Hybrid Near- and Far-Field Communications in Aerial STARS-Assisted SIM-Enabled Systems
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This letter presents a novel aerial simultaneous transmitting and reflecting surface (ASTARS)-assisted stacked intelligent metasurface (SIM) communication system operating in hybrid near- and far-field scenarios. The SIM enables low-latency wave-domain beamforming with reduced hardware complexity, while the ASTARS improves coverage and QoS through dynamic positioning and passive beamforming. A fairness-driven optimization problem is formulated to maximize the minimum user rate via joint optimization of ASTARS trajectory, SIM phase shifts, STARS beamforming, and base station (BS) power allocation. To address the resulting non-convex problem in dynamic environments, a generative diffusion model (GDM)-based meta twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (Meta-TD3) framework is proposed for fast adaptation to time-varying channels. Simulation results show notable performance gains in NF scenarios compared to conventional static terrestrial STARS, highlighting its potential for 6G networks.
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,645
OpenAlex ID: W7221687366