Towards reinforcement learning in UAV relay for anti-jamming maritime communications

Maritime communications with sea surface reflections and sea wave occlusions are susceptible to jamming attacks due to the wide geographical area and intensive wireless communication services.Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs)help relay messages to improve communication performance,but the relay policy that depends on the rapidly changing maritime environments is difficult to optimize.In this paper,a reinforcement learning-based UAV relay policy for maritime communications is proposed to resist jamming attacks.Based on previous transmission performance,the relay location,the received power of the transmitted signal and the received jamming power,this scheme optimizes the UAV trajectory and relay power to save the energy consumption and decrease the Bit-Error-Rate(BER)of the maritime signals.A deep reinforcement learning-based scheme is also proposed,which designs a deep neural network with dueling architecture to further improve the communication performance and computational complexity.The performance bounds regarding the signal to interference plus noise ratio,energy consumption and the communication utility are provided based on the Nash equilibrium of the game against jamming,and the computational complexity of the proposed schemes is analyzed.Simulation results show that the proposed schemes improve the energy efficiency and decrease the BER compared with the benchmark.

Throughput Analysis of Dynamic Spectrum Anti-Jamming Multiple-Access in HF Communication Systems

A multiple-access networking scheme based on the new dynamic spectrum anti-jamming system is proposed in this paper. The network consists of a center node and multiple user nodes. The center node detects spectrum holes in the operation band periodically according to the user performance target. Detected spectrum holes are allocated to users who request communication. Throughput of this networking scheme is analyzed over a high-frequency(HF) interference channel. The effect of error correction coding and spectrum hole information transmission error is discussed. Throughput of this scheme and conventional frequency-hopping multiple-access(FHMA) scheme are compared. Results show that user performance increase leads to throughput decrease, which can be offset by error correction coding. If spectrum hole information transmission is in error, the throughput is not affected much as long as the bit error rate is below 10-2. Furthermore, throughput of this scheme is obviously superior to the throughput of FHMA scheme.

Beidou receiver based on anti-jamming antenna arrays with self-calibration for precise relative positioning

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)may be subjected to unintentional radio frequency interference(RFI)or hostile jamming attack which will lead to fail to track global navigation satellite system(GNSS)signals.Therefore,the simultaneous realization of anti-jamming and high-precision carrier phase difference positioning becomes a dilemmatic problem.In this paper,a distortionless phase digital beamforming(DBF)algorithm with self-calibration antenna arrays is proposed,which enables to obtain distortionless carrier phase while suppressing jamming.Additionally,architecture of high precision Beidou receiver based on anti-jamming antenna arrays is proposed.Finally,the performance of the algorithm is evaluated,including antenna calibration accuracy,carrier phase distortionless accuracy,and carrier phase measurement accuracy without jamming.Meanwhile,the maximal jamming to signal ratio(JSR)and real time kinematic(RTK)positioning accuracy under wideband jamming are also investigated.The experimental results based on the real-life Beidou signals show that the proposed method has an excellent performance for precise relative positioning under jamming when compared with other anti-jamming methods.

Anti-Jamming Null Space Projection Beamforming Based on Symbiotic Radio

With the development of information technology,more and more devices are connected to the Internet through wireless communication to complete data interconnection.Due to the broadcast characteristics ofwireless channels,wireless networks have suffered more and more malicious attacks.Physical layer security has received extensive attention from industry and academia.MIMO is considered to be one of the most important technologies related to physical layer security.Through beamforming technology,messages can be transmitted to legitimate users in an offset direction that is as orthogonal as possible to the interference channel to ensure the reception SINR by legitimate users.Combining the symbiotic radio(SR)technology,this paper considers a symbiotic radio antijamming MIMO system equipped with a multi-antenna system at the main base station.In order to avoid the interference signal and improve the SINR of the signal received by the user.The base station is equipped with a uniform rectangular antenna array,and using Null Space Projection(NSP)Beamforming,Intelligent Reflecting Surface(IRS)can assist in changing the beam’s angle.The simulation results show that NSP Beamforming could make a better use of the null space of interference,which can effectively improve the received SINR of users under directional interference,and improve the utilization efficiency of signal energy.

