Impact of Wireless Priors on the Computation and Energy Cost of MU-MIMO Precoding Learning
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摘要: 随着移动通信系统中天线阵列规模的持续增大,多用户多输入多输出(Multiuser Multi-Input Multi-Output, MU-MIMO)预编码在显著提高系统性能的同时,也带来了高计算复杂度与高能耗等挑战。本文针对MU-MIMO预编码策略学习问题,研究在神经网络结构设计中引入无线策略数学先验(简称“无线先验”)知识对深度学习计算和能耗的影响。为此,首先分析MU-MIMO预编码策略的多维联合置换等变性和不变性,在此基础上构建一种注意力图神经网络(Attention-based Graph Neural Network, AGNN);然后,基于3GPP标准信道数据集开展仿真与硬件实测,对AGNN与传统数值算法和Transformer模型进行比较。研究结果表明,AGNN在频谱效率、计算复杂度和推理能耗方面均优于仅满足一维置换等变性的Transformer模型,表明充分利用无线先验对高效学习的重要影响。同时,随着天线规模与带宽的扩大,传统数值算法的计算复杂度和能耗增长速度明显高于性能增益;而AGNN能够在提高系统性能的同时,显著降低推理时间与推理能耗,表明融入无线先验的学习方法是未来6G预编码优化的有效技术路径。Abstract:
Objective This paper studies the learning of downlink MU-MIMO (Multiuser Multi-Input Multi-Output) precoding policy from the perspective of computational complexity and energy consumption. Traditional numerical optimization achieves strong performance but incurs rapidly growing computational complexity with the number of base-station’s antennas and served users, leading to high inference latency and inference energy consumption. In recent years, deep learning has been widely used to reduce online computational cost, yet existing evaluations typically rely on training/inference time or FLOPs and lack direct energy/power measurements. More importantly, the computational cost of a deep model is tightly coupled with the network architecture, which should be designed to effectively exploit the prior knowledge of the precoding policy. The objective of this paper is thus to develop a network architecture that matches the multi-dimensional permutational properties of the policy, and to analyze how policy priors influence the complexity and energy through comprehensive hardware-based energy/power measurements and simulations. Methods We formulate the MU-MIMO precoding policy as a mapping from multi-user channel information to the optimal precoding matrix under a transmit power constraint. The optimal policy exhibits multi-dimensional joint permutation equivariance and invariance with respect to user indices, receive-antenna indices, and base-station antenna indices. To exploit this prior, we propose an Attention-based Graph Neural Network (AGNN) built on a hypergraph structure, whose update and aggregation procedures are designed to satisfy the required equivariance/invariance properties. An attention mechanism modeling inter-user interference is introduced to improve generalization to varying number of users. For broadband precoding, the input layer aggregates multi-subcarrier channel information into an expanded input representation. To quantify energy cost, we build a mixed CPU/GPU measurement framework that