This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2020.2982151, IEEE
Communications Letters
Integration of Energy, Computation and
Communication in 6G Cellular Internet of Things
Qiao Qi, Xiaoming Chen, Caijun Zhong, and Zhaoyang Zhang
Abstract—To jointly address the critical issues of the sixth-
generation (6G) cellular internet of things (IoT), i.e., energy
supply, data aggregation, and information transmission, we
design a framework integrating energy, computation and commu-
nication (ECC). Firstly, the base station (BS) charges massive IoT
devices simultaneously via wireless power transfer (WPT) in the
downlink. Then, IoT devices with the harvested energy carry out
the computation task and the communication task in the uplink
over the same spectrum. To improve the overall performance of
ECC, we propose a joint beamforming design algorithm for the
BS and the IoT devices. Finally, simulation results validate the
effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in 6G cellular IoT.
Index Terms—6G, cellular IoT, integrating ECC, beamforming.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Driven by high demands in various applications, internet of
things (IoT) is developing at an unprecedented pace [1]. A new
forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts
that by 2025, there will be 41.6 billion connected IoT devices,
generating 79.4 zettabytes of data [2]. Hence, it is necessary to
design the sixth-generation (6G) cellular IoT network to meet
the higher demands and expectations, such as wider coverage,
higher capacities, and ubiquitous connectivity, etc.
In order to support real-time processing of mass data from
terminal devices, 6G cellular IoT has to provide accurate com-
putation and efficient communication for a massive number of
devices, which are considered as two elementary tasks of 6G
cellular IoT. However, it is not trivial to carry out the two tasks
with limited wireless resources. For computation, the conven-
tional way of transmit-then-compute is not suitable for massive
data aggregation in 6G cellular IoT, due to the ultra-high
latency and the low spectrum efficiency. To tackle this issue, a
promising solution called over-the-air computation (AirComp)
has been proposed in [3], c.f. Fig. 1, which can directly
compute the target functions involving a summation structure
over wireless multiple-access channels (MACs). Specifically,
AirComp decomposes the structure of the targeted function,
and then utilizes the superposition property of wireless MACs
to obtain the sum result of pre-processing data by concurrent
transmission. Finally, the targeted function result can be ob-
tained by post-processing the received signal at the base station
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China under Grant 61871344, 61725104 and 61922071, the Zhejiang
Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant LR20F010002,
the National Science and Technology Major Project of China under Grant
2018ZX03001017-002, and the National Key R&D Program of China under
Grant 2018YFB1801104. (Corresponding author: Xiaoming Chen).
Qiao Qi, Xiaoming Chen (chen_xiaoming@zju.edu.cn), Caijun
Zhong and Zhaoyang Zhang are with the College of Information Science
and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
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(BS). Especially in 6G cellular IoT, AirComp can combine
with multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) techniques to
spatially multiplex multi-function computation and to decrease
the computation errors by using spatial beamforming [4], [5].
On the other hand, for communication, traditional orthog-
onal multiple access (OMA) schemes cannot support massive
access due to limited radio spectrum. In this case, non-
orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is applied into cellular
IoT to realize seamless access of a massive number of de-
vices [6]. However, massive NOMA incurs severe co-channel
interference degrading the quality of communication signals
[7]. To this end, spatial beamforming is usually exploited
to combat co-channel interference as well as to improve the
system performance [8], [9]. In particular, since the BS of 6G
cellular IoT will be equipped with a large-scale antenna array,
there are ultra-high spatial degrees of freedom to mitigate co-
channel interference [10].
In order to realize accurate computation and efficient com-
munication simultaneously, IoT devices should have enough
energy. However, energy supply for massive IoT is not a trivial
task. Due to the high human cost and the environmental strain,
frequent battery replacement for massive IoT is prohibitive.
Hence, it is appealing to adopt the wireless power transfer
(WPT) technique to realize one-to-many charging by exploit-
ing the open nature of the wireless broadcast channel [11]. To
improve the efficiency of WPT over fading channels, energy
beamforming has been introduced in [12].
In fact, energy supply, data aggregation, and information
transmission are not separated. They compete the same wire-
less resources for performance enhancement. To improve the
overall performance with limited wireless resources, this letter
designs a framework integrating energy, computation, and
communication (ECC) for 6G cellular IoT. The contributions
of this letter are two-fold:
1) We put forward a comprehensive design framework for
the integration of ECC, including energy supply by
WPT in the downlink, and computation by AirComp
and communication by NOMA in the uplink.
2) We analyze the impacts of transmit and receive beam-
forming on the system performance, and propose an
algorithm to minimize the computation distortion while
ensuring the communication quality via power allocation
and beamforming design.
The rest of this letter is organized as follows: Section II
gives a concise introduction of a 6G cellular IoT network
integrating ECC. Section III focuses on the algorithm design
to improve the overall performance. Section IV presents sim-
ulation results to validate the effectiveness of the proposed
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2020.2982151, IEEE
Communications Letters

namely computation and communication. In particular, the

signals from the IoT devices have two functions, one for
data aggregation based on multiple devices’ signals, and the
other for information transmission based on individual device’s
signal. Thus, the former signal is called as computation signal,
and the latter signal is defined as communication signal. As
shown in Fig. 3, each IoT UE first performs beamforming on
Fig. 1. Comparison of conventional computation and AirComp. the computation signals and the communication signals to be
transmitted respectively, then superimposes the two kinds of
signals in the baseband processing unit, and finally sends the
algorithm. Finally, Section V concludes this letter. superposition coded signal to the BS over the uplink channel
Notations: We use bold upper (lower) letters to denote with the same radio frequency (RF) front end. On the one
matrices (column vectors), (·)H to denote conjugate transpose, hand, enabled by AirComp, the BS obtains the computation
∥·∥F to denote Frobenius norm of a matrix, ∥·∥ to denote L2 - result directly via concurrent data transmission, and then
norm of a vector, E{·} to denote expectation, tr(·) to denote utilizes a computation receiver to recover the targeted function
trace of a matrix, Rank(·) to denote rank of a matrix, Cm×n signal. On the other hand, the BS decodes the communication
to denote the set of m-by-n dimensional complex matrix. signals of each UE through communication receivers.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL

瀃瀂瀊濸瀅澳濵濸濴濶瀂瀁
澶濇
濶瀂瀀瀀瀈瀁濼濶濴瀇濼瀂瀁澳瀅濸濶濸濼瀉濸瀅瀆
濶瀂瀀瀃瀈瀇濴瀇濼瀂瀁澳瀅濸濶濸濼瀉濸瀅

濧
濗瀂瀊瀁濿濼瀁濾 濨瀃濿濼瀁濾
濘瀁濸瀅濺瀌澳瀆瀈瀃瀃濿瀌 濗濴瀇濴澳瀇瀅濴瀁瀆瀀濼瀆瀆濼瀂瀁 瀖
濧濂濅 濧濂濅

濶瀂瀀瀀瀈瀁濼濶濴瀇濼瀂瀁澳瀆濼濺瀁濴濿瀆
濶瀂瀀
濶瀂瀀瀃瀈瀇濴瀇濼瀂瀁澳瀆濼濺瀁濴濿瀆
Fig. 3. The system block diagram of uplink signal transmission for the
proposed model.
澽濣濈澔濘濙濪濝濗濙濧

Without loss of generality, it is assumed that the kth UE

records data of L heterogeneous parameters to be computed
and J heterogeneous parameters to be communicated, which
T
Fig. 2. A framework of 6G cellular IoT network integrating ECC. generate a computation symbol vector dk = [dk,1 , · · · , dk,L ]
′
[ ′ ′
] T
and a communication symbol vector sk = sk,1 , · · · , sk,J ,
Let us consider a sustainable 6G cellular IoT network as ′
shown in Fig. 2, where a BS equipped with N antennas where dk,l and sk,j are the measured values of the lth
communicates with K multi-modal IoT user equipments (UEs) computation parameter and the jth communication parameter
equipped with M antennas each. It is operated in time division at the kth UE, respectively. Note that for computation, the BS
duplex (TDD) mode. During the first half of a time slot, the engages itself in computing lth targeted function via AirComp
BS acts as a power beacon to charge IoT UEs by energy as below
beamforming. The harvested energy at the kth UE can be (K )
∑
expressed as ql = fl gk,l (dk,l ) , l = 1, ..., L, (2)
T 2
Ek = ϑk HH k f , (1) k=1
2
where ql is the ideal computation output, gk,l (·) and fl (·)
where Hk ∈ CN ×M denotes the MIMO channel matrix from represent the pre-processing function at the kth IoT UEs
the kth UE to the BS, which remains constant in a time slot, and the post-processing function at the BS, respectively (see
but independently fades over time slots. T denotes the duration Tab. I for examples). Let sk = [gk,1 (dk,1 ) , . . . , gk,L (dk,L )]
T
of a time slot, ϑk denotes the energy conversion efficiency, and denote the pre-processed computation signal at the kth UE.
f ∈ CN ×1 denotes the energy beam transmitted by the BS. For ease of analysis and without loss of generality, we assume
TABLE I the computation signals and the communication { signals } are
S OME EXAMPLES OF TARGETED FUNCTIONS Gaussian distributed
{ ′ ′ } with unit norm, i.e., E s k s H
k = I
Functions Pre-processing Post-processing Targeted function and E sk,j sk,jH
= 1. Thus, the kth UE constructs the
∑K
Arithmetic Mean gk = d k f = 1/K q = 1 k=1 dk
Weighted Sum gk = η k d k f = 1 q =
K
∑ K ηk dk
superposition coded transmit signal xk as follows
(∏ k=1 )1/K
K
Geometric Mean gk = ln(dk )
β
f = exp(·) q =
∑K
k=1 dk
βk
∑
J
′
gk = η k d k
Polynomial
k
f = 1
√
q = k=1 ϑk dk
√ ∑K x k = W k sk + vk,j sk,j , (3)
Euclidean Norm gk = d 2k f = (·) q = d2
k=1 k
j=1

In the second half of the time slot, IoT UEs conduct two where Wk ∈ CM ×L and vk,j ∈ CM ×1 denote the transmit
fundamental task with the harvested energy in the uplink, beams for the computation signal and the communication

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Communications Letters

signal, respectively. Note that the transmit power of each IoT As seen from (8) and (10), the system performance depends
UE comes from the harvested energy in the downlink, namely on the transmit beams Wk and vk,j at the IoT UEs, and
receive beams Z and uk,j at the BS. Moreover, the transmit
2
∑
J
2 Ek
∥Wk ∥F + ∥vk,j ∥ ≤ , ∀k, j. (4) power of IoT UEs depends on the energy beam sent by the
j=1
T /2 BS. Thus, it makes sense to jointly design transmit and receive
beamforming of ECC for enhancing the overall performance
Therefore, the received signal at the BS is given by
of 6G cellular IoT.
∑
K
y = Hk xk + n III. D ESIGN OF 6G C ELLULAR I OT I NTEGRATING ECC
k=1
In this section, we design an algorithm to realize an ef-
∑K ∑
K ∑
J
′ fective integration of ECC in 6G cellular IoT. Although the
= Hk Wk sk + Hk vk,j sk,j +n, (5)
communication signal and the computation signal are sent
k=1 k=1 j=1
| {z } | {z } over the same RF carrier, they have different performance
computation signal communication signal metrics. For communication, each IoT UE’s communication
where n is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) vector signal should be separated from the mixed signal at the BS.
with the variance σn2 . Firstly, we discuss the processing of the Thus, the communication signal should have a high received
computation signals. Due to the one-to-one mapping between quality, namely SINR. For computation, multiple IoT UEs’
∑
K signals are fused at the BS. Thus, the computation result
s = sk and q = [q1 , q2 , ..., qL ]T in (2), we take an
k=1
should have a low MSE. In general, the integration of ECC is a
accurate s at the BS as the targeted function signal. To multiple-objective optimization problem. Here, we formulate it
minimize the distortion of the targeted function signal caused as the minimization of MSE for computation while satisfying
by channel fading, interference, and noise, it is desired to the SINR requirement of communication with the harvested
perform receive beamforming at the BS. Thus, the received energy:
signal for computation at the BS is given by
  min MSE (Wk , vk,j , Z) (11a)
Wk ,vk,j ,
∑K ∑K ∑J
′ f ,uk,j ,Z
ŝ = ZH Hk Wk sk + ZH  Hk vk,j sk,j + n ,
s.t. Γk,j ≥ γk,j , (11b)
k=1 k=1 j=1
(6) 2
∑ J
2 2
∥Wk ∥F + ∥vk,j ∥ ≤ ϑk HH
k f , (11c)
where Z ∈ CN ×L is a receive beam for computation results
j=1
at the BS. As a rule, the distortion of AirComp at the BS is 2
measured by the mean square error (MSE) between s and ŝ, ∥f ∥ ≤ Pmax , (11d)
which is defined as where γk,j is the required minimum SINR of the jth com-
{ ( )}
H munication signal at the kth UE, and Pmax is the maximum
MSE (ŝ, s) =E tr (ŝ − s) (ŝ − s) . (7)
transmit power budget at the BS for the energy beam. Since
Substituting (6) into (7), the computation distortion can be problem (11) is non-convex with the existence of the coupled
expressed as the following MSE function of receive and variables, it is quite difficult to obtain the optimal solution
transmit beams: in polynomial time. To this end, we adopt an alternating
∑K
2 2
optimization (AO) algorithm to find a sub-optimal solution
MSE (Z, Wk , vk,j ) = ZH Hk Wk − I F + σn2 ∥Z∥F by dividing the original problem into two subproblems, one
k=1 for the optimization of receive beams, and the other for
∑K ∑J
2 the optimization of transmit beams. The AO algorithm can
+ ZH Hk vk,j . (8) approach a stationary point in the iterations, which is the
k=1 j=1 sub-optimal solution of the original problem. Now, we first
Secondly, we discuss the processing of the communication consider the subproblem for the optimization of receive beams,
signals. The received signal for communication at the BS can i.e., {Z, uk,j }. To balance computational complexity and sys-
be expressed as tem performance, we employ the minimum mean square error
(MMSE) receivers, which are given by
∑
K ∑
J
′
yk,j = uH H′ ′
( )−1 K
k,j Hk vk,j sk,j + uk,j Hi vi,m si,m ∑K ∑
2 H
i=1,i̸=k m=1,m̸=j Z = σn I + Hk Ξk Hk Hk Wk , (12)
∑
K k=1 k=1
+ uH Hi Wi si + uH
k,j n, (9) and
k,j
( )−1
i=1 ∑
K

where uk,j ∈ CN ×1 denotes the receive beamforming vector uk,j = σn2 I + Hk Ξk HH

k Hk vk,j , (13)
′
k=1
for the communication signal sk,j at the BS. As a consequence,
the received signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at ∑
J
respectively, where Ξk = Wk WkH + H
vk,j vk,j . Next,
the communication receiver can be expressed as (10) at the j=1
top of the next page. we deal with the other subproblem for the optimization of

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Communications Letters

2
uH
k,j Hk vk,j
Γk,j = . (10)
∑
K ∑
J 2 ∑
K 2
2
uH
k,j Hi vi,m + uH
k,j Hi Wi + σn2 ∥uk,j ∥
i=1,i̸=k m=1,m̸=j i=1

transmit beams {Wk vk,j , f } with the given MMSE receivers Hence, we can recover the unique transmit communication
∗
{Z, uk,j } in (12) and (13). To address the non-convexity of beams vk,j and energy beam f ∗ of the original problem (11)
H
constraints (11b) and (11c), we introduce Vk,j = vk,j vk,j and via eigenvalue decomposition (EVD). By alternately optimiz-
H ing the two subproblems, we develop an iterative algorithm
F = ff . Thus, the SINR constraint (11b) can be transformed
as which always converges to a stationary point as the objective
value decreases in the iterations. In summary, the design of 6G
1 ( H ) ∑K
2
uk,j Hk Vk,j HH u
k k,j ≥ uH
k,j Hi Wi + cellular IoT integrating ECC for minimizing the computation
γk,j i=1 error can be described as Algorithm 1.
∑
K ∑
J
( H ) 2
i uk,j + σn ∥uk,j ∥ .(14)
uk,j Hi Vi,m HH 2
Algorithm 1 : Design of 6G Cellular IoT integrating ECC for
i=1,i̸=k m=1,m̸=j the Computation Error Minimization.
2,γ
Accordingly, the power constraints of transmit beams (11c) Input: N, K, M, L, J, σn k,j , Pmax , ∀k, j
Output: Wk , vk,j , Z, uk,j , f , ∀k, j
and (11d) can be rewritten as 1: Initialize W
k
(0)
,v
(0)
k,j
∀k, j, iteration index t = 1;
2:
∑
repeat

