Abstract:
In recent years, the pinching antenna system (PASS) have emerged as a promising flexible-antenna technology for 6G, with its first prototype showcased by NTT DOCOMO at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona in 2021. As a novel antenna architecture, PASS introduces an additional degree of reconfigurability and spatial adaptability, marking a significant step beyond existing flexible-antenna solutions. PASS leverages dielectric waveguides with low propagation loss as the transmission medium, where pinching antennas (PAs), implemented as small dielectric particles attached along the waveguide, act as radiating elements. By intelligently activating PAs at desired positions, PASS realizes pinching beamforming, a new paradigm that jointly mitigates path loss and optimizes the phase of transmitted signals.
In contrast to existing flexible-antenna technologies that primarily augment conventional multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), PASS offers distinctive advantages in practicality, scalability, and efficiency. It enables “last-meter” communication by dynamically establishing stable line-of-sight (LoS) conditions in high-frequency bands, supports modular and cost-efficient deployment through its “plug-and-play” structure, and enhances both spectral and energy efficiency via the joint design of baseband and pinching beamforming. Beyond traditional cellular systems, PASS is envisioned to support a wide spectrum of wireless applications, including WiFi, unmanned systems, and localization/sensing networks, thereby advancing the vision of 6G and beyond. Nevertheless, extensive research efforts in beamforming design, large-scale prototyping, and integration with emerging 6G enablers are required to fully unleash the potential of PASS.
This workshop focuses on attracting novel and solid contributions on the emerging topic of PASS for future wireless communications. Both theoretical and more applied contributions are solicited, covering, but not necessarily limited to, the following topics:
- Fundamental limits of PASS-based communications
- Channel measurement for PASS Modelling
- Channel estimation for PASS
- Beamforming design under practical/complicated constraints
- Flexible pinching power allocation for PASS
- Next generation multiple access (NGMA) design for PASS
- PASS for non-terrestrial and satellite communications
- PASS for vehicular-to-everything (V2X) communications
- Physical layer security for PASS
- Machine learning/edge intelligence for PASS
- PASS enabled integrated sensing and communications (ISAC)
- PASS enabled wireless power transfer (WPT)
- PASS enabled mmWave/THz communications
- PASS enabled sensing/localization
- PASS enabled mobile edge computing (MEC)
- Hardware implementation challenges of PASS
Organizers:
- Jingjing Zhao, Beihang University, China
- Xidong Mu, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
- Zhaolin Wang, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Chongjun Ouyang, Queen Mary University of London, UK