Let h and k be positive integers with h ≤ k, and let A = {a0, a1, …, ak−1} be a finite set of k integers. The resticted h-fold signed sumset, denoted by h ± ∧ A, is defined as \(h_ {\pm} ^{\wedge}A: = \left\{{\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{k - 1} {{\lambda _i}{a_i}:{\lambda _i}} \in \{{- 1,0,1} \}\,{\text{for}}\,i = 0,1, \ldots,k - 1\,{\text{and}}\,\sum\limits_{i = 0}^{k - 1} {\left| {{\lambda _i}} \right|} = h} \right\}.\) A direct problem associated with this sumset is finding the optimal lower bound of ∣h ± ∧ A∣ when the finite set of integers A is given. An inverse problem is about to characterizing the sets A when ∣h ± ∧ A∣ attains the optimal lower bound. The characterization of the underlying sets for slight deviation from the minimum size of the sumset is called an extended inverse problem. In this article, we prove direct and inverse theorems for h ± ∧ A when h ∈ {2, 3, k}. We also prove extended inverse theorems and Freiman’s (3k − 4)-type results for h ± ∧ A when h ∈ {2, 3, k}. We remark that there is no finite set of k ≥ 10 nonnegative integers with 0 ∈ A such that ∣3 ± ∧ A∣ = 6k − 10, and there is no finite set A of k ≥ 12 positive integers such that ∣3 ± ∧ A∣ = 6k − 7.