A survey on semantic communications:Technologies,solutions,applications and challenges

Semantic Communication(SC)has emerged as a novel communication paradigm that provides a receiver with meaningful information extracted from the source to maximize information transmission throughput in wireless networks,beyond the theoretical capacity limit.Despite the extensive research on SC,there is a lack of comprehensive survey on technologies,solutions,applications,and challenges for SC.In this article,the development of SC is first reviewed and its characteristics,architecture,and advantages are summarized.Next,key technologies such as semantic extraction,semantic encoding,and semantic segmentation are discussed and their corresponding solutions in terms of efficiency,robustness,adaptability,and reliability are summarized.Applications of SC to UAV communication,remote image sensing and fusion,intelligent transportation,and healthcare are also presented and their strategies are summarized.Finally,some challenges and future research directions are presented to provide guidance for further research of SC.

Satellite Communications with 5G, B5G, and 6G: Challenges and Prospects

Satellite communications, pivotal for global connectivity, are increasingly converging with cutting-edge mobile networks, notably 5G, B5G, and 6G. This amalgamation heralds the promise of universal, high-velocity communication, yet it is not without its challenges. Paramount concerns encompass spectrum allocation, the harmonization of network architectures, and inherent latency issues in satellite transmissions. Potential mitigations, such as dynamic spectrum sharing and the deployment of edge computing, are explored as viable solutions. Looking ahead, the advent of quantum communications within satellite frameworks and the integration of AI spotlight promising research trajectories. These advancements aim to foster a seamless and synergistic coexistence between satellite communications and next-gen mobile networks.

Call for Papers--Feature Topic Vol. 22, No. 3, 2025 Special Issue of China Communications: Convergence of 6G empowered Edge Intelligence and Generative AI: Theories, Algorithms, and Applications

Generative artificial intelligence(AI), as an emerging paradigm in content generation, has demonstrated its great potentials in creating high-fidelity data including images, texts, and videos. Nowadays wireless networks and applications have been rapidly evolving from achieving “connected things” to embracing “connected intelligence”.

Optimization of Cooperative RelayingMolecular Communications for Nanomedical Applications

Recently,nano-systems based on molecular communications via diffusion(MCvD)have been implemented in a variety of nanomedical applications,most notably in targeted drug delivery system(TDDS)scenarios.Furthermore,because the MCvD is unreliable and there exists molecular noise and inter symbol interference(ISI),cooperative nano-relays can acquire the reliability for drug delivery to targeted diseased cells,especially if the separation distance between the nano transmitter and nano receiver is increased.In this work,we propose an approach for optimizing the performance of the nano system using cooperative molecular communications with a nano relay scheme,while accounting for blood flow effects in terms of drift velocity.The fractions of the molecular drug that should be allocated to the nano transmitter and nano relay positioning are computed using a collaborative optimization problem solved by theModified Central Force Optimization(MCFO)algorithm.Unlike the previous work,the probability of bit error is expressed in a closed-form expression.It is used as an objective function to determine the optimal velocity of the drug molecules and the detection threshold at the nano receiver.The simulation results show that the probability of bit error can be dramatically reduced by optimizing the drift velocity,detection threshold,location of the nano-relay in the proposed nano system,and molecular drug budget.

Mutual Information Maximization via Joint Power Allocation in Integrated Sensing and Communications System

In this paper, we focus on the power allocation of Integrated Sensing and Communication(ISAC) with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM) waveform. In order to improve the spectrum utilization efficiency in ISAC, we propose a design scheme based on spectrum sharing, that is,to maximize the mutual information(MI) of radar sensing while ensuring certain communication rate and transmission power constraints. In the proposed scheme, three cases are considered for the scattering off the target due to the communication signals,as negligible signal, beneficial signal, and interference signal to radar sensing, respectively, thus requiring three power allocation schemes. However,the corresponding power allocation schemes are nonconvex and their closed-form solutions are unavailable as a consequence. Motivated by this, alternating optimization(AO), sequence convex programming(SCP) and Lagrange multiplier are individually combined for three suboptimal solutions corresponding with three power allocation schemes. By combining the three algorithms, we transform the non-convex problem which is difficult to deal with into a convex problem which is easy to solve and obtain the suboptimal solution of the corresponding optimization problem. Numerical results show that, compared with the allocation results of the existing algorithms, the proposed joint design algorithm significantly improves the radar performance.

A Pricing-Based Cooperative Relay Selection Scheme for Reliable Communications

With the rapid development and application of energy harvesting technology,it has become a prominent research area due to its significant benefits in terms of green environmental protection,convenience,and high safety and efficiency.However,the uneven energy collection and consumption among IoT devices at varying distances may lead to resource imbalance within energy harvesting networks,thereby resulting in low energy transmission efficiency.To enhance the energy transmission efficiency of IoT devices in energy harvesting,this paper focuses on the utilization of collaborative communication,along with pricing-based incentive mechanisms and auction strategies.We propose a dynamic relay selection scheme,including a ladder pricing mechanism based on energy level and a Kuhn-Munkre Algorithm based on an auction theory employing a negotiation mechanism,to encourage more IoT devices to participate in the collaboration process.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms traditional algorithms in terms of improving the energy efficiency of the system.

Meiotic transcriptional reprogramming mediated by cell-cell communications in humans and mice revealed by scATACseq and scRNA-seq

Meiosis is a highly complex process significantly influenced by transcriptional regulation.However,studies on the mechanisms that govern transcriptomic changes during meiosis,especially in prophase I,are limited.Here,we performed single-cell ATAC-seq of human testis tissues and observed reprogramming during the transition from zygotene to pachytene spermatocytes.This event,conserved in mice,involved the deactivation of genes associated with meiosis after reprogramming and the activation of those related to spermatogenesis before their functional onset.Furthermore,we identified 282 transcriptional regulators(TRs)that underwent activation or deactivation subsequent to this process.Evidence suggested that physical contact signals from Sertoli cells may regulate these TRs in spermatocytes,while secreted ENHO signals may alter metabolic patterns in these cells.Our results further indicated that defective transcriptional reprogramming may be associated with non-obstructive azoospermia(NOA).This study revealed the importance of both physical contact and secreted signals between Sertoli cells and germ cells in meiotic progression.

Multi-User Semantic Fusion for Semantic Communications over Degraded Broadcast Channels

Degraded broadcast channels(DBC) are a typical multiuser communication scenario, Semantic communications over DBC still lack in-depth research. In this paper, we design a semantic communications approach based on multi-user semantic fusion for wireless image transmission over DBC. The transmitter extracts semantic features for two users separately and then effectively fuses them for broadcasting by leveraging semantic similarity. Unlike traditional allocation of time, power, or bandwidth, the semantic fusion scheme can dynamically control the weight of the semantic features of the two users to balance their performance. Considering the different channel state information(CSI) of both users over DBC,a DBC-Aware method is developed that embeds the CSI of both users into the joint source-channel coding encoder and fusion module to adapt to the channel.Experimental results show that the proposed system outperforms the traditional broadcasting schemes.

Joint Active and Passive Beamforming Design in Intelligent Reflecting Surface(IRS)-Assisted Covert Communications:A Multi-Agent DRL Approach

Intelligent Reflecting Surface(IRS),with the potential capability to reconstruct the electromagnetic propagation environment,evolves a new IRSassisted covert communications paradigm to eliminate the negligible detection of malicious eavesdroppers by coherently beaming the scattered signals and suppressing the signals leakage.However,when multiple IRSs are involved,accurate channel estimation is still a challenge due to the extra hardware complexity and communication overhead.Besides the crossinterference caused by massive reflecting paths,it is hard to obtain the close-formed solution for the optimization of covert communications.On this basis,the paper improves a heterogeneous multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient(MADDPG)approach for the joint active and passive beamforming(Joint A&P BF)optimization without the channel estimation,where the base station(BS)and multiple IRSs are taken as different types of agents and learn to enhance the covert spectrum efficiency(CSE)cooperatively.Thanks to the‘centralized training and distributed execution’feature of MADDPG,each agent can execute the active or passive beamforming independently based on its partial observation without referring to others.Numeral results demonstrate that the proposed deep reinforcement learning(DRL)approach could not only obtain a preferable CSE of legitimate users and a low detection of probability(LPD)of warden,but also alleviate the communication overhead and simplify the IRSs deployment.

