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  • FEATURE TOPIC: RESILIENT SATELLITE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS TOWARDS HIGHLY DYNAMIC AND HIGHLY RELIABLE TRANSMISSION
    Shaojing Wang, Xiaomei Tang, Jing Lei, Chunjiang Ma, Chao Wen, Guangfu Sun
    China Communications. 2024, 21(2): 17-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23919/JCC.fa.2023-0229.202402

    Orthogonal Time Frequency and Space (OTFS) modulation is expected to provide high-speed and ultra-reliable communications for emerging mobile applications, including low-orbit satellite communications. Using the Doppler frequency for positioning is a promising research direction on communication and navigation integration. To tackle the high Doppler frequency and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in satellite communication, this paper proposes a Red and Blue Frequency Shift Discriminator (RBFSD) based on the pseudo-noise (PN) sequence. The paper derives that the cross-correlation function on the Doppler domain exhibits the characteristic of a Sinc function. Therefore, it applies modulation onto the Delay-Doppler domain using PN sequence and adjusts Doppler frequency estimation by red-shifting or blue-shifting. Simulation results show that the performance of Doppler frequency estimation is close to the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound when the SNR is greater than -15dB. The proposed algorithm is about $1/D$ times less complex than the existing PN pilot sequence algorithm, where $D$ is the resolution of the fractional Doppler.

  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Zhi Chen, Xinying Ma, Chong Han, Qiye Wen
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 93-119.
    Terahertz (THz) communications have been widely envisioned as a promising enabler to provide adequate bandwidth and achieve ultra-high data rates for sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. In order to mitigate blockage vulnerability caused by serious propagation attenuation and poor diffraction of THz waves, an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), which manipulates the propagation of incident electromagnetic waves in a programmable manner by adjusting the phase shifts of passive reflecting elements, is proposed to create smart radio environments, improve spectrum efficiency and enhance coverage capability. Firstly, some prospective application scenarios driven by the IRS empowered THz communications are introduced, including wireless mobile communications, secure communications, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) scenario, mobile edge computing (MEC) scenario and THz localization scenario. Then, we discuss the enabling technologies employed by the IRS empowered THz system, involving hardware design, channel estimation, capacity optimization, beam control, resource allocation and robustness design. Moreover, the arising challenges and open problems encountered in the future IRS empowered THz communications are also highlighted. Concretely, these emerging problems possibly originate from channel modeling, new material exploration, experimental IRS testbeds and intensive deployment. Ultimately, the combination of THz communications and IRS is capable of accelerating the development of 6G wireless networks.
  • COVER PAPER
    Weijie Yuan, Shuangyang Li, Zhiqiang Wei, Yuanhao Cui, Jiamo Jiang, Haijun Zhang, Pingzhi Fan
    China Communications. 2023, 20(6): 1-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23919/JCC.fa.2022-0578.202306

    In the 6G era, Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN) are anticipated to deliver global coverage, necessitating support for a diverse array of emerging applications in high-mobility, hostile environments. Under such conditions, conventional orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation, widely employed in cellular and Wi-Fi communication systems, experiences performance degradation due to significant Doppler shifts. To overcome this obstacle, a novel two-dimensional (2D) modulation approach, namely orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS), has emerged as a key enabler for future high-mobility use cases. Distinctively, OTFS modulates information within the delay-Doppler (DD) domain, as opposed to the time-frequency (TF) domain utilized by OFDM. This offers advantages such as Doppler and delay resilience, reduced signaling latency, a lower peak-to-average ratio (PAPR), and a reduced-complexity implementation. Recent studies further indicate that the direct interplay between information and the physical world in the DD domain positions OTFS as a promising waveform for achieving integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). In this article, we present an in-depth review of OTFS technology in the context of the 6G era, encompassing fundamentals, recent advancements, and future directions. Our objective is to provide a helpful resource for researchers engaged in the field of OTFS.

  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Xuting Duan, Hang Jiang, Daxin Tian, Tianyuan Zou, Jianshan Zhou, Yue Cao
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 1-12.
    In recent years, autonomous driving technology has made good progress, but the non-cooperative intelligence of vehicle for autonomous driving still has many technical bottlenecks when facing urban road autonomous driving challenges. V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) communication is a potential solution to enable cooperative intelligence of vehicles and roads. In this paper, the RGB-PVRCNN, an environment perception framework, is proposed to improve the environmental awareness of autonomous vehicles at intersections by leveraging V2I communication technology. This framework integrates vision feature based on PVRCNN. The normal distributions transform(NDT) point cloud registration algorithm is deployed both on onboard and roadside to obtain the position of the autonomous vehicles and to build the local map objects detected by roadside multi-sensor system are sent back to autonomous vehicles to enhance the perception ability of autonomous vehicles for benefiting path planning and traffic efficiency at the intersection. The field-testing results show that our method can effectively extend the environmental perception ability and range of autonomous vehicles at the intersection and outperform the PointPillar algorithm and the VoxelRCNN algorithm in detection accuracy.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Pan Tang, Jianhua Zhang, Haoyu Tian, Zhaowei Chang, Jun Men, Yuxiang Zhang, Lei Tian, Liang Xia, Qixing Wang, Jingsuo He
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 19-32.
    Terahertz (THz) communication has been envisioned as a key enabling technology for sixth-generation (6G). In this paper, we present an extensive THz channel measurement campaign for 6G wireless communications from 220 GHz to 330 GHz. Furthermore, the path loss is analyzed and modeled by using two single-frequency path loss models and a multiple-frequencies path loss model. It is found that at most frequency points, the measured path loss is larger than that in the free space. But at around 310 GHz, the propagation attenuation is relatively weaker compared to that in the free space. Also, the frequency dependence of path loss is observed and the frequency exponent of the multiple-frequencies path loss model is 2.1. Moreover, the cellular performance of THz communication systems is investigated by using the obtained path loss model. Simulation results indicate that the current inter-site distance (ISD) for the indoor scenario is too small for THz communications. Furthermore, the tremendous capacity gain can be obtained by using THz bands compared to using microwave bands and millimeter wave bands. Generally, this work can give an insight into the design and optimization of THz communication systems for 6G.
