Fang Fang

Fang Fang, Zhiguo Ding, Victor C. M. Leung et al.

Next-generation (NG) wireless networks must embrace innate intelligence in support of demanding emerging applications, such as extended reality and autonomous systems, under ultra-reliable and low-latency requirements. Pinching antennas (PAs), a new flexible low-cost technology, can create line-of-sight links by dynamically activating small dielectric pinches along a waveguide on demand. As a compelling complement, artificial intelligence (AI) offers the intelligence needed to manage the complex control of PA activation positions and resource allocation in these dynamic environments. This article explores the "win-win" cooperation between AI and PAs: AI facilitates the adaptive optimization of PA activation positions along the waveguide, while PAs support edge AI tasks such as federated learning and over-the-air aggregation. We also discuss promising research directions including large language model-driven PA control frameworks, and how PA-AI integration can advance semantic communications, and integrated sensing and communication. This synergy paves the way for adaptive, resilient, and self-optimizing NG networks.

Bibo Wu, Fang Fang, Xianbin Wang

Despite the advantage of preserving data privacy, federated learning (FL) still suffers from the straggler issue due to the limited computing resources of distributed clients and the unreliable wireless communication environment. By effectively imitating the distributed resources, digital twin (DT) shows great potential in alleviating this issue. In this paper, we leverage DT in the FL framework over non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) network to assist FL training process, considering malicious attacks on model updates from clients. A reputationbased client selection scheme is proposed, which accounts for client heterogeneity in multiple aspects and effectively mitigates the risks of poisoning attacks in FL systems. To minimize the total latency and energy consumption in the proposed system, we then formulate a Stackelberg game by considering clients and the server as the leader and the follower, respectively. Specifically, the leader aims to minimize the energy consumption while the objective of the follower is to minimize the total latency during FL training. The Stackelberg equilibrium is achieved to obtain the optimal solutions. We first derive the strategies for the followerlevel problem and include them in the leader-level problem which is then solved via problem decomposition. Simulation results verify the superior performance of the proposed scheme.

Yi Guo, Fang Fang, Donghong Cai et al.

Simultaneous transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (STAR-RISs) has been considered as a promising auxiliary device to enhance the performance of the wireless network, where users located at the different sides of the surfaces can be simultaneously served by the transmitting and reflecting signals. In this paper, the energy efficiency (EE) maximization problem for a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) assisted STAR-RIS downlink network is investigated. Due to the fractional form of the EE, it is challenging to solve the EE maximization problem by the traditional convex optimization solutions. In this work, a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG)-based algorithm is proposed to maximize the EE by jointly optimizing the transmission beamforming vectors at the base station and the coefficients matrices at the STAR-RIS. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively maximize the system EE considering the time-varying channels.

Natarajan Deepa, Quoc-Viet Pham, Dinh C. Nguyen et al.

Big data has generated strong interest in various scientific and engineering domains over the last few years. Despite many advantages and applications, there are many challenges in big data to be tackled for better quality of service, e.g., big data analytics, big data management, and big data privacy and security. Blockchain with its decentralization and security nature has the great potential to improve big data services and applications. In this article, we provide a comprehensive survey on blockchain for big data, focusing on up-to-date approaches, opportunities, and future directions. First, we present a brief overview of blockchain and big data as well as the motivation behind their integration. Next, we survey various blockchain services for big data, including blockchain for secure big data acquisition, data storage, data analytics, and data privacy preservation. Then, we review the state-of-the-art studies on the use of blockchain for big data applications in different vertical domains such as smart city, smart healthcare, smart transportation, and smart grid. For a better understanding, some representative blockchain-big data projects are also presented and analyzed. Finally, challenges and future directions are discussed to further drive research in this promising area.