Geometry-Based Channel Estimation, Prediction, and Fusion

Abstract: Reciprocity-based beamforming-most commonly employed in time-division duplexing-uses noisy, estimated (i.e., measured) channel state information (CSI) acquired on the uplink. While computationally efficient, reciprocity-based beamforming suffers severe losses under (i) low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and (ii) user mobility because it ignores the underlying physics of the radio channel beyond its reciprocity. Based on a physics-driven geometry-based channel model, we propose a method that jointly infers the mobile user's position and environment map on the uplink. It then leverages the estimated user position and environment map to predict CSI on the downlink. We demonstrate significant efficiency gains under both (i) low SNR and (ii) user mobility on measured data. While the user position may allow efficient beamforming in strong line-of-sight (LoS) channels, inferring an environment map allows bypassing obstructed LoS conditions using non-LoS beamforming via multipath components. We further propose "channel fusion," a probabilistic (Bayesian) combination of estimated and predicted CSI, which increases the beamforming robustness, particularly when either source of CSI is unreliable. Notably, this approach shares similarities with the minimum mean square error (MMSE) channel estimator, with geometry-based prior parameters inferred from the data.