Activation Distance and Capacity Analysis for Ambient Backscatter Communications with Sensitivity Constraint and Beamforming

Circuit sensitivity of sensors or tags without battery is one practical constraint for ambient backscatter communication systems.This letter considers using beamforming to reduce the sensitivity constraint and evaluates the corresponding performance in terms of the tag activation distance and the system capacity.Specifically,we derive the activation probabilities of the tag in the case of single-antenna and multi-antenna transmitters.Besides,we obtain the capacity expressions for the ambient backscatter communication system with beamforming and illustrate the power allocation that maximizes the system capacity when the tag is activated.Finally,simulation results are provided to corroborate our proposed studies.

Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided Secure and Covert Communications

This work employs intelligent reflecting surface(IRS)to enhance secure and covert communication performance.We formulate an optimization problem to jointly design both the reflection beamformer at IRS and transmit power at transmitter Alice in order to optimize the achievable secrecy rate at Bob subject to a covertness constraint.We first develop a Dinkelbach-based algorithm to achieve an upper bound performance and a high-quality solution.For reducing the overhead and computational complexity of the Dinkelbach-based scheme,we further conceive a low-complexity algorithm in which analytical expression for the IRS reflection beamforming is derived at each iteration.Examination result shows that the devised low-complexity algorithm is able to achieve similar secrecy rate performance as the Dinkelbach-based algorithm.Our examination also shows that introducing an IRS into the considered system can significantly improve the secure and covert communication performance relative to the scheme without IRS.

Resource allocation for D2D-assisted haptic communications

Haptic communications is recognized as a promising enabler of extensive services by enabling real-time haptic control and feedback in remote environments,e.g.,teleoperation and autonomous driving.Considering the strict transmission requirements on reliability and latency,Device-to-Device(D2D)communications is introduced to assist haptic communications.In particular,the teleoperators with poor channel quality are assisted by auxiliaries,and each auxiliary and its corresponding teleoperator constitute a D2D pair.However,the haptic interaction and the scarcity of radio resources pose severe challenges to the resource allocation,especially facing the sporadic packet arrivals.First,the contentionbased access scheme is applied to achieve low-latency transmission,where the resource scheduling latency is omitted and users can directly access available resources.In this context,we derive the reliability index of D2D pairs under the contention-based access scheme,i.e.,closed-loop packet error probability.Then,the reliability performance is guaranteed by bidirectional power control,which aims to minimize the sum packet error probability of all D2D pairs.Potential game theory is introduced to solve the problem with low complexity.Accordingly,a distributed power control algorithm based on synchronous log-linear learning is proposed to converge to the optimal Nash Equilibrium.Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed learning algorithm.

UAV-supported intelligent truth discovery to achieve low-cost communications in mobile crowd sensing

Unmanned and aerial systems as interactors among different system components for communications,have opened up great opportunities for truth data discovery in Mobile Crowd Sensing(MCS)which has not been properly solved in the literature.In this paper,an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-supported Intelligent Truth Discovery(UAV-ITD)scheme is proposed to obtain truth data at low-cost communications for MCS.The main innovations of the UAV-ITD scheme are as follows:(1)UAV-ITD scheme takes the first step in employing UAV joint Deep Matrix Factorization(DMF)to discover truth data based on the trust mechanism for an Information Elicitation Without Verification(IEWV)problem in MCS.(2)This paper introduces a truth data discovery scheme for the first time that only needs to collect a part of n data samples to infer the data of the entire network with high accuracy,which saves more communication costs than most previous data collection schemes,where they collect n or kn data samples.Finally,we conducted extensive experiments to evaluate the UAV-ITD scheme.The results show that compared with previous schemes,our scheme can reduce estimated truth error by 52.25%–96.09%,increase the accuracy of workers’trust evaluation by 0.68–61.82 times,and save recruitment costs by 24.08%–54.15%in truth data discovery.

