6G Wireless Communication Systems: Applications, Opportunities and Challenges

As the technical specifications of the 5th Generation (5G) wireless communication standard are being wrapped up, there are growing efforts amongst researchers, industrialists and standardisation bodies on the enabling technologies of a 6G standard or the so-called Beyond 5G (B5G) one. Although the 5G standard has presented several benefits, there are still some limitations within it. Such limitations have motivated the setting up of study groups to determine suitable technologies that should operate in the year 2030 and beyond, i.e., after 5G. Consequently, this Special Issue on Future Internet concerning what possibilities lie ahead for a 6G wireless network includes four high-quality research papers (three of which are review papers with over 412 referred sources and one regular research). This editorial piece summarises the major contributions of the articles and the Special Issue, outlining future directions for new research. The 5th Generation (5G) network standard is the latest wireless telecommunication network standard for data transfer from one location to another, which is presently being rolled out globally. In developed countries, non-standalone 5G network examples were deployed in a limited number of cities (e.g., London, Manchester, and Edinburgh in the UK) to learn more about their real-world performances; these were non-standalone because they used the existing 4G network infrastructure. Afterwards, the lessons operators learned from the 5G non-standalone deployments were used to revise and improve the technologies. It is these revised systems that are presently being deployed around the world. It has been said that all the technologies that could not be incorporated into the 5G standard by the end of 2020 will be considered for the Beyond 5G (B5G) network standard [1]. In the literature, the B5G network is also referred to as the 6th Generation (6G) network. This editorial piece summarises th

Guest editorial for the special issue on software-defined radio transceivers and circuits for 5G wireless communications

Yichuang Sun, Baoyong Chi, and Heng Zhang, Guest Editorial for the Special Issue on Software-Defined Radio Transceivers and Circuits for 5G Wireless Communications, published in IEEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, Vol. 63 (1): 1-3, January 2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSII.2015.2506979.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Will SDN be part of 5G?

For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already, the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul, backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment, business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities, softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure

A Survey of Physical Layer Security Techniques for 5G Wireless Networks and Challenges Ahead

Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution towards 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, etc. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication