Integrated Communication and Computing in Time-Varying mmWave Channels

We propose a novel framework for integrated communication and computing (ICC) transceiver design in time-varying millimeter-wave (mmWave) channels. In particular, in order to cope with the dynamics of time-varying mmWave channels, the detection of communication symbols and the execution of an over-the-air computing (AirComp) operation are performed in parallel with channel tracking, as opposed to existing state-of-the-art (SotA) on ICC where perfect knowledge of the channel at all time instances is typically assumed. For clarity of exposition, we consider a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) uplink scenario where multiple single-antenna user equipment (UE) transmit to a base station (BS) equipped with multiple antennas, such that each UE, or edge device (ED), precodes its own transmit signal, while the BS, or access points (APs), also performs receive beamforming. The proposed transceiver framework then estimates channel state information (CSI) and data symbols in parallel, using a bilinear Gaussian belief propagation (BiGaBP) algorithm for joint channel and data detection (JCDE), aided by a channel prediction (CP) algorithm executed before each estimation window at the BS. The AirComp operation is then executed by means of an optimal combination of the residual signal. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in performing ICC in challenging time-varying mmWave channels, with minimal degradation to both communication and computing performance.