  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Liang Zhao, Muhammad Bin Saif, Ammar Hawbani, Geyong Min, Su Peng, Na Lin
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 103-116.
    Flying Ad hoc Network (FANET) has drawn significant consideration due to its rapid advancements and extensive use in civil applications. However, the characteristics of FANET including high mobility, limited resources, and distributed nature, have posed a new challenge to develop a secure and efficient routing scheme for FANET. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a novel cluster based secure routing scheme, which aims to solve the routing and data security problem of FANET. In this scheme, the optimal cluster head selection is based on residual energy, online time, reputation, blockchain transactions, mobility, and connectivity by using Improved Artificial Bee Colony Optimization (IABC). The proposed IABC utilizes two different search equations for employee bee and onlooker bee to enhance convergence rate and exploitation abilities. Further, a lightweight blockchain consensus algorithm, AI-Proof of Witness Consensus Algorithm (AI-PoWCA) is proposed, which utilizes the optimal cluster head for mining. In AI-PoWCA, the concept of the witness for block verification is also involved to make the proposed scheme resource efficient and highly resilient against 51% attack. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms its counterparts and achieves up to 90% packet delivery ratio, lowest end-to-end delay, highest throughput, resilience against security attacks, and superior in block processing time.
  • Guest Editorial
    Ziying Wu, Danfeng Yan
    China Communications. 2021, 18(11): 26-41.
    Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is one of the key technologies of the future 5G network. By deploying edge computing centers at the edge of wireless access network, the computation tasks can be offloaded to edge servers rather than the remote cloud server to meet the requirements of 5G low-latency and high-reliability application scenarios. Meanwhile, with the development of IOV (Internet of Vehicles) technology, various delay-sensitive and compute-intensive in-vehicle applications continue to appear. Compared with traditional Internet business, these computation tasks have higher processing priority and lower delay requirements. In this paper, we design a 5G-based vehicle-aware Multi-access Edge Computing network (VAMECN) and propose a joint optimization problem of minimizing total system cost. In view of the problem, a deep reinforcement learning-based joint computation offloading and task migration optimization (JCOTM) algorithm is proposed, considering the influences of multiple factors such as concurrent multiple computation tasks, system computing resources distribution, and network communication bandwidth. And, the mixed integer nonlinear programming problem is described as a Markov Decision Process. Experiments show that our proposed algorithm can effectively reduce task processing delay and equipment energy consumption, optimize computing offloading and resource allocation schemes, and improve system resource utilization, compared with other computing offloading policies.
  • 6G TOWARDS 2030: FROM KEY TECHNOLOGY TO NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
    Yuanjie Li, Jincheng Dai, Zhongwei Si, Kai Niu, Chao Dong, Jiaru Lin, Sen Wang, Yifei Yuan
    China Communications. 2022, 19(3): 70-87.
    Unsourced multiple access (UMA) is a multi-access technology for massive, low-power, uncoordinated, and unsourced Machine Type Communication (MTC) networks. It ensures transmission reliability under the premise of high energy efficiency. Based on the analysis of the 6G MTC key performance indicators (KPIs) and scenario characteristics, this paper summarizes its requirements for radio access networks. Following this, the existing multiple access models are analyzed under these standards to determine UMA's advantages for 6G MTC according to its design characteristics. The critical technology of UMA is the design of its multiple-access coding scheme. Therefore, the existing UMA coding schemes from different coding paradigms are further summarized and compared. In particular, this paper comprehensively considers the energy efficiency and computational complexity of these schemes, studies the changes of the above two indexes with the increase of access scale, and considers the trade-off between the two. It is revealed by the above analysis that some guiding rules of UMA coding design. Finally, the open problems and potentials in this field are given for future research.
  • Guest Editorial
    Min Sheng, Di Zhou, Weigang Bai, Junyu Liu, Jiandong Li
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 64-76.
    The rapid development and continuous updating of the mega satellite constellation (MSC) have brought new visions for the future 6G coverage extension, where the global seamless signal coverage can realize ubiquitous services for user terminals. However, global traffic demands present non-uniform characteristics. Therefore, how to ensure the on-demand service coverage for the specific traffic demand, i.e., the ratio of traffic density to service requirement per unit area, is the core issue of 6G wireless coverage extension exploiting the MSC. To this regard, this paper first discusses the open challenges to reveal the future direction of 6G wireless coverage extension from the perspective of key factors affecting service coverage performance, i.e., the network access capacity, space segment capacity and their matching-relationship. Furthermore, we elaborate on the key factors affecting effective matchings of the aforementioned aspects, thereby improving service coverage capability.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Shanyun Liu, Xianbin Yu, Rongbin Guo, Yajie Tang, Zhifeng Zhao
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 33-49.
    For the sake of meeting the demand of data rates at terabit (Tbit) per second scale in future networks, the terahertz (THz) band is widely accepted as one of the potential key enabling technologies for next generation wireless communication systemsWith the progressive development of THz devices, regrading THz communications at system level is increasing crucial and captured the interest of plenty of researchersWithin this scope, THz channel modeling serves as an indispensable and fundamental elementBy surveying the latest literature findings, this paper reviews the problem of channel modeling in the THz band, with an emphasis on molecular absorption loss, misalignment fading and multipath fading, which are major influence factors in the THz channel modelingThen, we focus on simulators and experiments in the THz band, after which we give a brief introduction on applications of THz channel models with respects to capacity, security, and sensing as examplesFinally, we discuss some key issues in the future THz channel modeling.
  • ORTHOGONAL TIME FREQUENCY SPACE MODULATION IN 6G ERA
    Junfan Hu, Jia Shi, Xianyu Wang, Xiaoju Lu, Zan Li, Zhuangzhuang Tie
    China Communications. 2023, 20(1): 1-13.

    This paper investigates the security performance of a cooperative multicast-unicast system, where the users present the feature of high mobility. Specifically, we develop the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) transmission scheme, namely NOMA-OTFS, in order to combat Doppler effect as well as to improve the spectral efficiency. Further, we propose a power allocation method addressing the trade-off between the reliability of multicast streaming and the confidentiality of unicast streaming. Based on that, we utilize the relay selection strategy, to improve the security of unicast streaming. In the context of multicast-unicast streaming, our simulation findings validate the effectiveness of the NOMA-OTFS based cooperative transmission, which can significantly outperform the existing NOMA-OFDM in terms of both reliability and security.

  • Guest Editorial
    Qihui Wu, Min Zhang, Chao Dong, Yong Feng, Yanli Yuan, Simeng Feng, Tony Q. S. Quek
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 186-201.
    In recent years, with the growth in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), UAV-based systems have become popular in both military and civil applications.In these scenarios, the lack of reliable communication infrastructure has motivated UAVs to establish a network as flying nodes, also known as Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs).However, in FANETs, the high mobility degree of flying and terrestrial users may be responsible for constant changes in the network topology, making end-to-end connections in FANETs challenging.Mobility estimation and prediction of UAVs can address the challenge mentioned above since it can provide better routing planning and improve overall FANET performance in terms of continuous service availability.We thus develop a Software Defined Network (SDN)-based heterogeneous architecture for reliable communication in FANETs.In this architecture, we apply an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) for accurate mobility estimation and prediction of UAVs.In particular, we formulate the routing problem in SDN-based Heterogeneous FANETs as a graph decision problem.As the problem is NP-hard, we further propose a Directional Particle Swarming Optimization (DPSO) approach to solve it.The extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed DPSO routing can exhibit superior performance in improving the goodput, packet delivery ratio, and delay.
  • Guest Editorial
    Xiaoyun Wang, Tao Sun, Xiaodong Duan, Dan Wang, Yongjing Li, Ming Zhao, Zhigang Tian
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 14-28.
    The Service-based Architecture (SBA) is one of the key innovations of 5G architecture that leverage modularized, self-contained and independent services to provide flexible and cloud-native 5G network. In this paper, SBA for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN) is investigated to enable the 5G integration deployment. This paper proposes a novel Holistic Service-based Architecture (H-SBA) for SAGIN of 5G-Advanced and beyond, i.e., 6G. The H-SBA introduces the concept of end-to-end service-based architecture design. The “Network Function Service”, introduced in 5G SBA, is extended from Control Plane to User Plane, from core network to access network. Based on H-SBA, the new generation of protocol design is proposed, which proposes to use IETF QUIC and SRv6 to substitute 5G HTTP/2.0 and GTP-U. Testing results show that new protocols can achieve low latency and high throughput, making them promising candidate for H-SBA.
  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Xin Hu, Sujie Xu, Libing Wang, Yin Wang, Zhijun Liu, Lexi Xu, You Li, Weidong Wang
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 25-35.
    Vehicular communications have recently attracted great interest due to their potential to improve the intelligence of the transportation system. When maintaining the high reliability and low latency in the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) links as well as large capacity in the vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) links, it is essential to flexibility allocate the radio resource to satisfy the different requirements in the V2V communication. This paper proposes a new radio resources allocation system for V2V communications based on the proximal strategy optimization method. In this radio resources allocation framework, a vehicle or V2V link that is designed as an agent. And through interacting with the environment, it can learn the optimal policy based on the strategy gradient and make the decision to select the optimal sub-band and the transmitted power level. Because the proposed method can output continuous actions and multi-dimensional actions, it greatly reduces the implementation complexity of large-scale communication scenarios. The simulation results indicate that the allocation method proposed in this paper can meet the latency constraints and the requested capacity of V2V links under the premise of minimizing the interference to vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
  • BRAIN-COMPUTER-INTERFACE INSPIRED COMMUNICATIONS
    Xuelin Gu, Banghua Yang, Shouwei Gao, Honghao Gao, Linfeng Yan, Ding Xu, Wen Wang
    China Communications. 2022, 19(2): 62-72.
    After abusing drugs for long, drug users will experience deteriorated self-control cognitive ability, and poor emotional regulation. This paper designs a closed-loop virtual-reality (VR), motorimagery (MI) rehabilitation training system based on brain-computer interface (BCI) (MI-BCI+VR), aiming to enhance the self-control, cognition, and emotional regulation of drug addicts via personalized rehabilitation schemes. This paper is composed of two parts. In the first part, data of 45 drug addicts (mild: 15; moderate: 15; and severe: 15) is tested with electroencephalogram (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) equipment (EEG-NIRS) under the dual-mode, synchronous signal collection paradigm. Using these data sets, a dual-modal signal convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm is then designed based on decision fusion to detect and classify the addiction degree. In the second part, the MIBCI+ VR rehabilitation system is designed, optimizing the Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern (FBCSP) algorithm used in MI, and realizing MI-EEG intention recognition. Eight VR rehabilitation scenes are devised, achieving the communication between MI-BCI and VR scene models. Ten subjects are selected to test the rehabilitation system offline and online, and the test accuracy verifies the feasibility of the system. In future, it is suggested to develop personalized rehabilitation programs and treatment cycles based on the addiction degree.
  • 6G TOWARDS 2030: FROM KEY TECHNOLOGY TO NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
    Yanfei Dong, Jincheng Dai, Kai Niu, Sen Wang, Yifei Yuan
    China Communications. 2022, 19(3): 101-115.
    In order to provide ultra low-latency and high energy-efficient communication for intelligences, the sixth generation (6G) wireless communication networks need to break out of the dilemma of the depleting gain of the separated optimization paradigm. In this context, this paper provides a comprehensive tutorial that overview how joint source-channel coding (JSCC) can be employed for improving overall system performance. For the purpose, we first introduce the communication requirements and performance metrics for 6G. Then, we provide an overview of the source-channel separation theorem and why it may not hold in practical applications. In addition, we focus on two new JSCC schemes called the double low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and the double polar codes, respectively, giving their detailed coding and decoding processes and corresponding performance simulations. In a nutshell, this paper constitutes a tutorial on the JSCC scheme tailored to the needs of future 6G communications.
  • Chen Zhang, Xudong Zhao, Gengxin Zhang
    China Communications. 2021, 18(9): 48-61.
    Beam hopping technology provides a foundation for the flexible allocation and efficient utilization of satellite resources, which is considered as a key technology for the next generation of high throughput satellite systems. To alleviate the contradiction between resource utilization and co-frequency interference in beam hopping technology, this paper firstly studies dynamic clustering to balance traffic between clusters and proposes cluster hopping pool optimization method to avoid inter-cluster interference. Then based on the optimization results, a novel joint beam hopping and precoding algorithm is provided to combine resource allocation and intra-cluster interference suppression, which can make efficient utilization of system resources and achieve reliable and near-optimal transmission capacity. The simulation results show that, compared with traditional methods, the proposed algorithms can dynamically adjust to balance demand traffic between clusters and meet the service requirements of each beam, also eliminate the co-channel interference to improve the performance of satellite network.
  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Sankar Sennan, Somula Ramasubbareddy, Sathiyabhama Balasubramaniyam, Anand Nayyar, Chaker Abdelaziz Kerrache, Muhammad Bilal
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 69-85.
    Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is an evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve the capabilities of vehicular ad -hoc networks (VANETs) in intelligence transport systems. The network topology in IoV paradigm is highly dynamic. Clustering is one of the promising solutions to maintain the route stability in the dynamic network. However, existing algorithms consume a considerable amount of time in the cluster head (CH) selection process. Thus, this study proposes a mobility aware dynamic clustering -based routing (MADCR) protocol in IoV to maximize the lifespan of networks and reduce the end -to -end delay of vehicles. The MADCR protocol consists of cluster formation and CH selection processes. A cluster is formed on the basis of Euclidean distance. The CH is then chosen using the mayfly optimization algorithm (MOA). The CH subsequently receives vehicle data and forwards such data to the Road Side Unit (RSU). The performance of the MADCR protocol is compared with that ofAnt Colony Optimization (ACO), Comprehensive Learning Particle Swarm Optimization (CLPSO), and Clustering Algorithm for Internet of Vehicles based on Dragonfly Optimizer (CAVDO). The proposed MADCR protocol decreases the end-to-end delay by 5-80 ms and increases the packet delivery ratio by 5%-15%.
  • Guest Editorial
    Wenjing You, Chao Dong, Qihui Wu, Yuben Qu, Yulei Wu, Rong He
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 104-118.
    This paper establishes a new layered flying ad hoc networks (FANETs) system of mobile edge computing (MEC) supported by multiple UAVs, where the first layer of user UAVs can perform tasks such as area coverage, and the second layer of MEC UAVs are deployed as flying MEC sever for user UAVs with computing-intensive tasks. In this system, we first divide the user UAVs into multiple clusters, and transmit the tasks of the cluster members (CMs) within a cluster to its cluster head (CH). Then, we need to determine whether each CH' tasks are executed locally or offloaded to one of the MEC UAVs for remote execution (i.e., task scheduling), and how much resources should be allocated to each CH (i.e., resource allocation), as well as the trajectories of all MEC UAVs. We formulate an optimization problem with the aim of minimizing the overall energy consumption of all user UAVs, under the constraints of task completion deadline and computing resource, which is a mixed integer non-convex problem and hard to solve. We propose an iterative algorithm by applying block coordinate descent methods. To be specific, the task scheduling between CH UAVs and MEC UAVs, computing resource allocation, and MEC UAV trajectory are alternately optimized in each iteration. For the joint task scheduling and computing resource allocation subproblem and MEC UAV trajectory subproblem, we employ branch and bound method and continuous convex approximation technique to solve them, respectively. Extensive simulation results validate the superiority of our proposed approach to several benchmarks.
  • Guest Editorial
    Yuanzhi He, Biao Sheng, Hao Yin, Di Yan, Yingchao Zhang
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 77-91.
    Resource allocation is an important problem influencing the service quality of multi-beam satellite communications. In multi-beam satellite communications, the available frequency bandwidth is limited, users requirements vary rapidly, high service quality and joint allocation of multi-dimensional resources such as time and frequency are required. It is a difficult problem needs to be researched urgently for multi-beam satellite communications, how to obtain a higher comprehensive utilization rate of multi-dimensional resources, maximize the number of users and system throughput, and meet the demand of rapid allocation adapting dynamic changed the number of users under the condition of limited resources, with using an efficient and fast resource allocation algorithm. In order to solve the multi-dimensional resource allocation problem of multi-beam satellite communications, this paper establishes a multi-objective optimization model based on the maximum the number of users and system throughput joint optimization goal, and proposes a multi-objective deep reinforcement learning based time-frequency two-dimensional resource allocation (MODRL-TF) algorithm to adapt dynamic changed the number of users and the timeliness requirements. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm could provide higher comprehensive utilization rate of multi-dimensional resources, and could achieve multi-objective joint optimization, and could obtain better timeliness than traditional heuristic algorithms, such as genetic algorithm (GA) and ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO).
  • Guest Editorial
    Peng Yi, Tao Hu, Yanze Qu, Liang Wang, Hailong Ma, Yuxiang Hu, Julong Lan
    China Communications. 2021, 18(8): 47-61.
    Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provides flexible and global network management by decoupling control plane from data plane, and multiple controllers are deployed in the network in a logically centralized and physically distributed way. However, the existing approaches generally deploy the controllers with the same type in the network, which easily causes homogeneous controller common-mode fault. To this end, this paper proposes heterogeneous controller deployment in the SDN, considering the different types of controllers and relevant criteria (e.g., delay, control link interruption rate, and controller fault rate). Then, we introduce a Safe and Reliable Heterogeneous Controller Deployment (SRHCD) approach, consisting of two stages. Stage 1 determines the type and the number of heterogeneous controllers required for the SDN network based on the dynamic programming. Stage 2 divides the SDN network into multiple subnets by k-means algorithm and improves the genetic algorithm to optimize the heterogeneous controller deployment in these SDN subnets to ensure reliable switch-controller communications. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed approach can effectively reduce the control plane fault rate and increase the attack difficulties. Besides, the switch- controller delay has been lowered by 16.5% averagely.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Hongqi Zhang, Lu Zhang, Xianbin Yu
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 153-174.
    With the explosion of wireless data rates, the terahertz (THz) band (0.1-10 THz) is envisioned as a promising candidate to break the existing bandwidth bottleneck and satisfy the ever-increasing capacity demand. The THz wireless communications feature a number of attractive properties, such as potential terabit-per-second capacity and high energy efficiency. In this paper, an overview on the state-of-the-art THz communications is studied, with a special focus on key technologies of THz transceivers and THz communication systems. The recent progress on both electronic and photonic THz transmitters are presented, and then the THz receivers operating in direct- and heterodyne reception modes are individually surveyed. Based on the THz transceiver schemes, three kinds of THz wireless communication systems are reviewed, including solid-state electronic systems, photonics-assisted systems and all-photonics systems. The prospective key enabling technologies, corresponding challenges and research directions for lighting up high-speed THz communication systems are discussed as well.
  • 6G TOWARDS 2030: FROM KEY TECHNOLOGY TO NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
    Borui Zhao, Qimei Cui, Shengyuan Liang, Jinli Zhai, Yanzhao Hou, Xueqing Huang, Miao Pan, Xiaofeng Tao
    China Communications. 2022, 19(3): 50-69.
    As Information, Communications, and Data Technology (ICDT) are deeply integrated, the research of 6G gradually rises. Meanwhile, federated learning (FL) as a distributed artificial intelligence (AI) framework is generally believed to be the most promising solution to achieve “Native AI” in 6G. While the adoption of energy as a metric in AI and wireless networks is emerging, most studies still focused on obtaining high levels of accuracy, with little consideration on new features of future networks and their possible impact on energy consumption. To address this issue, this article focuses on green concerns in FL over 6G. We first analyze and summarize major energy consumption challenges caused by technical characteristics of FL and the dynamical heterogeneity of 6G networks, and model the energy consumption in FL over 6G from aspects of computation and communication. We classify and summarize the basic ways to reduce energy, and present several feasible green designs for FL-based 6G network architecture from three perspectives. According to the simulation results, we provide a useful guideline to researchers that different schemes should be used to achieve the minimum energy consumption at a reasonable cost of learning accuracy for different network scenarios and service requirements in FL-based 6G network.
  • Guest Editorial
    Ting Bao, Lei Xu, Liehuang Zhu, Lihong Wang, Ruiguang Li, Tielei Li
    China Communications. 2021, 18(11): 42-60.
    Mobile edge computing (MEC) is an emerging technolohgy that extends cloud computing to the edge of a network. MEC has been applied to a variety of services. Specially, MEC can help to reduce network delay and improve the service quality of recommendation systems. In a MEC-based recommendation system, users' rating data are collected and analyzed by the edge servers. If the servers behave dishonestly or break down, users' privacy may be disclosed. To solve this issue, we design a recommendation framework that applies local differential privacy (LDP) to collaborative filtering. In the proposed framework, users' rating data are perturbed to satisfy LDP and then released to the edge servers. The edge servers perform partial computing task by using the perturbed data. The cloud computing center computes the similarity between items by using the computing results generated by edge servers. We propose a data perturbation method to protect user's original rating values, where the Harmony mechanism is modified so as to preserve the accuracy of similarity computation. And to enhance the protection of privacy, we propose two methods to protect both users' rating values and rating behaviors. Experimental results on real-world data demonstrate that the proposed methods perform better than existing differentially private recommendation methods.
  • BRAIN-COMPUTER-INTERFACE INSPIRED COMMUNICATIONS
    Yue Zhao, Guojun Dai, Xin Fang, Zhengxuan Wu, Nianzhang Xia, Yanping Jin, Hong Zeng
    China Communications. 2022, 19(2): 73-89.
    Cognitive state detection using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals for various tasks has attracted significant research attention. However, it is difficult to further improve the performance of crosssubject cognitive state detection. Further, most of the existing deep learning models will degrade significantly when limited training samples are given, and the feature hierarchical relationships are ignored. To address the above challenges, we propose an efficient interpretation model based on multiple capsule networks for cross-subject EEG cognitive state detection, termed as Efficient EEG-based Multi-Capsule Framework (E3GCAPS). Specifically, we use a selfexpression module to capture the potential connections between samples, which is beneficial to alleviate the sensitivity of outliers that are caused by the individual differences of cross-subject EEG. In addition, considering the strong correlation between cognitive states and brain function connection mode, the dynamic subcapsule-based spatial attention mechanism is introduced to explore the spatial relationship of multi-channel 1D EEG data, in which multichannel 1D data greatly improving the training efficiency while preserving the model performance. The effectiveness of the E3GCAPS is validated on the Fatigue-Awake EEG Dataset (FAAD) and the SJTU Emotion EEG Dataset (SEED). Experimental results show E3GCAPS can achieve remarkable results on the EEG-based cross-subject cognitive state detection under different tasks.
  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Xiaoming Yuan, Jiahui Chen, Ning Zhang, Xiaojie Fang, Didi Liu
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 117-133.
    Data sharing in Internet of Vehicles (IoV) makes it possible to provide personalized services for users by service providers in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). As IoV is a multi-user mobile scenario, the reliability and efficiency of data sharing need to be further enhanced. Federated learning allows the server to exchange parameters without obtaining private data from clients so that the privacy is protected. Broad learning system is a novel artificial intelligence technology that can improve training efficiency of data set. Thus, we propose a federated bidirectional connection broad learning scheme (FeBBLS) to solve the data sharing issues. Firstly, we adopt the bidirectional connection broad learning system (BiBLS) model to train data set in vehicular nodes. The server aggregates the collected parameters of BiBLS from vehicular nodes through the federated broad learning system (FedBLS) algorithm. Moreover, we propose a clustering FedBLS algorithm to offload the data sharing into clusters for improving the aggregation capability of the model. Some simulation results show our scheme can improve the efficiency and prediction accuracy of data sharing and protect the privacy of data sharing.
  • Shu Fu, Bibo Wu, Shaohua Wu, Fang Fang
    China Communications. 2021, 18(9): 24-36.
    The six-generation (6G) wireless network is expected to satisfy the requirements of ubiquitous connectivity and intelligent endogenous. Terrestrial-satellite networks (TSN) enable seamless coverage for terrestrial users in a wide area, making it very promising in 6G. As data traffic in TSNs surges, the integrated management for caching, computing, and communication (3C) has attracted much research attention. In this paper, we investigate the multi-resource management in the uplink and downlink transmission of TSN, respectively. In particularly, we aim to guarantee both throughput fairness and data security in the uplink transmission of TSN. Considering the intermittent communication of the satellite, we introduce two kinds of relays, i.e., terrestrial relays (TRs) and aerial relays (ARs) to improve the system throughput performance in the downlink transmission of TSN. Finally, we study a specific case of TSN with the uplink and downlink transmission, and the corresponding simulation results validate the effectiveness of our proposed schemes.
  • 6G TOWARDS 2030: FROM KEY TECHNOLOGY TO NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
    Zheng Hu, Ping Zhang, Chunhong Zhang, Benhui Zhuang, Jianhua Zhang, Shangjing Lin, Tao Sun
    China Communications. 2022, 19(3): 16-35.
    Sixth Generation (6G) wireless communication network has been expected to provide global coverage, enhanced spectral efficiency, and AI(Artificial Intelligence)-native intelligence, etc. To meet these requirements, the computational concept of Decision-Making of cognition intelligence, its implementation framework adapting to foreseen innovations on networks and services, and its empirical evaluations are key techniques to guarantee the generation-agnostic intelligence evolution of wireless communication networks. In this paper, we propose an Intelligent Decision Making (IDM) framework, acting as the role of network brain, based on Reinforcement Learning modelling philosophy to empower autonomous intelligence evolution capability to 6G network. Besides, usage scenarios and simulation demonstrate the generality and efficiency of IDM. We hope that some of the ideas of IDM will assist the research of 6G network in a new or different light.
  • SPECIAL FOCUS
    Lihui Wang, Dongya Shen, Qiuhua Lin, Zhiyong Luo, Wenjian Wang, Jianpei Chen, Zhao Gao, Wei Zhang
    China Communications. 2023, 20(11): 1-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23919/JCC.fa.2023-0255.202311

    In this paper, an integrated substrate gap waveguide (ISGW) filtering antenna is proposed at millimeter wave band, whose surface wave and spurious modes are simultaneously suppressed. A second-order filtering response is obtained through a coupling feeding scheme using one uniform impedance resonator (UIR) and two stepped-impedance resonators (SIRs). To increase the stopband width of the antenna, the spurious modes are suppressed by selecting the appropriate sizes of the ISGW unit cell. Furthermore, the ISGW is implemented to improve the radiation performance of the antenna by alleviating the propagation of surface wave. And an equivalent circuit is investigated to reveal the working principle of ISGW. To demonstrate this methodology, an ISGW filtering antenna operating at a center frequency of 25 GHz is designed, fabricated, and measured. The results show that the antenna achieves a stopband width of 1.6$f_0$ (center frequency), an out-of-band suppression level of 21 dB, and a peak realized gain of 8.5 dBi.

  • Guest Editorial
    Kang Liu, Wei Quan, Deyun Gao, Chengxiao Yu, Mingyuan Liu, Yuming Zhang
    China Communications. 2021, 18(8): 62-74.
    Adaptive packet scheduling can efficiently enhance the performance of multipath Data Transmission. However, realizing precise packet scheduling is challenging due to the nature of high dynamics and unpredictability of network link states. To this end, this paper proposes a distributed asynchronous deep reinforcement learning framework to intensify the dynamics and prediction of adaptive packet scheduling. Our framework contains two parts: local asynchronous packet scheduling and distributed cooperative control center. In local asynchronous packet scheduling, an asynchronous prioritized replay double deep Q-learning packets scheduling algorithm is proposed for dynamic adaptive packet scheduling learning, which makes a combination of prioritized replay double deep Q-learning network (P-DDQN) to make the fitting analysis. In distributed cooperative control center, a distributed scheduling learning and neural fitting acceleration algorithm to adaptively update neural network parameters of P-DDQN for more precise packet scheduling. Experimental results show that our solution has a better performance than Random weight algorithm and Round--Robin algorithm in throughput and loss ratio. Further, our solution has 1.32 times and 1.54 times better than Random weight algorithm and Round--Robin algorithm on the stability of multipath data transmission, respectively.
