A CNN-LSTM-Based Fusion Separation Deep Neural Network for 6G Ultra-Massive MIMO Hybrid Beamforming

In the sixth-generation (6G) cellular networks, hybrid beamforming would be a real-time optimization problem that is becoming progressively more challenging. Although numerical computation-based iterative methods such as the minimal mean square error (MMSE) and the alternative manifold optimization (Alt-Min) can already attain near-optimal performance, their computational cost renders them unsuitable for real-time applications. However, recent studies have demonstrated that machine learning techniques like deep neural networks (DNN) can learn the mapping done by those algorithms between channel state information (CSI) and near-optimal resource allocation and then approximate this mapping in near real-time. In light of this, we investigate various DNN architectures for beamforming challenges in the terahertz (THz) band for ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO) and explore their contextual mathematical modelling. Specifically, we design a sophisticated 1D convolutional neural network and long short-term memory (1D CNN-LSTM) based fusion-separation scheme, which can approach the performance of the Alt-Min algorithm in terms of spectral efficiency (SE) for fully connected structures and, at the same time, use significantly less computational effort. Simulation results indicate that the proposed system can attain almost the same level of SE as that of the numerical iterative algorithms while incurring a substantial reduction in computational cost. Our DNN-based approach also exhibits exceptional adaptability to diverse network setups and high scalability. Although the current model only addresses the fully connected hybrid architecture, our approach can also be expanded to address a variety of other beamforming topologies.

Automated summary

In this study, we investigate the use of deep neural networks (DNN) to tackle complex beamforming challenges in the sixth-generation (6G) cellular networks. By designing a sophisticated 1D CNN-LSTM fusion-separation scheme, we achieve beamforming performance comparable to the Alt-Min algorithm while significantly reducing computational cost.