{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,25]],"date-time":"2026-03-25T15:55:06Z","timestamp":1774454106949,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":22,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,25]],"date-time":"2026-03-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1774396800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Pinching-antenna systems (PASSs) offer a low-complexity and reconfigurable solution for near-field downlink communications by deploying multiple radiating elements along a single waveguide. Existing studies mainly assume simplified propagation conditions or focus on spectral efficiency, while the impact of environment-dependent interference patterns arising from user-specific blockage conditions on energy-efficient design remains unclear. An energy-efficient downlink design for single-waveguide PASS based on environment-division multiple access (EDMA) is investigated. Under a given propagation environment, EDMA exploits user-dependent blockage and visibility differences through proper pinching-antenna placement, thereby inducing different multi-user interference patterns without increasing radio-frequency hardware complexity. We examine how such blockage-dependent interference influences the relationship between spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, and develop an energy-aware EDMA framework that jointly considers pinching-antenna locations and transmit power allocation under quality-of-service constraints. The resulting coupled design problem is solved through an alternating optimization procedure. EDMA is compared with conventional time-division multiple access (TDMA) using a unified hardware and power-consumption model. Numerical results reveal clear energy-efficiency threshold behaviors with respect to blockage intensity, user population, and service requirements. The results further show that EDMA can significantly outperform TDMA in specific operating regimes.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26072051","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,25]],"date-time":"2026-03-25T15:05:33Z","timestamp":1774451133000},"page":"2051","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Environment-Dependent Downlink Pinching-Antenna Systems: Spectral\u2013Energy Efficiency Tradeoffs and Design"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-3732-6105","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiangyu","family":"Zha","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Applied Mathematics, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China"},{"name":"School of Applied Mathematics, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6DX, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-6278-0800","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yongji","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Data Science and Big Data Technology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China"},{"name":"School of Data Science and Big Data Technology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6DX, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1404-582X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qi","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.004.2200136","article-title":"Near-field MIMO communications for 6G: Fundamentals, challenges, potentials, and future directions","volume":"61","author":"Cui","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. 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