CMT-Aware Channel Modeling and Transmit-Power Minimization for Pinching-Antenna Systems

Abstract

This letter investigates transmit-power minimization for multiuser pinching-antenna system (PAS) from a coupled-mode-theory (CMT)-aware perspective. Existing CMT-based pinching antenna (PA) studies reveal coupling-induced power exchange and radiation behavior, but these effects have not been fully embedded into system-level multi-PA channel modeling and beamforming design. We therefore develop a directional and loss-aware channel model that captures coupling-length-dependent power extraction and the downstream guided-power reduction caused by in-waveguide attenuation and upstream extraction. The model shows that PA design should account for both directional radiation and guided-power evolution, rather than only propagation distance or maximum coupling considered in most existing works. Based on this channel model, we formulate a quality-of-service (QoS)-constrained power minimization problem for continuous PA positioning and finite-codebook activation. For each candidate coupling length, the element-wise positioning and BPSO-based activation use a closed-form zero-forcing (ZF) power metric for low-complexity configuration ranking, thereby avoiding repeated beamforming optimization while excluding rank-deficient candidates and ordering the remaining ones. The selected configuration for each coupling length is then evaluated by optimal fixed-configuration QoS beamforming. Simulation results demonstrate that CMT-aware modeling fundamentally reshapes the preferred PA configuration, maximum coupling is not always power-efficient due to suppressed downstream PA contributions, and finite-codebook activation combined with ZF-based ranking provides a balance between transmit-power performance and deployment complexity.