Karim Said

Shashank Jere, Lizhong Zheng, Karim Said et al.

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are known to be universal approximators of dynamic systems under fairly mild and general assumptions. However, RNNs usually suffer from the issues of vanishing and exploding gradients in standard RNN training. Reservoir computing (RC), a special RNN where the recurrent weights are randomized and left untrained, has been introduced to overcome these issues and has demonstrated superior empirical performance especially in scenarios where training samples are extremely limited. On the other hand, the theoretical grounding to support this observed performance has yet been fully developed. In this work, we show that RC can universally approximate a general linear time-invariant (LTI) system. Specifically, we present a clear signal processing interpretation of RC and utilize this understanding in the problem of approximating a generic LTI system. Under this setup, we analytically characterize the optimum probability density function for configuring (instead of training and/or randomly generating) the recurrent weights of the underlying RNN of the RC. Extensive numerical evaluations are provided to validate the optimality of the derived distribution for configuring the recurrent weights of the RC to approximate a general LTI system. Our work results in clear signal processing-based model interpretability of RC and provides theoretical explanation/justification for the power of randomness in randomly generating instead of training RC's recurrent weights. Furthermore, it provides a complete optimum analytical characterization for configuring the untrained recurrent weights, marking an important step towards explainable machine learning (XML) to incorporate domain knowledge for efficient learning.

Shashank Jere, Karim Said, Lizhong Zheng et al.

Deep learning has seen a rapid adoption in a variety of wireless communications applications, including at the physical layer. While it has delivered impressive performance in tasks such as channel equalization and receive processing/symbol detection, it leaves much to be desired when it comes to explaining this superior performance. In this work, we investigate the specific task of channel equalization by applying a popular learning-based technique known as Reservoir Computing (RC), which has shown superior performance compared to conventional methods and other learning-based approaches. Specifically, we apply the echo state network (ESN) as a channel equalizer and provide a first principles-based signal processing understanding of its operation. With this groundwork, we incorporate the available domain knowledge in the form of the statistics of the wireless channel directly into the weights of the ESN model. This paves the way for optimized initialization of the ESN model weights, which are traditionally untrained and randomly initialized. Finally, we show the improvement in receive processing/symbol detection performance with this optimized initialization through simulations. This is a first step towards explainable machine learning (XML) and assigning practical model interpretability that can be utilized together with the available domain knowledge to improve performance and enhance detection reliability.

Jiarui Xu, Karim Said, Lizhong Zheng et al.

Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) is a promising modulation scheme for wireless communication in high-mobility scenarios. Recently, a reservoir computing (RC) based approach has been introduced for online subframe-based symbol detection in the OTFS system, where only a limited number of over-the-air (OTA) pilot symbols are utilized for training. However, this approach does not leverage the domain knowledge specific to the OTFS system to fully unlock the potential of RC. This paper introduces a novel two-dimensional RC (2D-RC) method that incorporates the domain knowledge of the OTFS system into the design for symbol detection in an online subframe-based manner. Specifically, as the channel interaction in the delay-Doppler (DD) domain is a two-dimensional (2D) circular operation, the 2D-RC is designed to have the 2D circular padding procedure and the 2D filtering structure to embed this knowledge. With the introduced architecture, 2D-RC can operate in the DD domain with only a single neural network, instead of necessitating multiple RCs to track channel variations in the time domain as in previous work. Numerical experiments demonstrate the advantages of the 2D-RC approach over the previous RC-based approach and compared model-based methods across different OTFS system variants and modulation orders.

Jiarui Xu, Karim Said, Lizhong Zheng et al.

Orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) is a promising modulation scheme for wireless communication in high-mobility scenarios. Recently, a reservoir computing (RC) based approach has been introduced for online subframe-based symbol detection in the OTFS system, where only the limited over-the-air (OTA) pilot symbols are utilized for training. However, the previous RC-based approach does not design the RC architecture based on the properties of the OTFS system to fully unlock the potential of RC. This paper introduces a novel two-dimensional RC (2D-RC) approach for online symbol detection on a subframe basis in the OTFS system. The 2D-RC is designed to have a two-dimensional (2D) filtering structure to equalize the 2D circular channel effect in the delay-Doppler (DD) domain of the OTFS system. With the introduced architecture, the 2D-RC can operate in the DD domain with only a single neural network, unlike our previous work which requires multiple RCs to track channel variations in the time domain. Experimental results demonstrate the advantages of the 2D-RC approach over the previous RC-based approach and the compared model-based methods across different modulation orders.