connections to mobile devices are prone to channel uncertainties. Aimed at minimizing the sum of computation and transmission power consumption with probabilistic quality-of-service (QoS) constraints, we formulate a joint inference tasking and downlink beamforming problem that is characterized by a group sparse objective function. We provide a statistical learning based robust optimization approach to approximate the highly intractable probabilistic-QoS constraints by nonconvex quadratic constraints, which are further reformulated as matrix inequalities with a rank-one constraint via matrix lifting. We design a reweighted power minimization approach by iteratively reweighted $\ell_1$ minimization with difference-of-convex-functions (DC) regularization and updating weights, where the reweighted approach is adopted for enhancing group sparsity whereas the DC regularization is designed for inducing rank-one solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches.

Kai Yang, Tao Jiang, Yuanming Shi et al.

The stringent requirements for low-latency and privacy of the emerging high-stake applications with intelligent devices such as drones and smart vehicles make the cloud computing inapplicable in these scenarios. Instead, edge machine learning becomes increasingly attractive for performing training and inference directly at network edges without sending data to a centralized data center. This stimulates a nascent field termed as federated learning for training a machine learning model on computation, storage, energy and bandwidth limited mobile devices in a distributed manner. To preserve data privacy and address the issues of unbalanced and non-IID data points across different devices, the federated averaging algorithm has been proposed for global model aggregation by computing the weighted average of locally updated model at each selected device. However, the limited communication bandwidth becomes the main bottleneck for aggregating the locally computed updates. We thus propose a novel over-the-air computation based approach for fast global model aggregation via exploring the superposition property of a wireless multiple-access channel. This is achieved by joint device selection and beamforming design, which is modeled as a sparse and low-rank optimization problem to support efficient algorithms design. To achieve this goal, we provide a difference-of-convex-functions (DC) representation for the sparse and low-rank function to enhance sparsity and accurately detect the fixed-rank constraint in the procedure of device selection. A DC algorithm is further developed to solve the resulting DC program with global convergence guarantees. The algorithmic advantages and admirable performance of the proposed methodologies are demonstrated through extensive numerical results.

Jialin Dong, Yuanming Shi, Zhi Ding

Over-the-air computation (AirComp) shows great promise to support fast data fusion in Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks. AirComp typically computes desired functions of distributed sensing data by exploiting superposed data transmission in multiple access channels. To overcome its reliance on channel station information (CSI), this work proposes a novel blind over-the-air computation (BlairComp) without requiring CSI access, particularly for low complexity and low latency IoT networks. To solve the resulting non-convex optimization problem without the initialization dependency exhibited by the solutions of a number of recently proposed efficient algorithms, we develop a Wirtinger flow solution to the BlairComp problem based on random initialization. To analyze the resulting efficiency, we prove its statistical optimality and global convergence guarantee. Specifically, in the first stage of the algorithm, the iteration of randomly initialized Wirtinger flow given sufficient data samples can enter a local region that enjoys strong convexity and strong smoothness within a few iterations. We also prove the estimation error of BlairComp in the local region to be sufficiently small. We show that, at the second stage of the algorithm, its estimation error decays exponentially at a linear convergence rate.