collects energy and power for GPU, CPU, and DRAM during training and inference. Simulations use 3GPP TR 38.901 UMa channel data with different antenna array sizes and bandwidth settings. We compare the proposed AGNN against numerical baselines (ZFBD+Greedy pairing) and two Transformer-based architectures, where only one-dimensional permutation properties are satisfied. Results and Discussions : The paper reveals two main findings. First, partial exploitation of policy priors leads to poor performance and high cost. In the MU-MISO scenario, the Transformer variants with one-dimensional permutation equivariance yield lower spectral efficiencies than the numerical baseline ZFBD+Greedy and much larger model sizes and inference FLOPs than AGNN. In contrast, AGNN, designed to match the multi-dimensional permutation properties, achieves higher spectral efficiency while reducing inference FLOPs by about one order of magnitude. Hardware measurements further show that AGNN reduces inference energy and power on both CPU and GPU. Second, in the MU-MIMO scenario with small- and large-scale settings, ZFBD+Greedy increases the system sum rate to 10.9 times, but raise inference FLOPs to 436.4 times, inference time to 20.8 times, and inference energy to 40.8 times. Conversely, AGNN increases the sum rate to 11.5 times while inference FLOPs rise to only 5.3 times; inference time and inference energy become dramatically smaller (0.03 times and 0.22 times, respectively). These results suggest that matching the precoding policy’s multi-dimensional permutation priors is an effective way to reduce the computational cost, including FLOPs, latency, and energy consumption, in large-scale 6G MU-MIMO systems. Conclusions This paper investigated how policy priors affect computational complexity and energy consumption in MU-MIMO precoding learning. By analyzing the multi-dimensional joint permutation equivariance/invariance properties of the optimal precoding policy, we designed an attention-based GNN (AGNN) that matches these properties. A hardware-aware measurement platform was built to obtain direct energy/power measurements for training and inference on CPU, GPU, and DRAM components. Simulations on 3GPP TR 38.901 channel datasets showed that Transformer architectures satisfying only one-dimensional permutation properties can lead to both inferior spectral efficiency and significantly higher computational/energy overhead. In contrast, AGNN achieves higher spectral efficiency while substantially reducing inference FLOPs, inference time, inference energy, and training complexity. As system size increases, traditional numerical methods incur rapidly growing energy costs relative to rate gains, whereas the proposed policy-prior learning method maintains low inference time and energy consumption. Overall, exploiting the prior knowledge of MU-MIMO precoding policy for network architecture design is a key enabler for energy- and complexity-efficient high-dimensional precoding optimization in future 6G networks. -
Key words:
- 6G /
- Precoding /
- Policy priors /
- Graph neural networks /
- Computational energy consumption
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表 1 测试平台硬件设置
硬件组件 型号名称 × 数量 存储容量 TGP 或TDP 闲置功耗 GPU NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D GPU×1 24 GB (显存) 425 W 6.76 W CPU Intel Xeon Gold 5515 + CPU×1— 165 W 34.11 W DRAM Samsung DDR5 R-ECC 32 GB 内存×2
SK Hynix DDR5 R-ECC 32 GB 内存×2128 GB 30.5 W 5.31 W 注:全文各表中“—”表示该指标不适用。 表 2 GPU、CPU和DRAM能耗测试流程
1) 测试准备阶段 正式测量前终止所有非必需后台进程,独立启动两个命令行终端,分别运行NVSMI和Intel PCM,采样间隔100ms并保持连续采样。工具
开启后,服务器空闲运行10 分钟,使各硬件组件进入稳定的空闲水平(GPU和CPU均进入深度休眠)。此阶段数据不参与后续能耗计算。2) 测量服务器闲置功耗 服务器继续保持空闲状态运行10分钟。该阶段内由NVSMI与Intel PCM采集的数据用于计算GPU、CPU和DRAM 的闲置功耗,计算结果
为10分钟内平均值。3) 测量算法运行的能耗与功耗 启动PyCharm等待加载完毕,运行目标程序。为确保测量期间CPU和GPU稳定,先对所有样本执行一轮预热推理(数据不参与最终统
计)。程序记录算法起止时间戳,以划定功耗/能耗采样数据的统计区间。不同类型算法的测量方式如下:● 传统数值算法:先把所有测试数据加载至DRAM,再记录预编码计算过程的起止时间戳。 ● AI算法:先把数据加载至DRAM并构建网络模型;若在GPU上进行计算,则需再把数据和模型参数从DRAM迁移至显存。之后记录时
间戳,具体方式如下:–训练阶段:记录模型整个训练周期的起止时间戳; –推理阶段:测试样本需逐个输入网络,记录完成所有测试样本推理的起止时间戳。 表 3 不同场景下各神经网络的超参数
系统配置 $ N=32, 带宽51\mathrm{RB} $ $ N=128, 带宽273\mathrm{RB} $ MIMO技术 MU-MISO MU-MIMO MU-MIMO 学习算法 Transformer适配一/二 AGNN MDGNN AGNN AGNN 网络规模 2*[ 2560 ]5*[32] 5*[32] 4*[32] 6*[16] 批大小 256 256 256 64 64 学习率 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.001 0.001 注1:网络规模m*[n]表示隐藏层数为m,隐藏表示数为n。
注2:表中各模型超参数均基于不同场景下的实际训练收敛性能调优确定。1 计算第$ k $个用户的子带等效信道
输入:第$ k $个用户在子带内$ C $个子载波上的信道矩阵$ {\mathbf{H}}_{k,c} $。 输出:第$ k $个用户的子带等效信道$ {\widetilde{\mathbf{H}}}_{k} $。 1. 计算子带信道相关矩阵
$ {\mathbf{R}}_{k}=1/C\displaystyle\sum \nolimits_{c=1}^{C}\mathbf{H}_{k,c}^{\text{H}}{\mathbf{H}}_{k,c}\in {\mathbb{C}}^{{{N}_{\text{T}}}\times {{N}_{\text{T}}}} $;2. 对$ {\mathbf{R}}_{k} $进行特征分解$ {\mathbf{R}}_{k}={\mathbf{U}}_{k}{\mathbf{\Sigma }}_{k}\mathbf{U}_{k}^{\text{H}} $,得到特征值和特征
向量;3. 从$ {\mathbf{\Sigma }}_{k} $中选取最大的$ {N}_{\text{R}} $个特征值$ {\sigma }_{i} $及对应的特征向量; 4. 计算等效信道矩阵$ {\widetilde{\mathbf{H}}}_{k}={\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\sqrt{{\sigma }_{1}}{\mathbf{u}}_{1} & \cdots & \sqrt{{\sigma }_{{{N}_{\text{R}}}}}{\mathbf{u}}_{{{N}_{\text{R}}}}\end{array}\right]}^{\text{H}} $ 表 4 小规模MU-MISO场景下的频谱效率、训练和推理复杂度比较
预编码算法 ZFBD+Greedy Transformer适配一 Transformer适配二 AGNN MDGNN 频谱效率(bps/Hz) 24.6 17.0 18.2 25.8 17.6 推理FLOPs 6.7×108 7.5×109 5.6×109 1.3×107 2.6×106 CPU推理时间 (ms) 320 21.3 14.5 4.02 2.61 GPU推理时间 (ms) — 2.07 2.45 5.22 3.94 训练时间 (s) — 2,715 1,186 970 839 模型参数量 — 1.1×108 7.0×107 2.5×104 1.5×104 表 5 小规模MU-MISO场景下训练与推理阶段的能耗与功耗比较
