Call for Papers -- Feature Topic, Vol. 19, No. 9, 2022

 

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices for maritime applications. This leads to a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications. Current maritime communication networks (MCNs) mainly rely on marine satellites and on-shore base stations (BSs). The former generally provides limited transmission rate while the latter lacks wide-area coverage capability. As a result, state-of-the-art MCN lags far behind the terrestrial fifth-generation (5G) network.

 

Beyond fifth generation (5G) era, with cutting-edge technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles/vessels, artificial intelligence, and moble edge computing, it is possible to build a new MCN to extend broadband coverage to the sea area with higher data rate and higher reliability while maintaining a lower cost and lower delay. This new MCN is expected to be a space-air-ground integrated network, which can serve randomly distributed maritime IoT devices in an on-demand manner by adaptively choosing the most efficient infrastructure/resource/transmission links. Nevertheless, the design of this new MCN also faces new challenges, e.g., different propagation environment compared to terrestrial systems, heterogeneous communication/computing/caching resources, and rigorous service demands for mission-critical applications.

 

This feature topic seeks to bring together the state-of-the-art original research, and the latest advances and innovations in theories, key technologies, and innovative applications for MCNs in beyond 5G era. We solicit high-quality original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

●Hybrid satellite-UAV-terrestrial network architecture for MCNs

●Coverage performance analysis and enhancing technologies for MCNs

●UAVs-enabled agile coverage for MCNs

●Routing methods and protocols for maritime mesh/ad-hoc networks

●Integrated sensing and communication for MCNs

●Measurements and modeling for maritime channels

●Smart channel estimation and adaptive transmission technologies for MCNs

●Radio resource management and optimization for MCNs

●Quality-of-Service guaranteeing technologies for MCNs

●Physical layer security issues in MCNs

●Mobile edge computing for MCNs

●Advanced non-orthogonal multiple access technologies for MCNs

●Artificial intelligence approaches for agile MCNs

●Hardware testbed or field trial for MCNs

Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022

Acceptance Notification (1st round): March 15, 2022

Minor Revision Due: April 30, 2022

Final Decision Due: May 30, 2022

Final Manuscript Due: June 15, 2022

Publication Date: September 15, 2022

 

Wei Feng, Tsinghua University, China

Yunfei Chen, University of Warwick, UK

Jing Li, Xidian University, China

Yanmin Wang, China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, China

Tony Q. S. Quek, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

This feature topic “Maritime Communications in 5G and Beyond Networks” invites submissions of original, previously unpublished technical papers and visionary articles exploring the architecture, technologies, and applications in agile MCNs. All submissions will be anonymously peer reviewed and will be evaluated on the basis of their technical merits. Potential topics of interest include, but not limited to areas listed above.

 

Papers should be submitted in two separate .doc files (preferred) or .pdf files: 1) Main Document (including paper title, abstract, key words, and full text); 2) Title page (including paper title, author affiliation, acknowledgement and any other information related with the authors’ identification) through the Manuscript Central. Please register or login at http://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/chinacomm, then go to the author center and follow the instructions there. Remember to select “Maritime Communications in 5G and Beyond Networks--- September Issue 2022” as your manuscript type when submitting; otherwise, it might be considered as a regular paper.

 

Each submission must be accompanied by the following information:

●an abstract of no more than 150 words

●3-8 keywords

●original photographs with high-resolution (300 dpi or greater); eps. ortif. format is preferred; sequentially numbered references.

●sequentially numbered references. The basic reference format is: author name, "article name", issue name (italic), vol., no., page, month, year. for example: Y. M. Huang, "pervateture in wireless heterogeneous…", IEEE Journal on Selected Areas, vol. 27, no. 5, pp 34-50, May, 2009.

●brief biographies of authors (50-75 words)

●contact information, including email and mailing addresses