163 research outputs found
IRS-assisted UAV Communications: A Comprehensive Review
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) can smartly adjust the wavefronts in
terms of phase, frequency, amplitude and polarization via passive reflections
and without any need of radio frequency (RF) chains. It is envisaged as an
emerging technology which can change wireless communication to improve both
energy and spectrum efficiencies with low energy consumption and low cost. It
can intelligently configure the wireless channels through a massive number of
cost effective passive reflecting elements to improve the system performance.
Similarly, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication has gained a viable
attention due to flexible deployment, high mobility and ease of integration
with several technologies. However, UAV communication is prone to security
issues and obstructions in real-time applications. Recently, it is foreseen
that UAV and IRS both can integrate together to attain unparalleled
capabilities in difficult scenarios. Both technologies can ensure improved
performance through proactively altering the wireless propagation using smart
signal reflections and maneuver control in three dimensional (3D) space. IRS
can be integrated in both aerial and terrene environments to reap the benefits
of smart reflections. This study briefly discusses UAV communication, IRS and
focuses on IRS-assisted UAC communications. It surveys the existing literature
on this emerging research topic and highlights several promising technologies
which can be implemented in IRS-assisted UAV communication. This study also
presents several application scenarios and open research challenges. This study
goes one step further to elaborate research opportunities to design and
optimize wireless systems with low energy footprint and at low cost. Finally,
we shed some light on future research aspects for IRS-assisted UAV
communication
Integrated Sensing and Communication for 6G: Ten Key Machine Learning Roles
Integrating sensing and communication is a defining theme for future wireless
systems. This is motivated by the promising performance gains, especially as
they assist each other, and by the better utilization of the wireless and
hardware resources. Realizing these gains in practice, however, is subject to
several challenges where leveraging machine learning can provide a potential
solution. This article focuses on ten key machine learning roles for joint
sensing and communication, sensing-aided communication, and communication-aided
sensing systems, explains why and how machine learning can be utilized, and
highlights important directions for future research. The article also presents
real-world results for some of these machine learning roles based on the
large-scale real-world dataset DeepSense 6G, which could be adopted in
investigating a wide range of integrated sensing and communication problems.Comment: Submitted to IEE
A Prospective Look: Key Enabling Technologies, Applications and Open Research Topics in 6G Networks
The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora
of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a
diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G
systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems.
This is driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated
systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics
communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective
applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency,
ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives
are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation
(6G) networks. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling
technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental
architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial
intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control,
computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. Particularly,
this paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the
driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of
6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will
they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by
presenting a profound study of the 6G vision and outlining five of its
disruptive technologies, i.e., terahertz communications, programmable
metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and
tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging
the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss their
requirements, key challenges, and open research problems
A prospective look: key enabling technologies, applications and open research topics in 6G networks
The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems. This is mainly driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency, ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation (6G) networks, which are expected to bring transformative changes to this premise. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control, computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. In particular, the present paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of 6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by presenting a comprehensive study of the 6G vision and outlining seven of its disruptive technologies, i.e., mmWave communications, terahertz communications, optical wireless communications, programmable metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss the associated requirements, key challenges, and open research problems. These discussions are thereafter used to open up the horizon for future research directions
Data-driven Integrated Sensing and Communication: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects
Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC), combined with data-driven
approaches, has emerged as a highly significant field, garnering considerable
attention from academia and industry. Its potential to enable wide-scale
applications in the future sixth-generation (6G) networks has led to extensive
recent research efforts. Machine learning (ML) techniques, including
-nearest neighbors (KNN), support vector machines (SVM), deep learning (DL)
architectures, and reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, have been deployed
to address various design aspects of ISAC and its diverse applications.
Therefore, this paper aims to explore integrating various ML techniques into
ISAC systems, covering various applications. These applications span
intelligent vehicular networks, encompassing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
and autonomous cars, as well as radar applications, localization and tracking,
millimeter wave (mmWave) and Terahertz (THz) communication, and beamforming.
The contributions of this paper lie in its comprehensive survey of ML-based
works in the ISAC domain and its identification of challenges and future
research directions. By synthesizing the existing knowledge and proposing new
research avenues, this survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers,
practitioners, and stakeholders involved in advancing the capabilities of ISAC
systems in the context of 6G networks.Comment: ISAC-ML surve
Antenna Array Enabled Space/Air/Ground Communications and Networking for 6G
Antenna arrays have a long history of more than 100 years and have evolved
closely with the development of electronic and information technologies,
playing an indispensable role in wireless communications and radar. With the
rapid development of electronic and information technologies, the demand for
all-time, all-domain, and full-space network services has exploded, and new
communication requirements have been put forward on various space/air/ground
platforms. To meet the ever increasing requirements of the future sixth
generation (6G) wireless communications, such as high capacity, wide coverage,
low latency, and strong robustness, it is promising to employ different types
of antenna arrays with various beamforming technologies in space/air/ground
communication networks, bringing in advantages such as considerable antenna
gains, multiplexing gains, and diversity gains. However, enabling antenna array
for space/air/ground communication networks poses specific, distinctive and
tricky challenges, which has aroused extensive research attention. This paper
aims to overview the field of antenna array enabled space/air/ground
communications and networking. The technical potentials and challenges of
antenna array enabled space/air/ground communications and networking are
presented first. Subsequently, the antenna array structures and designs are
discussed. We then discuss various emerging technologies facilitated by antenna
arrays to meet the new communication requirements of space/air/ground
communication systems. Enabled by these emerging technologies, the distinct
characteristics, challenges, and solutions for space communications, airborne
communications, and ground communications are reviewed. Finally, we present
promising directions for future research in antenna array enabled
space/air/ground communications and networking
Visible Light Communication (VLC)
Visible light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) has been envisioned as one of the key enabling technologies for 6G and Internet of Things (IoT) systems, owing to its appealing advantages, including abundant and unregulated spectrum resources, no electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiation and high security. However, despite its many advantages, VLC faces several technical challenges, such as the limited bandwidth and severe nonlinearity of opto-electronic devices, link blockage and user mobility. Therefore, significant efforts are needed from the global VLC community to develop VLC technology further. This Special Issue, “Visible Light Communication (VLC)”, provides an opportunity for global researchers to share their new ideas and cutting-edge techniques to address the above-mentioned challenges. The 16 papers published in this Special Issue represent the fascinating progress of VLC in various contexts, including general indoor and underwater scenarios, and the emerging application of machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) techniques in VLC
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Design and application of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) for beyond 5G wireless networks: a review
The existing sub-6 GHz band is insufficient to support the bandwidth requirement of emerging data-rate-hungry applications and Internet of Things devices, requiring ultrareliable low latency communication (URLLC), thus making the migration to millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands inevitable. A notable disadvantage of a mmWave band is the significant losses suffered at higher frequencies that may not be overcome by novel optimization algorithms at the transmitter and receiver and thus result in a performance degradation. To address this, Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) is a new technology capable of transforming the wireless channel from a highly probabilistic to a highly deterministic channel and as a result, overcome the significant losses experienced in the mmWave band. This paper aims to survey the design and applications of an IRS, a 2-dimensional (2D) passive metasurface with the ability to control the wireless propagation channel and thus achieve better spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) to aid the fifth and beyond generation to deliver the required data rate to support current and emerging technologies. It is imperative that the future wireless technology evolves toward an intelligent software paradigm, and the IRS is expected to be a key enabler in achieving this task. This work provides a detailed survey of the IRS technology, limitations in the current research, and the related research opportunities and possible solutions
Five Facets of 6G: Research Challenges and Opportunities
Whilst the fifth-generation (5G) systems are being rolled out across the
globe, researchers have turned their attention to the exploration of radical
next-generation solutions. At this early evolutionary stage we survey five main
research facets of this field, namely {\em Facet~1: next-generation
architectures, spectrum and services, Facet~2: next-generation networking,
Facet~3: Internet of Things (IoT), Facet~4: wireless positioning and sensing,
as well as Facet~5: applications of deep learning in 6G networks.} In this
paper, we have provided a critical appraisal of the literature of promising
techniques ranging from the associated architectures, networking, applications
as well as designs. We have portrayed a plethora of heterogeneous architectures
relying on cooperative hybrid networks supported by diverse access and
transmission mechanisms. The vulnerabilities of these techniques are also
addressed and carefully considered for highlighting the most of promising
future research directions. Additionally, we have listed a rich suite of
learning-driven optimization techniques. We conclude by observing the
evolutionary paradigm-shift that has taken place from pure single-component
bandwidth-efficiency, power-efficiency or delay-optimization towards
multi-component designs, as exemplified by the twin-component ultra-reliable
low-latency mode of the 5G system. We advocate a further evolutionary step
towards multi-component Pareto optimization, which requires the exploration of
the entire Pareto front of all optiomal solutions, where none of the components
of the objective function may be improved without degrading at least one of the
other components
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