预编码
算法硬件
组件训练阶段 推理阶段(CPU) 推理阶段(GPU) 能耗 (J) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) ZFBD+
GreedyCPU — — 1.2×104 36.4 — — DRAM — — 1,750 5.46 — — 合计 — — 1.3×104 41.9 — — Transformer适配一 GPU 9.1×105 334 — — 537 259 CPU 1.2×105 44.5 2,715 127 151 73.1 DRAM 1.6×104 5.93 222 10.4 11.8 5.71 合计 1.0×106 384 2,937 138 700 338 Transformer适配二 GPU 4.0×105 333 — — 520 212 CPU 5.5×104 46.8 1,830 126 186 75.7 DRAM 6,975 5.88 141 9.79 14.3 5.84 合计 4.6×105 386 1,972 136 719 294 MDGNN GPU 4.4×104 51.9 — — 83.2 21.1 CPU 6.0×104 71.9 233 89.4 271.4 68.8 DRAM 4,920 5.86 14.6 5.60 22.2 5.63 合计 1.1×105 130 247.8 95.0 377 95.6 AGNN GPU 1.1×105 109 — — 130 24.8 CPU 7.0×104 72.1 373 92.9 345 66.0 DRAM 5,618 5.79 22.2 5.53 29.0 5.56 合计 1.8×105 187 395 98.4 503 96.4 表 6 MU-MIMO场景下的频谱效率、训练和推理复杂度比较
系统规模 $ N=32, 带宽51\mathrm{RB} $ $ N=128, 带宽273\mathrm{RB} $ 预编码算法 ZFBD+Greedy ZFBD+Greedy AGNN 频谱效率 (bps/Hz) 53.9 118 124 和速率 (Gbps) 1.08 11.8 12.4 推理FLOPs 9.9×107 7.9×109 1.9×108 CPU推理时间 (ms) 444 9,431 124 GPU推理时间 (ms) — — 15.1 训练时间 (s) — — 3,331 模型参数量 — — 1.1×104 表 7 MU-MIMO场景下训练与推理阶段的能耗与功耗比较
预编码
算法硬件
组件训练阶段 推理阶段(CPU) 推理阶段(GPU) 能耗 (J) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) 小规模ZFBD+Greedy CPU — — 2.2×104 49.9 — — DRAM — — 2,408 5.43 — — 合计 — — 2.5×104 55.4 — — 大规模ZFBD+Greedy CPU — — 8.9×105 94.9 — — DRAM — — 5.3×104 5.64 — — 合计 — — 9.5×105 101 — — 大规模
AGNNGPU 9.0×105 271 — — 3,795 251 CPU 2.3×105 68.8 1.5×104 117 1,060 70.2 DRAM 2.1×104 6.22 1,871 15.1 95.8 6.35 合计 1.2×106 346 1.6×104 132 4,950 328 表 8 大规模场景下各算法相对于小规模场景ZFBD+Greedy的对比
预编码算法 ZFBD+Greedy AGNN 和速率 10.9倍 11.5倍 推理FLOPs 79.0倍 1.89倍 推理时间 21.3倍 0.03倍 推理能耗 38.6倍 0.20倍 表 9 非理想信道下MU-MIMO场景的频谱效率、训练和推理复杂度比较
系统规模 $ N=32, 带宽51\mathrm{RB} $ $ N=128, 带宽273\mathrm{RB} $ 预编码算法 ZFBD+Greedy ZFBD+Greedy AGNN 频谱效率 (bps/Hz) 44.6 81.6 90.9 和速率 (Gbps) 0.892 8.16 9.09 推理FLOPs 9.9×107 7.9×109 2.8×108 CPU推理时间 (ms) 444 9,431 260 GPU推理时间 (ms) — — 15.1 训练时间 (s) — — 31.75 模型参数量 — — 3.6×105 表 10 非理想信道下MU-MIMO场景训练与推理阶段的能耗与功耗比较
预编码
算法硬件
组件训练阶段 推理阶段(CPU) 推理阶段(GPU) 能耗 (J) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) 能耗 (mJ) 功耗 (W) 小规模ZFBD+Greedy CPU — — 2.2×104 49.9 — — DRAM — — 2,408 5.43 — — 合计 — — 2.5×104 55.4 — — 大规模ZFBD+Greedy CPU — — 8.9×105 94.9 — — DRAM — — 5.3×104 5.64 — — 合计 — — 9.5×105 101 — — 大规模
AGNNGPU 6.0×105 264 — — 7,625 240 CPU 2.0×105 66.8 3.0×104 113 2,125 68.4 DRAM 1.5×104 6.48 4120 16.1 215.5 6.79 合计 1.2×106 338 3.4×104 129 9,966 315 表 11 非理想信道下大规模场景各算法相对于小规模场景ZFBD+Greedy的对比
预编码算法 ZFBD+Greedy AGNN 和速率 9.1倍 10.2倍 推理FLOPs 79.0倍 2.83倍 推理时间 21.3倍 0.03倍 推理能耗 38.6倍 0.40倍 -
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