Pinching-Antenna System (PASS)-enabled Multicast Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a PASS-enabled multicast communication framework that uses a novel flexible-antenna system with adjustable pinching antennas to enhance short-distance line-of-sight transmission, optimizing PA positions for improved performance.

Contribution

It proposes a new PASS-based multicast system and develops a particle swarm optimization algorithm to maximize multicast performance by optimizing antenna positions.

Findings

PASS significantly outperforms conventional multiple-antenna systems

The optimization algorithm effectively enhances multicast coverage

PASS enables flexible and efficient short-range communication

Abstract

Pinching-antenna system (PASS) is a novel flexible-antenna technology, which employs long-spread waveguides to convey signals with negligible path loss and pinching antennas (PAs) with adjustable positions to radiate signals from the waveguide into the free space. Therefore, short-distance and strong line-of-sight transmission can be established. In this paper, a novel PASS-enabled multicast communication framework is proposed, where multiple PAs on a single waveguide radiate the broadcast signals to multiple users. The multicast performance maximization problem is formulated to optimize the positions of all PAs. To address this non-convex problem, a particle swarm optimization-based algorithm is developed. Numerical results show that PASS can significantly outperform the conventional multiple-antenna transmission.