Modern analytical instrumentation is capable of creating enormous and complex volumes of data. Analysis of large data volumes are complicated by lengthy analysis time and high computational demand. Incorporating real-time analysis methods that are computationally efficient are desirable for modern analytical methods to be fully utilized. The use of modern instrumentation in on-line pharmaceutical process validation, remote sensing, and astrobiology applications requires real-time analysis methods that are computationally efficient. Integrated sensing and processing (ISP) is a method for minimizing the data burden and sensing time of a system. ISP is accomplished through implementation of chemometric calculations in the physics of the spectroscopic sensor itself. In ISP, the measurements collected at the detector are weighted to directly correlate to the sample properties of interest. This method is especially useful for large and complex data sets. In this research, ISP is applied to acoustic resonance spectroscopy, near-infrared hyperspectral imaging and a novel solid state spectral imager. In each application ISP produced a clear advantage over the traditional sensing method. The limitations of ISP must be addressed before it can become widely used. ISP is essentially a pattern recognition algorithm. Problems arise in pattern recognition when the pattern-recognition algorithm encounters a sample unlike any in the original calibration set. This is termed the false sample problem. To address the false sample problem the Bootstrap Error-Adjusted Single-Sample Technique (BEST, a nonparametric classification technique) was investigated. The BEST-ISP method utilizes a hashtable of normalized BEST points along an asymmetric probability density contour to estimate the BEST multidimensional standard deviation of a sample. The on-line application of the BEST method requires significantly less computation than the full algorithm allowing it to be utilized in real time as sample data is obtained. This research tests the hypothesis that a BEST-ISP metric can be used to detect false samples with sensitivity > 90% and specificity > 90% on categorical data.

Many areas of science now generate huge volumes of data that present visualization, modeling, and interpretation challenges. Methods for effectively representing the original data in a reduced coordinate space are therefore receiving much attention. The purpose of this research is to test the hypothesis that molecular computing of vectors for transformation matrices enables spectra to be represented in any arbitrary coordinate system. New coordinate systems are selected to reduce the dimensionality of the spectral hyperspace and simplify the mechanical/electrical/computational construction of a spectrometer. A novel integrated sensing and processing system, termed Molecular Factor Computing (MFC) based near infrared (NIR) spectrometer, is proposed in this dissertation. In an MFC -based NIR spectrometer, spectral features are encoded by the transmission spectrum of MFC filters which effectively compute the calibration function or the discriminant functions by weighing the signals received from a broad wavelength band. Compared with the conventional spectrometers, the novel NIR analyzer proposed in this work is orders of magnitude faster and more rugged than traditional spectroscopy instruments without sacrificing the accuracy that makes it an ideal analytical tool for process analysis. Two different MFC filter-generating algorithms are developed and tested for searching a near-infrared spectral library to select molecular filters for MFC-based spectroscopy. One using genetic algorithms coupled with predictive modeling methods to select MFC filters from a spectral library for quantitative prediction is firstly described. The second filter-generating algorithm designed to select MFC filters for qualitative classification purpose is then presented. The concept of molecular factor computing (MFC)-based predictive spectroscopy is demonstrated with quantitative analysis of ethanol-in-water mixtures in a MFC-based prototype instrument.

The growing adoption of millimeter wave (mmWave) turns efficient beamforming and beam management procedures into key enablers for 5th Generation (5G) and Beyond 5G (B5G) mobile networks. Recent research has sought to optimize beam management in modern Radio Access Network (RAN) architectures, where open, virtualized, disaggregated and multi-vendor environments are considered, and management platforms allow the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)-based solutions. Moreover, beam management represents some fundamental use cases defined by Open RAN Alliance (O-RAN). This work analyses beam management strategies in Open RAN and proposes solutions for codebook-based mmWave systems inspired by two use cases from O-RAN: the Grid of Beams (GoB) Optimization and the AI/ML-assisted Beam Selection. For the GoB Optimization use case, a scenario subject to constraints on the use of the full GoB due to overhead during beam selection is considered. An Advantage Actor Critic (A2C) learning-based framework is proposed to optimize the GoB, as well as the transmission power in a mmWave network. The proposed technique improves Energy Efficiency (EE) and ensures fair coverage is maintained. The simulations show that A2C-based joint optimization of GoB and transmission power is more effective than using Equally Spaced Beams (ESB) and fixed power, or the optimization of GoB and transmission power disjointly. Compared to the ESB and fixed transmission power strategy, the proposed approach achieves more than twice the average EE in the scenarios under test, and it is closer to the maximum theoretical EE. In the case of the AI/ML-assisted Beam Selection use case, the overhead during beam selection is addressed by a multi-modal sensing-aided ML-based method. When using sensing information sources external to the RAN in a multi-vendor disaggregated environment, such methods must account for privacy and data ownership issues. A Distributed Machine Learning (DML) strategy based on Split Learning (SL) is proposed to this end. The solution can cope with deployment challenges in novel RAN architectures and is applied to single and multi-level beam selection decisions, where the latter considers hierarchical codebook structures. With the proposed approach, accuracy levels above 90% can be achieved, while overhead decreases by 85% or more. SL achieves performance comparable to the centralized learning-based strategies, with the added value of accounting for privacy and data ownership issues.

In the sixth generation of wireless communication systems (6G), there exist multiple candidate enabling technologies that help the wireless network satisfy the ever-increasing demand for speed, coverage, reliability, and mobility. Among these technologies, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) extend the coverage of a wireless network into dead zones, increase capacity, and facilitate integrated sensing and communications tasks by consuming very low power, thus contributing to energy efficiency as well. RISs are meta-material-based devices whose electromagnetic reflection characteristics can be controlled externally to cater to the needs of the communication links. Most ubiquitously, this comes in the form of adding a desired phase shift to an incident wave before reflecting it, which can be used to phase-align multiple incident waves to increase the strength of the signal at the receiver and provide coverage to an area that otherwise would be a dead zone. While this portrays an image of a dream technology that would boost the existing wireless networks significantly, RISs do not come without engineering problems. First of all, the individual elements do not exhibit ideal reflection characteristics, that is, they attenuate the incident signal in a fashion depending on the configured phase shift. This creates the phenomenon called "phase-dependent amplitude". Another problem caused by RISs is the channel estimation overhead. In a multiple-antenna communication system, the channel between two terminals is as complex as the product of the number of antennas at each end. However, when an RIS comes into the equation, the cascade of the transmitter-RIS and RIS-receiver channels has a complexity further multiplied by the number of RIS elements. Consequently, the channel estimation process to utilize the RIS effectively becomes more demanding, that is, more pilot signals are required to estimate the channel for coherent reception. This adversely affects the effective data rate within a communication system since more resources need to be spent for pilot transmission and fewer resources can be allocated for data transmission. While there exists some work on reducing the channel dimensions by exploiting the channel structure, this problem persists for unstructured channels. In addition, for the wireless networks using multiple RISs, a new kind of pilot contamination arises, which is the main topic of this thesis. In the first part of this thesis, we study this new kind of pilot contamination in a multi-operator context, where two operators provide services to their respective served users and share a single site. Each operator has a single dedicated RIS and they use disjoint frequency bands, but each RIS inadvertently reflects the transmitted uplink signals of the user equipment devices in multiple bands. Consequently, the concurrent reflection of pilot signals during the channel estimation phase introduces a new inter-operator pilot contamination effect. We investigate the implications of this effect in systems with either deterministic or correlated Rayleigh fading channels, specifically focusing on its impact on channel estimation quality, signal equalization, and channel capacity. The numerical results demonstrate the substantial degradation in system performance caused by this phenomenon and highlight the pressing need to address inter-operator pilot contamination in multi-operator RIS deployments. To combat the negative effect of this new type of pilot contamination, we propose to use orthogonal RIS configurations during uplink pilot transmission, which can mitigate or eliminate the negative effect of inter-operator pilot contamination at the expense of some inter-operator information exchange and orchestration. In the second part of this thesis, we consider a single-operator-two-RIS integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system where the single user is both a communication terminal and a positioning target. Based on the uplink positioning pilots, the base station aims to estimate both the communication channel and the user's position within the indoor environment by estimating the angle of arrival (AoA) of the impinging signals on both RISs and then exploiting the system and array geometries to estimate the user position and user channels respectively. Although there is a single operator, due to the presence of multiple RISs, pilot contamination occurs through the same physical means as multi-operator pilot contamination unless the channel estimation process is parameterized. Since the communication links are considered to be pure line-of-sight (LOS), their structure allows the reduction of the number of unknown parameters. Consequently, the reduction of information caused by pilot contamination does not affect the channel estimation procedure, hence the pilot contamination is overcome. On the other hand, the position of the user is determined by intersecting the lines drawn along the AoA estimates. We adopt the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB), the lower bound on the mean squared error (MSE) of any unbiased estimator, for both channel estimation and positioning. Our numerical results show that it is possible to utilize positioning pilots for parametric channel estimation when the wireless links are LOS. / <p>QC 20240416</p>

Future mobile networks are anticipated to not only enhance communication performance but also facilitate new sensing-based applications. This highlights the essential role of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) in sixth-generation (6G) and beyond mobile networks. The seamless integration of sensing and communication poses challenges in deployment and resource allocation. Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks, characterized by multiple distributed access points, offer a promising infrastructure for ISAC implementation. However, the effective realization of ISAC necessitates joint design and resource allocation optimization. In this thesis, we study ISAC within cell-free massive MIMO systems, with a particular emphasis on developing power allocation algorithms under various scenarios. In this thesis, we explore two scenarios: utilizing existing communication signals and incorporating additional sensing signals. We propose power allocation algorithms aiming to maximize the sensing performance while meeting communication and power constraints. In addition, we develop two maximum a posteriori ratio test (MAPRT) target detectors under clutter-free and cluttered scenarios. Results indicate that employing additional sensing signals enhances sensing performance, particularly in scenarios where the target has low reflectivity. Moreover, although the clutter-aware detector requires more advanced processing, it leads to better sensing performance. Furthermore, we introduced sensing spectral efficiency (SE) to measure the effect of resource block utilization, highlighting the integration advantages of ISAC over orthogonal resource sharing approaches.  In the next part of the thesis, we study the energy efficiency aspects of ISAC in cell-free massive MIMO systems with ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) users. We propose a power allocation algorithm aiming to maximize energy efficiency of the system while meeting communication and sensing requirements. We conduct a comparative analysis between the proposed power allocation algorithms and a URLLC-only approach which takes into account only URLLC and power requirements. The results reveal that while the URLLC-only algorithm excels in energy efficiency, it is not able to support sensing requirements.   Moreover, we study the impact of ISAC on end-to-end (including radio and processing) energy consumption. Particularly, we present giga-operations per second (GOPS) analysis for both communication and sensing tasks. Two optimization problems are formulated and solved to minimize transmission and end-to-end energy through blocklength and power optimization. Results indicate that while end-to-end energy minimization offers substantial energy savings, its efficacy diminishes with sensing integration due to processing energy requirements. / Framtida mobila nätverk förväntas inte bara förbättra kommunikations-prestanda utan även mögliggöra nya applikationer baserade på sensorer. Dettaunderstryker den avgörande rollen för Integrerad avkänning och kommunika-tion (ISAC) i sjätte generationens (6G) och efterföljande mobila nätverk. Densömlösa integrationen av sensorer och kommunikation medför utmaningar iutrullning och resursallokering. Cellfria massiva flerantennsystem (MIMO-nätverk), kännetecknade av flera distribuerade åtkomstpunkter, erbjuder enlovande infrastruktur för implementering av ISAC. Dock kräver den effektivarealiseringen av ISAC samverkande design och optimering av resursallokering.I denna avhandling studerar vi ISAC inom cellfria massiva MIMO-system,med särskild tonvikt på att utveckla effektallokeringsalgoritmer under olikascenarier.Vi utforskar två scenarier: att utnyttja befintliga kommunikationssignaleroch att inkludera ytterligare sensorssignaler. Vi föreslår effektallokeringsalgo-ritmer med målet att maximera sensorsprestandan samtidigt som kommunika-tions och effektbegränsningar uppfylls. Dessutom utvecklar vi två detektorerbaserade på maximum a posteriori ratio test (MAPRT) under störningsfriaoch störda scenarier. Resultaten visar att användning av ytterligare sensors-signaler förbättrar sensorsprestandan, särskilt i scenarier där målet har lågreflektivitet. Dessutom, även om den störkänsliga detektorn kräver mer avan-cerad bearbetning, leder den till bättre sensorsprestanda. Vidare introducerarvi sensorerspektral effektivitet (SE) för att mäta effekten av resursblocksan-vändning och framhäva integrationsfördelarna med ISAC över ortogonala re-sursdelningsmetoder.I den andra delen av avhandlingen studerar vi energieffektivitetsaspek-terna av ISAC i cellfria massiva MIMO-system med användare med ultra-tillförlitlig låg-latens (URLLC) kommunikation. Vi föreslår en effektalloke-ringsalgoritm med syfte att maximera systemets energieffektivitet samtidigtsom kommunikations- och sensorskraven uppfylls. Vi utför en jämförande ana-lys mellan de föreslagna effektallokeringsalgoritmerna och ett URLLC-ensamttillvägagångssätt som tar hänsyn enbart till URLLC- och effektkrav. Resul-taten avslöjar att medan URLLC-ensamma algoritmen utmärker sig i energi-effektivitet, kan den inte stödja sensorskraven. Dessutom studerar vi effektenav ISAC på slut till slut (inklusive radios och bearbetning) energiförbruk-ning. Särskilt presenterar vi giga-operationer per sekund (GOPS) analys förbåde kommunikations- och sensorsuppgifter. Två optimeringsproblem formu-leras och löses för att minimera överförings- och slut till slut energi genomblocklängd- och effektoptimering. Resultaten indikerar att medan slut till slutenergiminimering erbjuder betydande energibesparingar, minskar dess effek-tivitet med sensorintegrationen på grund av bearbetningsenergikrav. / <p>QC 20240513</p>