RESEARCH

Research Interests

My research interests include but not limited to:

• Channel coding theory and practice

• Multiple access communications

• Interference management

• Integrated sensing and communications

• Delay-Doppler domain communications

• Semantic communications

• Approximate message passing

Research Highlights

Heterogeneous services, e.g., eMBB and URLLC, exist in our communication systems. Each service has its own blocklength and error probability constraints. Allocating radio resources orthogonally for heterogeneous services to guarantee their mutual isolation is difficult since the numbers of devices and services are large and keep growing.

In this research, we design new transmission schemes based on practical channel coding and modulations for supporting these heterogeneous services effectively and simultaneously. The main feature is that, the encoding and decoding for each user are single-user based. To handle heterogeneous interference, the user with a longer symbol block can divide its block into sub-blocks, where the power and constellation associated with each sub-block can be different. Note that each receiver is restricted to perform low-complexity treating interference as noise (TIN) decoding since the decoding of URLLC services cannot leverage successive interference cancellation (SIC) due to stringent latency requirements. We derived the finite blocklength achievable rate of the proposed coexistence schemes under heterogeneous blocklength and error probability constraints. Our results have shown that the proposed scheme based on regular quadrature amplitude modulations (QAM) and TIN can operate very close to the benchmark schemes that assume capacity-achieving signalings and perfect SIC.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Downlink Transmission with Heterogeneous URLLC Services: Discrete Signaling With Single-User Decoding,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 41, no. 7, pp. 2261–2277, Jul. 2023.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Coexistence of Heterogeneous Services in the Uplink with Discrete Signaling and Treating Interference as Noise,” arXiv:2308.08883, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Dec. 2023, pp. 5311–5317.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Downlink Transmission under Heterogeneous Blocklength Constraints: Discrete Signaling with Single-User Decoding,” IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Jun. 2023, pp. 4621–4627.

In the current standards, a transport block (TB) is the fundamental payload passed between the MAC layer and PHY layers. It consists of several code blocks (CBs), where each CB contains data protected by an individual error correction code (ECC). Hence, the transmission reliability of a TB is determined by the error correction capability of individual ECC. However, using a very long block code to protect the whole TB is deemed impractical.

Motivated by the advantages of spatial coupling, we proposed partially information coupled turbo codes (PIC-TCs), where a fraction of the information bits are shared between consecutive CBs. Most importantly, the encoding and decoding of PIC-TCs can be performed in a streaming fashion while the encoding and decoding of each CB are LTE standard turbo encoding and decoding, respectively. Our analytical and numerical results have shown that PIC-TCs are capacity-approaching for a wide range of code rates. We then extended the idea to construct various codes such as partially parity coupled turbo codes and with other component codes, e.g., polar codes. Our latest design, generalized spatially-coupled parallel concatenated codes, have been rigorously proven to be capacity-achieving under sub-optimal BP decoding on the binary erasure channel by using the threshold saturation and potential function arguments. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first class of turbo-like codes that are proven to be capacity-achieving under sub-optimal decoding.

• Min Qiu, Xiaowei Wu, Jinhong Yuan, and Alexandre Graell i Amat, “Generalized Spatially Coupled Parallel Concatenated Codes With Partial Repetition,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 70, no. 9, pp. 5771–5787 , Sep. 2022.

• Xiaowei Wu, Min Qiu, and Jinhong Yuan, “Partially Information Coupled Bit-Interleaved Polar Coded Modulation,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 69, no. 10, pp. 6409–6423, Oct. 2021.

• Min Qiu, Xiaowei Wu, Alexandre Graell i Amat, and Jinhong Yuan, “Analysis and Design of Partially Information- and Partially Parity-Coupled Turbo Codes,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 69, no. 4, pp. 2107–2122, Apr. 2021.

• Min Qiu, Xiaowei Wu, Jinhong Yuan, and Alexandre Graell i Amat, “Generalized Spatially Coupled Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Codes With Partial Repetition,” Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Jul. 2021, pp. 581–586.

• Xiaowei Wu, Min Qiu, and Jinhong Yuan, “Partially Information Coupled Duo-Binary Turbo Codes,” Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Jun. 2020, pp. 461–466.

• Min Qiu, Xiaowei Wu, and Jinhong Yuan, “Density Evolution Analysis of Partially Information Coupled Turbo Codes on the Erasure Channel,” Proceedings of IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW), Aug. 2019, pp. 1–5.

NOMA has been extensively investigated in both academic research and industries. The idea of NOMA comes from the classical study on the scalar Gaussian broadcast channel for which superposition coding of Gaussian inputs and SIC are the key ingredients to achieve the whole capacity region. The advantages of NOMA over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) have been well understood. However, Gaussian inputs are difficult to realize in practice. Moreover, SIC can introduce extra decoding complexity and latency, and error propagation, which can become more pronounced when the number of users is large.

In this research, we pioneered a novel theoretical framework on lattice-partition based downlink multiuser transmission without SIC. The proposed framework utilizes the algebraic properties of lattices to harness structural multiuser interference. We have rigorously proven that the whole capacity region of the K-user Gaussian broadcast channel can be achieved to within a constant gap with any scheme under the proposed framework without SIC, where the gap is independent of all channel parameters. However, such performance is not achievable by using Gussian signaling without SIC . This implies that carefully designed discrete signaling, e.g., QAM, can outperform Gaussian signaling when being treated as noise. We generalized the proposed scheme to the K-user Gaussian broadcast channel with statistical channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter and the two-user Gaussian interference channel. The constant gap optimality of using practical discrete signaling without SIC has also been proven for these channels. 

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Discrete Signaling and Treating Interference as Noise for the Gaussian Interference Channel,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 67, no. 11, pp. 7253–7284, Nov. 2021.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Downlink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access without SIC for Block Fading Channels: An Algebraic Rotation Approach,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 3903–3918, Aug. 2019.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, Jinhong Yuan and Chin-Liang Wang, “Lattice-Partition-Based Downlink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access without SIC for Slow Fading Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 67, no. 2, pp. 1166–1181, Feb. 2019.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, Shin-Lin Shieh, and Jinhong Yuan, “A Lattice-Partition Framework of Downlink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access without SIC,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 2532–2546, Jun. 2018.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “On Discrete Signaling and Treating Interference as Noise for Complex Gaussian Interference Channels,” Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Jun. 2020, pp. 1546–1551.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Multiuser MISO Broadcast Channels with Imperfect CSI: Discrete Signaling without SIC,” Proceedings of IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Dec. 2019, pp. 1–6.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, and Jinhong Yuan, “Downlink NOMA without SIC for Fast Fading Channels: Lattice Partitions with Algebraic Rotations,” Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), May 2019, pp. 1–6.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, Jinhong Yuan and Chin-Liang Wang, “Downlink Lattice-Partition-Based Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access without SIC for Slow Fading Channels,” Proceedings of IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Dec. 2018, pp. 1–6.

• Min Qiu, Yu-Chih Huang, Shin-Lin Shieh, and Jinhong Yuan, “A Lattice-Partition Framework of Downlink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access without SIC,” Proceedings of IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Dec. 2017, pp. 1–6.

• to be updated...