Radiomap Blind Prediction under Incomplete Observation: Error Characterization and Correctable Propagation-Prior Learning
Authors: Xiaojie Li, Yu Han, Han Fang, Shangqing Liu, Guangxu Zhu, Shi Jin, Chao-Kai Wen
Organizations: School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · State Key Laboratory of Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China · Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data, The Chinese University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen, Guangdong 518172, China · Institute of Communications Engineering, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan
Radiomap blind prediction aims to infer radiomaps from observable representations of the propagation environment and base station configuration without field measurements. In practice, the observable representations are inherently incomplete. Thus, the target radiomap is not fully determined by the inputs when generalizing to unseen configurations or environments. Under incomplete observation, we establish a population-level theory of deterministic radiomap blind prediction that identifies the conditional mean as its optimal target and separates prediction error into reducible predictor approximation and irreducible uncertainty caused by missing physical information. The framework further characterizes the train-test risk gap and the uncertainty reduction enabled by observation enrichment. Building on it, we reveal the dual role of propagation priors: they provide physically grounded guidance, yet their implementable forms may bias the attainable predictor. This motivates RadioDecomp, which treats a prior-guided predictor as a correctable base and learns its remaining predictable discrepancy through residual refinement. To evaluate RadioDecomp across distinct propagation-prior designs, we instantiate it with a feature-guided monolithic base and a LoS-Shadow structured base, yielding RadioFR and RadioLSR, respectively. Across random, cross-configuration, and cross-environment settings, experiments confirm the benefit of propagation-related representations and show that both instantiations improve upon their respective bases. Further controlled studies on base capacity, training-support coverage, and observation coarsening corroborate the proposed analysis.
Figures & tables
Stage
Specification
Encoder
DoubleConv (Cb) , then 3 × [MaxPool + DoubleConv]
Channels: 2Cb,4Cb,8Cb
Bottleneck
DoubleConv (8Cb)
Decoder
3 × [Up + skip concat + DoubleConv]
Channels: 4Cb,2Cb,Cb
Output
1×1 convolution with one output channel
TABLE I: Unified U-Net backbone used by the prediction branches.
Method
Random
Cross-config
Cross-env
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Vanilla
5.7382
5.9414
4.0935
5.7474
11.3364
8.7591
8.5897
11.6593
8.3522
BaseFR
3.4333
3.6075
2.1264
3.7145
6.4390
4.6388
6.1419
8.1933
4.7766
RadioFR
3.3841
3.5588
2.0856
3.0630
5.9706
4.2466
4.8478
7.8755
4.4046
BaseLSR
7.2615
7.2742
3.7781
7.2774
11.0581
8.2632
8.4982
10.0741
5.3493
RadioLSR
3.2009
3.4356
1.8905
3.0369
9.1946
7.1526
5.9953
8.0501
4.4138
TABLE II: Training RMSE and test RMSE/MAE (dB) under the 6/1/3 random, cross-config, and cross-env protocols.
Fig. 1: Qualitative comparison on representative cross-config and cross-env test samples, with radiomaps and error maps using common received-power and error scales, respectively, white regions denoting masked buildings, and per-sample RMSE and MAE reported below each error map.
Method
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Vanilla
14.9871
17.9310
13.6009
BaseFR
12.3616
15.6376
11.0481
BaseLSR
11.6288
20.8432
11.8843
RadioFR
11.2497
14.4285
10.4248
RadioLSR
7.9732
19.6369
9.3178
TABLE III: Prediction performance with only 10 training radiomaps under the random protocol.
Method
Params
Random
Cross-config
Cross-env
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
BaseFR-32
3.1295M
3.4333
3.6075
2.1264
3.7145
6.4390
4.6388
6.1419
8.1933
4.7766
BaseFR-48
7.0375M
2.9885
3.2183
1.9032
2.7451
5.5745
3.9754
4.6841
8.0554
4.4492
BaseFR-64
12.5075M
2.5282
2.8246
1.6136
2.5515
5.6783
4.0489
4.9321
7.9993
4.4656
BaseFR-96
28.1340M
2.5231
2.8096
1.6132
2.1523
5.7090
4.0976
4.1787
8.0248
4.2922
RadioFR-32
6.2594M
3.3841
3.5588
2.0856
3.0630
5.9706
4.2466
4.8478
7.8755
4.4046
TABLE IV: Residual correction across feature-guided base capacities under the three evaluation protocols, with all RadioFR residual branches using Cb=32 and bold indicating the lower error within each BaseFR-RadioFR pair.
Training Policy
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Test MAE
Both Covered
3.4032
4.6924
2.5305
Environment Only
3.1738
5.7332
3.8413
Configuration Only
3.0217
9.3269
4.4443
Neither Covered
3.0554
10.4874
6.1990
Both Covered (Full)
3.1288
4.4540
2.3567
TABLE V: Fixed-test performance of RadioLSR under different policies.
Beam Input
Height Input
Train RMSE
Test RMSE
Continuous
Complete
3.4488
3.6185
Continuous
10% missing
3.5844
3.7440
3 -dB mask
Complete
5.7382
5.9414
3 -dB mask
10% missing
5.7254
5.9323
TABLE VI: RMSE under different beam and height-map representations.
School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China · School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China +2
School of Physics, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071, China · State Key Laboratory of ISN and School of Telecommunications Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071, China
National Key Laboratory of Wireless Communications, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu 611731, China · University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu 611731, China · School of Science, Technology and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay Campus, Petrie, QLD 4502, Australia +1