2
J
( ) 3: compute Z(t) by (12) with W
(t−1)
and v
(t−1)
;
∥Wk ∥F + tr (Vk,j ) ≤ ϑk tr HH
k FHk , (15) 4: compute u
(t)
by (13) with W
k
(t−1)
and v
k,j
(t−1)
;
k,j k k,j
j=1 (t) (t) (t)
5: obtain {W ,V , F(t) } by solving problem (17) via CVX with {Z(t) , u };
k k,j k,j
(t)
6: obtain v and f (t) via EVD;
and k,j
7: update t = t + 1;
tr (F) ≤ Pmax , (16) 8: until convergence

respectively. Then, the subproblem can be reformulated as the

following semi-definite programming (SDP) problem: Complexity analysis: It is seen from Algorithm 1 that
the main computational complexity comes from step 5, i.e.,
∑
K
2 solving problem (17). Since problem (17) only contains
min ZH Hk Wk − I F
Wk ,Vk,j ,F linear matrix inequality (LMI) and second-order cone (SOC)
k=1
constraints, it can be solved by a standard interior-point
∑K ∑
J
( )
+ tr ZH Hk Vk,j HH method (IPM) [14]. Specifically, there are 2 LMI constraints
k Z (17a)
k=1 j=1
of size N , KJ LMI constraints of size M , and K(J + 1)
s.t. (14), (15), (16), SOC constraints of size M . Thus, for a given precision
ε > 0, the per-iteration
√ complexity of solving problem
Vk,j ≽ 0, ∀k, j, (17b) (17)
[ 3 by IPM is (2( + M ) ) + K) · ln (1/ε) · n ·]
KJ + 2 (N
F ≽ 0, (17c) 2N + KJM 3 + n 2N 2 + KJM 2 + (J + 1) KM 2 + n2 ,
hhhh where the decision variable n is on the order of O(KM 2 ).
rank(Vk,jh
)= hh1, ∀k, j, (17d)
hhhh
rank(F) =h
h 1. (17e)
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
Since problem (17) dropping rank-one constraints (17d) and
(17e) is a convex problem, it can be effectively solved by
TABLE II
some optimization tools, such as CVX [13]. For the obtained S IMULATION PARAMETERS
∗
solution {Vk,j , F∗ } to problem (17), we have the following
theorem. Parameters
Number of BS antennas
Values
N = 64
∗
Theorem 1: The optimal solution {Vk,j , F∗ } of
( problem
)
IoT UEs
Energy conversion efficiency
K = 32, M = 2, L = 1, J = 1
ϑk = ϑ0 = 0.5
∗ Cell radius R = 500 m
(17) always satisfies rank-one constraints Rank Vk,j = Minimum required SINR threshold γk,j = γ0 = 0.1 dB
∗
1, ∀k, j and rank(F ) = 1. Noise power σn2 = −50 dBm

Proof: Due to the space limitation, we give a brief proof

thought here. First, we construct the lagrangian function of
problem (17). Then, we reveal the structure of the optimal
∗
solution {Vk,j , F∗ } by exploiting the Slaters condition and the
Karush-Kuhn-Tucher (KKT) conditions. Finally, according to
the listed KKT conditions, we deduce the rank-one relationship
by some rank inequalities. The detailed derivation process can
be referred to [9].
In this section, we provide several simulation results to
validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Without
loss of generality, it is assumed that all IoT UEs are ran-
domly distributed in a cell with a radius R. The pass loss
is modeled as PLdB = 128.1 + 37.6 log10 (d) [15], where
d (km) is the distance between the BS and the IoT UE.
For ease of analysis, we take the normalized computation
error MSE/K as the AirComp performance metric, and use

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Communications Letters

10-3
5
0.07 0.15

SNR=0 dB 4.5
SNR=10 dB

Normalized Computation Error

0.06
SNR=20 dB 0.12 4

Normalized Computation Error

Normalized Computation Error
N=48
3.5 N=64
0.05
N=80
0.09 3
0.04
ZFBF 2.5
0.03 Fixed-MMSE
0.06 UFBF 2
Algorithm 1
0.02 1.5
0.03
1
0.01

0.5
0 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 15 17.5 20 Required Minimum SINR (dB)
0
Iteration index SNR (dB)

Fig. 5. Convergence behavior of the proposed Fig. 6. Normalized computation error versus S- Fig. 7. Normalized computation error versus
Algorithm 1. required minimum SINR (dB) for different num-
NR (dB) for four beamforming design schemes.
bers of BS antennas.

SNR = 10 log10 (Pmax /σn2 ) to denote the transmit signal- the computation error while ensuring the SINR requirements
to-noise ratio (SNR) (in dB). Unless otherwise stated, the of communication signals. It was revealed that the proposed
simulation parameters are set in Table II. algorithm was able to effectively integrate ECC and achieved
First, we present the convergence behaviors of the proposed the best performance over baseline algorithms.
Algorithm 1 with different SNRs in Fig. 5. It is found
that Algorithm 1 has a quick convergence at higher SNR, R EFERENCES
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