Analog versus digital pulse amplitude modulation for goal-oriented wireless communications

Goal-Oriented communications are an emerging paradigm for wireless edge intelligence applications. Within this framework, this paper compares analog versus digital modulations for over-the-air classification tasks, under optimal resource management policies that trade energy consumption, delay, and accuracy. The resource allocation problem is formulated using Lyapunov stochastic optimization, and is solved in an online fashion with limited complexity. Simulation results illustrate superior performance of analog designs when the task arrival process pushes digital communications closer to channel capacity.