This survey paper examines recent advancements in low-resolution signal processing, emphasizing quantized compressed sensing. Rising costs and power demands of high-sampling-rate data acquisition drive the interest in quantized signal processing, particularly in wireless communication systems and Internet of Things sensor networks, as 6G aims to integrate sensing and communication within cost-effective hardware. Motivated by this urgency, this paper covers novel signal processing algorithms designed to address practical challenges arising from quantization and modulo operations, as well as their impact on system performance. We begin by introducing the framework of one-bit compressed sensing and discuss relevant theories and algorithms. We explore the application of quantized compressed sensing algorithms to sensor networks, radar, cognitive radio, and wireless channel estimation. We highlight how generic methods can be tailored to an application using specific examples from wireless channel estimation. Additionally, we review other low-resolution techniques beyond one-bit compressed sensing along with their applications. We also provide a brief overview of the emerging concept of unlimited sampling. While this paper does not aim to be exhaustive, it selectively highlights results to inspire readers to appreciate the diverse algorithmic tools (convex optimization, greedy methods, and Bayesian approaches) and sampling techniques (task-based quantization and unlimited sampling).

The Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) is a classical problem in optimal control theory which deals with operating a linear dynamical system with optimized cost. In this work, we study the discrete-time LQR problem with sparsity constraints on the inputs. This problem has a combinatorial complexity. We develop a convex optimization-based approach to relax the problem into a semidefinite program which can be solved with polynomial complexity. We explore two cases for input sparsity: fixed temporal support and time-varying support. Moreover, we also solve the minimum-energy control problem with sparse inputs. Finally, using numerical simulations, we show that our algorithms give near-optimum performance with very good accuracy and time complexity.

Sparsity constraints on the control inputs of a linear dynamical system naturally arise in several practical applications such as networked control, computer vision, seismic signal processing, and cyber-physical systems. In this work, we consider the problem of jointly estimating the states and sparse inputs of such systems from low-dimensional (compressive) measurements. Due to the low-dimensional measurements, conventional Kalman filtering and smoothing algorithms fail to accurately estimate the states and inputs. We present a Bayesian approach that exploits the input sparsity to significantly improve estimation accuracy. Sparsity in the input estimates is promoted by using different prior distributions on the input. We investigate two main approaches: regularizer-based maximum a posteriori estimation and Bayesian learning-based estimation. We also extend the approaches to handle control inputs with common support and analyze the time and memory complexities of the presented algorithms. Finally, using numerical simulations, we show that our algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and time/memory complexities, especially in the low-dimensional measurement regime.

We consider the control of discrete-time linear dynamical systems using sparse inputs where we limit the number of active actuators at every time step. We develop an algorithm for determining a sparse actuator schedule that ensures the existence of a sparse control input sequence, following the schedule, that takes the system from any given initial state to any desired final state. Since such an actuator schedule is not unique, we look for a schedule that minimizes the energy of sparse inputs. For this, we optimize the trace of the inverse of the resulting controllability Gramian, which is an approximate measure of the average energy of the inputs. We present a greedy algorithm along with its theoretical guarantees. Finally, we empirically show that our greedy algorithm ensures the controllability of the linear system with a small number of active actuators per time step without a significant average energy expenditure compared to the fully actuated system.

We consider the problem of jointly estimating the states and sparse inputs of a linear dynamical system using noisy low-dimensional observations. We exploit the underlying sparsity in the inputs using fictitious sparsity-promoting Gaussian priors with unknown variances (as hyperparameters). We develop two Bayesian learning-based techniques to estimate states and inputs: sparse Bayesian learning and variational Bayesian inference. Through numerical simulations, we illustrate that our algorithms outperform the conventional Kalman filtering based algorithm and other state-of-the-art sparsity-driven algorithms, especially in the low-dimensional measurement regime.

The stabilizability of a linear dynamical system (LDS) refers to the existence of control inputs that drive the system state to zero. In this article, we analyze both the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of the stabilizability of an LDS using sparse control inputs with potentially time-varying supports. We show that an LDS is stabilizable using sparse control inputs if and only if it is stabilizable (using unconstrained inputs). For a stabilizable LDS, we present an algorithm to determine the sparse control inputs that steer the system state to zero. We show that all stabilizable LDSs are also sparse mean square stabilizable when the process noise has zero mean and bounded second moment. For such an LDS, we devise a method to sequentially estimate the sparse control inputs to stabilize the LDS in the mean square sense. We prove that a detectable and stabilizable LDS is sparse stabilizable through output feedback and develop an algorithm for finding the corresponding sparse control inputs. Finally, we analyze the stabilizability of an LDS using sparse control inputs with common support. Our results shed light on the conditions under which a given LDS is stabilizable using sparse control inputs and the design of the corresponding control inputs.

The emergence of compressive sensing and the associated ℓ₁ recovery algorithms and theory have generated considerable excitement and interest in their applications. This chapter will examine recent developments and a complementary set of tools based on a Bayesian framework to address the general problem of sparse signal recovery and the challenges associated with it. Bayesian methods offer superior performance compared to convex optimization-based methods and are parameter tuning-free. They also have the flexibility necessary to deal with a diverse range of measurement modalities and structured sparsity in signals than hitherto possible. Parsimonious signal representation using overcomplete dictionaries for compression, estimation of sparse communication channels with large delay spread as in underwater acoustics, low-dimensional representation of MIMO wireless channels, brain imaging techniques, such as MEG and EEG, are a few examples. We provide a mathematically rigorous and in-depth overview of this fascinating area within sparse signal recovery. We highlight the generality and flexibility of Bayesian approaches and show how it greatly facilitates their deployment in communications-related applications, even though they generally lead to nonconvex optimization problems. Further, we show that, by reinterpreting the Bayesian cost function as a technique to perform covariance matching, one can develop new, ultrafast Bayesian algorithms for sparse signal recovery. As an example application, we discuss the utility of these algorithms in the context of 5G communications with several case studies including wideband time-varying channel estimation and low-resolution analog-to-digital conversion-based signal recovery.