  • BRAIN-COMPUTER-INTERFACE INSPIRED COMMUNICATIONS
    Lu Jiang, Weihua Pei, Yijun Wang
    China Communications. 2022, 19(2): 1-14.
    A brain-computer interface (BCI) system based on steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) was developed by four-class phase-coded stimuli. SSVEPs elicited by flickers at 60Hz, which is higher than the critical fusion frequency (CFF), were compared with those at 15Hz and 30Hz. SSVEP components in electroencephalogram (EEG) were detected using task related component analysis (TRCA) method. Offline analysis with 17 subjects indicated that the highest information transfer rate (ITR) was 29.80±4.65bpm with 0.5s data length for 60Hz and the classification accuracy was 70.07±4.15%. The online BCI system reached an averaged classification accuracy of 87.75±3.50% at 60Hz with 4s, resulting in an ITR of 16.73±1.63bpm. In particular, the maximum ITR for a subject was 80bpm with 0.5s at 60Hz. Although the BCI performance of 60Hz was lower than that of 15Hz and 30Hz, the results of the behavioral test indicated that, with no perception of flicker, the BCI system with 60Hz was more comfortable to use than 15Hz and 30Hz. Correlation analysis revealed that SSVEP with higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) corresponded to better classification performance and the improvement in comfortableness was accompanied by a decrease in performance. This study demonstrates the feasibility and potential of a user-friendly SSVEP-based BCI using imperceptible flickers.
  • FEATURE TOPIC:COLLABORATIVE INTELLIGENCE FOR VEHICULAR INTERNET OF THINGS
    Xin Liu, Can Sun, Mu Zhou, Bin Lin, Yuto Lim
    China Communications. 2021, 18(7): 58-68.
    Cognitive Internet of Vehicles (CIoV) can improve spectrum utilization by accessing the spectrum licensed to primary user (PU) under the premise of not disturbing the PU's transmissions. However, the traditional static spectrum access makes the CIoV unable to adapt to the various spectrum environments. In this paper, a reinforcement learning based dynamic spectrum access scheme is proposed to improve the transmission performance of the CIoV in the licensed spectrum, and avoid causing harmful interference to the PU. The frame structure of the CIoV is separated into sensing period and access period, whereby the CIoV can optimize the transmission parameters in the access period according to the spectrum decisions in the sensing period. Considering both detection probability and false alarm probability, a Q-learning based spectrum access algorithm is proposed for the CIoV to intelligently select the optimal channel, bandwidth and transmit power under the dynamic spectrum states and various spectrum sensing performance. The simulations have shown that compared with the traditional non-learning spectrum access algorithm, the proposed Q-learning algorithm can effectively improve the spectral efficiency and throughput of the CIoV as well as decrease the interference power to the PU.
  • Guest Editorial
    Dacheng Zhou, Hongchang Chen, Guozhen Cheng, Weizhen He, Lingshu Li
    China Communications. 2021, 18(8): 17-34.
    Based on the diversified technology and the cross-validation mechanism, the N-variant system provides a secure service architecture for cloud providers to protect the cloud applications from attacks by executing multiple variants of a single software in parallel and then checking their behaviors' consistency. However, it is complex to upgrade current Software as a Service (SaaS) applications to adapt N-variant system architecture. Challenges arise from the inability of tenants to adjust the application architecture in the cloud environment, and the difficulty for cloud service providers to implement N-variant systems using existing API gateways. This paper proposes SecIngress, an API gateway framework, to overcome the challenge that it is hard in the cloud environment to upgrade the applications based on N-variants system. We design a two-stage timeout processing method to lessen the service latency and an Analytic Hierarchy Process Voting under the Metadata mechanism (AHPVM) to enhance voting accuracy. We implement a prototype in a testbed environment and analyze the security and performance metrics before and after deploying the prototype to show the effectiveness of SecIngress. The results reveal that SecIngress enhances the reliability of cloud applications with acceptable performance degradation.
  • ORTHOGONAL TIME FREQUENCY SPACE MODULATION IN 6G ERA
    Yong Liao, Xue Li
    China Communications. 2023, 20(1): 14-23.

    Since orthogonal time-frequency space (OTFS) can effectively handle the problems caused by Doppler effect in high-mobility environment, it has gradually become a promising candidate for modulation scheme in the next generation of mobile communication. However, the inter-Doppler interference (IDI) problem caused by fractional Doppler poses great challenges to channel estimation. To avoid this problem, this paper proposes a joint time and delay-Doppler (DD) domain based on sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) channel estimation algorithm. Firstly, we derive the original channel response (OCR) from the time domain channel impulse response (CIR), which can reflect the channel variation during one OTFS symbol. Compare with the traditional channel model, the OCR can avoid the IDI problem. After that, the dimension of OCR is reduced by using the basis expansion model (BEM) and the relationship between the time and DD domain channel model, so that we have turned the underdetermined problem into an overdetermined problem. Finally, in terms of sparsity of channel in delay domain, SBL algorithm is used to estimate the basis coefficients in the BEM without any priori information of channel. The simulation results show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed channel estimation algorithm.

  • Guest Editorial
    Gao Li, Wei Wang, Guoru Ding, Qihui Wu, Zitong Liu
    China Communications. 2021, 18(12): 51-64.
