The paper surveys wireless foundation models (WFMs), highlighting their role in learning reusable representations from large-scale wireless data for physical-layer tasks. It systematically reviews WFM design components—pretraining, backbone architectures, and downstream adaptation—and categorizes the literature into five task families: signal recognition and demodulation, channel representation learning, RF sensing and localization, beam management, and spectrum sensing and monitoring, including multi-task models. The analysis reveals that while WFMs show promise, evidence of transferability varies across tasks and evaluation settings, and differences in datasets, modalities, architectures, and distribution shifts hinder clear conclusions about effective design choices.
By Alonso M. Pacheco Huachaca, Juan J. Rodriguez Rodriguez, Ahmed Aboulfotouh, Nelson L. S. da Fonseca, Carlos A. Astudillo, Hatem Abou-Zeid
arXiv:2608. 14591v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and wireless communications is widely regarded as a core objective of sixth-generation (6G) systems.
By Shugong Xu, Jun Jiang, Yuan Gao
arXiv:2606.10277v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Mobile systems increasingly rely on heterogeneous learning-enabled wireless functions, for which separate taskspecific models incur redundant train...
By Yuxuan Shi, Tingting Yang, Li Sun, Liwen Jing, Kangning Ma, Yuwei Wang, Mengfan Zheng
arXiv:2605.00020v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: The success of large foundation models is catalyzing a new paradigm for AI-native 6G network design: wireless foundation models for physical-...
By Kejia Bian, Meixia Tao, Jianhua Mo, Zhiyong Chen, Leyan Chen
arXiv:2512. 04966v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Accurate channel state information (CSI) underpins reliable and efficient wireless communication.
By Guangming Liang, Mingjie Yang, Dongzhu Liu, Paul Henderson, Lajos Hanzo
arXiv:2608. 05076v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Recent advances in machine learning have enabled training of wireless foundation models, which aim to support tasks such as channel estimation, beam prediction, and localization based on wireless signals.
By Blessed Guda, Kayley Sze, Carlee Joe-Wong
arXiv:2607. 22637v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Deep learning has shown strong potential for massive multiple-input multiple-output (Massive MIMO) physical-layer tasks, including channel state information (CSI) feedback and channel estimation.
By Xudong Zou, Siyu Wu, Zunlei Feng, Jie Song, Yuanyu Wan, Mingli Song, Jiacong Hu
arXiv:2606. 10277v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Though wireless foundation models (WFMs) have shown strong potential in learning universal channel representations, their adaptation to various downstream tasks remains constrained by existing paradigms.
By Yuxuan Shi, Tingting Yang, Kangning Ma, Liwen Jing, Yuwei Wang, Mengfan Zheng, Li Sun
arXiv:2607. 16877v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The increasing complexity of next-generation wireless networks has driven the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into wireless communications.
By Yangjing Wang, Ouya Wang, Shenglong Zhou, Geoffrey Ye Li
WiNeRF is a neural field framework that learns a spatially continuous, complex-valued wireless channel representation from sparse channel state information collected by commodity WiFi devices. It incorporates system constraints such as antenna geometry, limited spatial resolution, and phase uncertainty through a 3D conical wave sampling model, a multi-resolution implicit scene representation, and a differentiable optimization framework. In diverse indoor environments with non‑line‑of‑sight regions, WiNeRF achieves a median prediction SNR of 5.3 dB, outperforming prior neural baselines by 4.9 dB on average, and produces a task‑agnostic channel representation that can be reused in standard signal‑processing pipelines without hardware or protocol changes.
By Saif Ur Rahman, Rafid Umayer Murshed, Anton Dmitriev, Cagri Tanriover, Rahul C. Shah, Elah\'e Soltanaghai
arXiv:2607. 11970v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We develop an enhanced in-context learning (ICL) framework to improve the performance of pilot-based beamforming in multi-user multiple-input single-output (MU-MISO) systems.
By Yubo Zhang, Xiaodong Wang
arXiv:2607. 09798v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Sixth-generation (6G) networks are moving toward AI-native operation, where learning modules are embedded across the radio access network (RAN), edge, and core.
By Sheikh Salman Hassan, Irshad A. Meer, Almoatssimbillah Saifaldawla, Yan Kyaw Tun, Mustafa Ozger, Madyan Alsenwi, Nguyen Van Huynh, Woong-Hee Lee, Cedomir Stefanovic, Mathini Sellathurai, Henk Wymeersch, Tharmalingam Ratnarajah