Learning and inference for wireless communications applications using in-memory analog computing

Abstract

The exponential growth of wireless communication technologies has created a crucial need for more efficient and intelligent signal processing in decentralized devices and systems. Traditional digital computing architectures increasingly struggle to meet these rising computational demands, leading to performance bottlenecks and energy inefficiencies. The problem becomes more significant on edge devices with limited computing capabilities and severe energy limitations. Integrating machine learning algorithms with in-memory analog computing, specifically memristor-based architectures, provides a non-traditional computing paradigm and can potentially enhance the energy efficiency of edge devices. By leveraging the properties of memristors, which can perform both storage and computation, this research investigates ways to potentially reduce latency and power consumption in signal-processing tasks for wireless communications. This study examines memristor-based analog computing for deep learning and inference in three areas of (wireless) communications: cellular network traffic prediction, multi-sensor over-the-air inference for internet-of-things devices, and neural successive cancellation decoding for polar codes. The research includes the development of robust training techniques for memristive neural networks to cater for degraded performance due to noise in analog computations and offer acceptable prediction accuracy with reduced computational overhead for network traffic management. It explores in-memory computing for an Lp-norm inspired sensor fusion method with analog sensors and enables more efficient multi-sensor data fusion. Also, it investigates the incorporation of analog memristive computing in neural successive cancellation decoders for polar codes, which could lead to more energy-efficient decoding algorithms. The findings of the thesis suggest potential improvements in energy efficiency and provide insights into the benefits and limitations of using in-memory computing for wireless communication applications.