    The continuous change of communication frequency brings difficulties to the reconnaissance and prediction of non-cooperative communication networks. Since the frequency-hopping (FH) sequence is usually generated by a certain model with certain regularity, the FH frequency is thus predictable. In this paper, we investigate the FH frequency reconnaissance and prediction of a non-cooperative communication network by effective FH signal detection, time-frequency (TF) analysis, wavelet detection and frequency estimation. With the intercepted massive FH signal data, long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network model is constructed for FH frequency prediction. Simulation results show that our parameter estimation methods could estimate frequency accurately in the presence of certain noise. Moreover, the LSTM-based scheme can effectively predict FH frequency and frequency interval.
  • Guest Editorial
    Mingqian Liu, Chunheng Liu, Ming Li, Yunfei Chen, Shifei Zheng, Nan Zhao
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 52-63.
    Passive detection of moving target is an important part of intelligent surveillance. Satellite has the potential to play a key role in many applications of space-air-ground integrated networks (SAGIN). In this paper, we propose a novel intelligent passive detection method for aerial target based on reservoir computing networks. Specifically, delayed feedback networks are utilized to refine the direct signals from the satellite in the reference channels. In addition, the satellite direct wave interference in the monitoring channels adopts adaptive interference suppression using the minimum mean square error filter. Furthermore, we employ decoupling echo state networks to predict the clutter interference in the monitoring channels and construct the detection statistics accordingly. Finally, a multilayer perceptron is adopted to detect the echo signal after interference suppression. Extensive simulations is conducted to evaluate the performance of our proposed method. Results show that the detection probability is almost 100% when the signal-to-interference ratio of echo signal is -36dB, which demonstrates that our proposed method achieves efficient passive detection for aerial targets in typical SAGIN scenarios.
  • Guest Editorial
    Ziyong Li, Yuxiang Hu, Di Zhu, Jiangxing Wu, Yunjie Gu
    China Communications. 2022, 19(1): 40-51.
    The Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN) realizes the integration of space, air, and ground networks, obtaining the global communication coverage. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architecture in SAGIN has become a promising solution to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS). However, the current routing algorithms mainly focus on the QoS of the service, rarely considering the security requirement of flow. To realize the secure transmission of flows in SAGIN, we propose an intelligent flow forwarding scheme with endogenous security based on Mimic Defense (ESMD-Flow). In this scheme, SDN controller will evaluate the reliability of nodes and links, isolate malicious nodes based on the reliability evaluation value, and adapt multipath routing strategy to ensure that flows are always forwarded along the most reliable multiple paths. In addition, in order to meet the security requirement of flows, we introduce the programming data plane to design a multi-protocol forwarding strategy for realizing the multi-protocol dynamic forwarding of flows. ESMD-Flow can reduce the network attack surface and improve the secure transmission capability of flows by implementing multipath routing and multi-protocol hybrid forwarding mechanism. The extensive simulations demonstrate that ESMD-Flow can significantly improve the average path reliability for routing and increase the difficulty of network eavesdropping while improving the network throughput and reducing the average packet delay.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Hang Yang, Shilie Zheng, Wei He, Xianbin Yu, Xianmin Zhang
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 131-152.
    To accommodate the ever-increasing wireless capacity, the terahertz (THz) orbital angular momentum (OAM) beam that combines THz radiation and OAM technologies has attracted much attention recently, with contributing efforts to explore new dimensions in the THz region. In this paper, we provide an overview of the generation and detection techniques of THz-OAM beams, as well as their applications in communications. The principle and research status of typical generation and detection methods are surveyed, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are summarized from a viewpoint of wireless communication. It is shown that developing novel THz components in generating, detecting and (de)multiplexing THz-OAM beams has become the key engine to drive this direction forward. Anyway, beneficial from the combination of infinite orthogonal modes and large bandwidth, THz-OAM beams will have great potential in delivering very large capacity in next generation wireless communications.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: TERAHERTZ WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
    Yan Zhang, Lei Zhao, Zunwen He
    China Communications. 2021, 18(5): 50-65.
    To meet the demands for the explosive growth of mobile data rates and scarcity of spectrum resources in the near future, the terahertz (THz) band has widely been regarded as a key enabler for the upcoming beyond fifth-generation (B5G) wireless communications. An accurate THz channel model is crucial for the design and deployment of the THz wireless communication systems. In this paper, a three-dimensional (3-D) dynamic indoor THz channel model is proposed by means of combining deterministic and stochastic modeling approaches. Clusters are randomly distributed in the indoor environment and each ray is characterized with consideration of molecular absorption and diffuse scattering. Moreover, we present the dynamic generation procedure of the channel impulse responses (CIRs). Statistical properties are investigated to indicate the non-stationarity and feasibility of the proposed model. Finally, by comparing with delay spread and K-factor results from the measurements, the utility of the proposed channel model is verified.
  • FEATURE TOPIC: EVOLUTIONARY TRENDS OF INTELLIGENT IOT NETWORKING FOR COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL USE CASES
    Jijun Ren, Peng Zhu, Zhiyuan Ren
    China Communications. 2023, 20(8): 1-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23919/JCC.fa.2022-0705.202308

    With the rapid development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the traditional centralized cloud processing model has encountered the challenges of high communication latency and high energy consumption in handling industrial big data tasks. This paper aims to propose a low-latency and low-energy path computing scheme for the above problems. This scheme is based on the cloud-fog network architecture. The computing resources of fog network devices in the fog computing layer are used to complete task processing step by step during the data interaction from industrial field devices to the cloud center. A collaborative scheduling strategy based on the particle diversity discrete binary particle swarm optimization (PDBPSO) algorithm is proposed to deploy manufacturing tasks to the fog computing layer reasonably. The task in the form of a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is mapped to a factory fog network in the form of an undirected graph (UG) to find the appropriate computing path for the task, significantly reducing the task processing latency under energy consumption constraints. Simulation experiments show that this scheme's latency performance outperforms the strategy that tasks are wholly offloaded to the cloud and the strategy that tasks are entirely offloaded to the edge equipment.