Information Conductivity:Universal Performance Measure for Semantic Communications

As a novel paradigm,semantic communication provides an effective solution for breaking through the future development dilemma of classical communication systems.However,it remains an unsolved problem of how to measure the information transmission capability for a given semantic communication method and subsequently compare it with the classical communication method.In this paper,we first present a review of the semantic communication system,including its system model and the two typical coding and transmission methods for its implementations.To address the unsolved issue of the information transmission capability measure for semantic communication methods,we propose a new universal performance measure called Information Conductivity.We provide the definition and the physical significance to state its effectiveness in representing the information transmission capabilities of the semantic communication systems and present elaborations including its measure methods,degrees of freedom,and progressive analysis.Experimental results in image transmission scenarios validate its practical applicability.

Secrecy Outage Probability Minimization in Wireless-Powered Communications Using an Improved Biogeography-Based Optimization-Inspired Recurrent Neural Network

This paper focuses on wireless-powered communication systems,which are increasingly relevant in the Internet of Things(IoT)due to their ability to extend the operational lifetime of devices with limited energy.The main contribution of the paper is a novel approach to minimize the secrecy outage probability(SOP)in these systems.Minimizing SOP is crucial for maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of data,especially in situations where the transmission of sensitive data is critical.Our proposed method harnesses the power of an improved biogeography-based optimization(IBBO)to effectively train a recurrent neural network(RNN).The proposed IBBO introduces an innovative migration model.The core advantage of IBBO lies in its adeptness at maintaining equilibrium between exploration and exploitation.This is accomplished by integrating tactics such as advancing towards a random habitat,adopting the crossover operator from genetic algorithms(GA),and utilizing the global best(Gbest)operator from particle swarm optimization(PSO)into the IBBO framework.The IBBO demonstrates its efficacy by enabling the RNN to optimize the system parameters,resulting in significant outage probability reduction.Through comprehensive simulations,we showcase the superiority of the IBBO-RNN over existing approaches,highlighting its capability to achieve remarkable gains in SOP minimization.This paper compares nine methods for predicting outage probability in wireless-powered communications.The IBBO-RNN achieved the highest accuracy rate of 98.92%,showing a significant performance improvement.In contrast,the standard RNN recorded lower accuracy rates of 91.27%.The IBBO-RNN maintains lower SOP values across the entire signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)spectrum tested,suggesting that the method is highly effective at optimizing system parameters for improved secrecy even at lower SNRs.

Improved IChOA-Based Reinforcement Learning for Secrecy Rate Optimization in Smart Grid Communications

In the evolving landscape of the smart grid(SG),the integration of non-organic multiple access(NOMA)technology has emerged as a pivotal strategy for enhancing spectral efficiency and energy management.However,the open nature of wireless channels in SG raises significant concerns regarding the confidentiality of critical control messages,especially when broadcasted from a neighborhood gateway(NG)to smart meters(SMs).This paper introduces a novel approach based on reinforcement learning(RL)to fortify the performance of secrecy.Motivated by the need for efficient and effective training of the fully connected layers in the RL network,we employ an improved chimp optimization algorithm(IChOA)to update the parameters of the RL.By integrating the IChOA into the training process,the RL agent is expected to learn more robust policies faster and with better convergence properties compared to standard optimization algorithms.This can lead to improved performance in complex SG environments,where the agent must make decisions that enhance the security and efficiency of the network.We compared the performance of our proposed method(IChOA-RL)with several state-of-the-art machine learning(ML)algorithms,including recurrent neural network(RNN),long short-term memory(LSTM),K-nearest neighbors(KNN),support vector machine(SVM),improved crow search algorithm(I-CSA),and grey wolf optimizer(GWO).Extensive simulations demonstrate the efficacy of our approach compared to the related works,showcasing significant improvements in secrecy capacity rates under various network conditions.The proposed IChOA-RL exhibits superior performance compared to other algorithms in various aspects,including the scalability of the NOMA communication system,accuracy,coefficient of determination(R2),root mean square error(RMSE),and convergence trend.For our dataset,the IChOA-RL architecture achieved coefficient of determination of 95.77%and accuracy of 97.41%in validation dataset.This was accompanied by the lowest RMSE(0.95),indicating very precise predictions with minimal error.