NEFT: A Unified Transformer Framework for Efficient Near-Field CSI Feedback in XL-MIMO Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Mao, Tianqi, Li, Haiyang, Tan, Shufeng, Wang, Pengyu, Liu, Guangyao, Liu, Ruiqi, Zhang, Leyi, Hua, Meng, Zheng, Dezhi, Wang, Zhaocheng, Chen, Sheng
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Mao, Tianqi
Li, Haiyang
Tan, Shufeng
Wang, Pengyu
Liu, Guangyao
Liu, Ruiqi
Zhang, Leyi
Hua, Meng
Zheng, Dezhi
Wang, Zhaocheng
Chen, Sheng
author_facet Mao, Tianqi
Li, Haiyang
Tan, Shufeng
Wang, Pengyu
Liu, Guangyao
Liu, Ruiqi
Zhang, Leyi
Hua, Meng
Zheng, Dezhi
Wang, Zhaocheng
Chen, Sheng
contents Extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) systems, operating in the near-field region due to their massive antenna arrays, are key enablers of next-generation wireless communications but face significant challenges in channel state information (CSI) feedback. Deep learning has emerged as a powerful tool by learning compact channel features for feedback. However, existing methods struggle to capture the intricate structure of near-field CSI and incur prohibitive computational overhead on practical mobile devices. To overcome these limitations, we propose the near-field efficient feedback Transformer (NEFT) family for accurate near-field CSI feedback with reduced overhead under diverse hardware constraints. NEFT builds on a hierarchical vision Transformer backbone with progressive token reduction and multi-scale feature extraction, enabling compact and effective modeling of near-field channel characteristics. Furthermore, NEFT is extended with lightweight variants: NEFT-Compact applies multi-level knowledge distillation (KD) to reduce model complexity while preserving accuracy; NEFT-Hybrid adopts an attention-free CNN encoder to reduce encoder-side computation; and NEFT-Edge combines NEFT-Hybrid with KD to enable deployment on highly resource-constrained edge devices. Extensive simulations show that NEFT achieves a 15--21dB improvement in normalized mean-squared error over state-of-the-art methods, NEFT-Compact and NEFT-Edge reduce total FLOPs by 25-36% with negligible accuracy loss, while NEFT-Hybrid reduces encoder-side complexity by up to 64%, enabling deployment in highly asymmetric device scenarios. These results establish NEFT as a practical and scalable solution for near-field CSI feedback in XL-MIMO systems.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_12748
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle NEFT: A Unified Transformer Framework for Efficient Near-Field CSI Feedback in XL-MIMO Systems
Mao, Tianqi
Li, Haiyang
Tan, Shufeng
Wang, Pengyu
Liu, Guangyao
Liu, Ruiqi
Zhang, Leyi
Hua, Meng
Zheng, Dezhi
Wang, Zhaocheng
Chen, Sheng
Signal Processing
Extremely large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (XL-MIMO) systems, operating in the near-field region due to their massive antenna arrays, are key enablers of next-generation wireless communications but face significant challenges in channel state information (CSI) feedback. Deep learning has emerged as a powerful tool by learning compact channel features for feedback. However, existing methods struggle to capture the intricate structure of near-field CSI and incur prohibitive computational overhead on practical mobile devices. To overcome these limitations, we propose the near-field efficient feedback Transformer (NEFT) family for accurate near-field CSI feedback with reduced overhead under diverse hardware constraints. NEFT builds on a hierarchical vision Transformer backbone with progressive token reduction and multi-scale feature extraction, enabling compact and effective modeling of near-field channel characteristics. Furthermore, NEFT is extended with lightweight variants: NEFT-Compact applies multi-level knowledge distillation (KD) to reduce model complexity while preserving accuracy; NEFT-Hybrid adopts an attention-free CNN encoder to reduce encoder-side computation; and NEFT-Edge combines NEFT-Hybrid with KD to enable deployment on highly resource-constrained edge devices. Extensive simulations show that NEFT achieves a 15--21dB improvement in normalized mean-squared error over state-of-the-art methods, NEFT-Compact and NEFT-Edge reduce total FLOPs by 25-36% with negligible accuracy loss, while NEFT-Hybrid reduces encoder-side complexity by up to 64%, enabling deployment in highly asymmetric device scenarios. These results establish NEFT as a practical and scalable solution for near-field CSI feedback in XL-MIMO systems.
title NEFT: A Unified Transformer Framework for Efficient Near-Field CSI Feedback in XL-MIMO Systems
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12748