Special Issue on Intelligent Communications Technologies for B5G

Driven by the demand to accommodate today's growing mobile traffic, B5G is designed to be a key enabler and leading infrastructure provider in the ICT industry. Its goal is to support a variety of forthcoming services with diverse requirements. Considering the ever-increasing complexity of the network, and the emergence of novel use cases such as autonomous cars, industrial automation, virtual reality and e-health, clear communication of the B5G vision will be essential.

Currently, artificial Intelligence (AI) and B5G wireless communications are perceived as dissimilar research fields, despite the potential opportunities created by combining them. In fact, the influence of intelligent communications in mobile and wireless networks has already been made apparent by recent networking paradigms such as location-based services, mobile edge computing, context-aware networking, big data analytics and network traffic control.

This special issue focuses on providing an international forum for researchers and practitioners to present findings that advance our understanding of intelligent communication and potential solutions, identifies emerging research topics, and defines the future of the field. We expect original and high-quality articles covering theoretical and practical applications or surveys on recent progress and challenges in this area.

Topics Covered:

• Advanced network architecture design for B5G
• Transmission standardisation activities related to Intelligent communications
• Both model- and data-driven resource management methodologies in B5G
• Network traffic control mechanisms achieved by leveraging machine learning
• QoS/QoE provisioning for intelligent communications
• Mobile edge computing in an intelligent communications environment
• Security, privacy and reliability issues involved in applying intelligence to B5G
• Emerging applications, including Tactile Internet, VR/AR, cross-modal collaborative communications, etc.

Important Deadlines:

• Submission deadline: 20 August 2021
• First notification: 15 September 2021
• Revised version deadline: 15 October 2021
• Final notification: 15 December 2021
• Publication date: February 2022 (tentative)

Submission Instructions:

Original, high-quality contributions that are not yet published or under review by other journals or peer-reviewed conferences are sought. Please view the Guide for Authors for preparation guidelines. Manuscripts should be submitted online; please select SI: Intelligent Communications Technologies for B5G as the article type. For further information, please contact the guest editors.

Guest Editors：

• Mingkai Chen, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. Email: mkchen@njupt.edu.cn
• Ping Lu, ZTE Corporation, China. Email：lu.ping@zte.com.cn
• Mohsen Guizani, IEEE Fellow, Qatar University, Qatar. Email: mguizani@ieee.org

Brief Biographies of the Proposed Guest Editors

• Mingkai Chen is a Lecturer at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China. He received his Ph.D. in information and communication engineering from the university in 2019. His research interests are in the area of multimedia communications and computing, resource allocation, and signal processing in wireless networks. He serves as a reviewer for a number of journals, including IEEE Wireless Communications, IEEE Network, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and China Communications. He also serves as a TPC member for ICC, IWCMC, WCSP and other top-level conferences on Intelligent Communications. He is also an IEEE ComSoc member and member of the Sensors and Actuators Technical Stream in IEEE CTSoc.
• Ping Lu is president of ZTE Nanjing Research Institute, China. He received his master’s degree from Southeast University, China, in 1995. He was the technical leader and director of GoTa digital trunking, SMS, MMS, WAP, positioning and other data products. He was one of the founders of ZTE's billing and BOSS products. Since 2008, he has served as the Dean of the Cloud Computing and IT Research Institute of ZTE Corporation. He is also a member of the China Computer Association (CCF), a part-time professor of the "Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program" at Southeast University, and a part-time graduate instructor of the enterprise graduate workstation at Southeast. He is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards, including the Science and Technology Progress Award of the Chinese Institute of Electronics.
• Mohsen Guizani (Fellow, IEEE) received his Ph.D. in computer engineering from Syracuse University in the US in 1990. He is currently a Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Qatar University, Qatar. Previously, he served in a variety of academic and administrative positions at a range of US universities. He has authored nine books and more than 600 publications in refereed journals and conferences. His research interests include wireless communications and mobile computing, computer networks, mobile cloud computing, security, and smart grid. He is a Senior Member of ACM. He also served as member, chair, and general chair of a number of international conferences and has received three teaching awards and four research awards. He is currently the IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer. He is Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Network Magazine, serves on the editorial board of several international technical journals, and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing.