Transformer Network Based Channel Prediction for CSI Feedback Enhancement in AI-Native Air Interface

With the development of artificial intelligence (AI), wireless channel prediction based on deep learning (DL) has become a hot research issue. Channel prediction plays an important role in channel state information (CSI) feedback enhancement in AI-native air interface. To better predict the CSI, this paper investigates the Transformer network based channel prediction. Firstly, real channel data are obtained in Beijing-Tianjin railway line, and the channel prediction datasets are constructed through preprocessing. After formulating the channel prediction problem, a channel prediction model based on the Transformer network is newly proposed. The unique multi-head attention mechanism and position encoding of the Transformer network enable the proposed model to have more powerful parallel computation capability and better global information capture capability. Then, the hyper-parameters of the model are determined by autocorrelation analysis and cross-validation. Finally, the performance of the proposed model is evaluated in terms of prediction accuracy and space and time computational complexity using several evaluation metrics, and is compared with classical DL models. It is shown that the proposed model possesses higher prediction performance in the appropriate range of computational complexity.