Call for Papers, IEEE Communications Magazine – Submission deadline 1 May 2020
IEEE Communications Magazine
THz Communications – A Catalyst for the Wireless Future
As the wireless world moves towards 6G, radio Tbit/s communications and the supporting access and backhaul network infrastructures are expected to become a promising technology trend. However, there are severe limitations regarding the capability to efficiently and flexibly meet the joint requirements of high data rate, near-zero latency, and high spectral and energy efficiency. In this context, utilizing THz frequency bands for wireless transmissions as an extension to optical fibre is a promising enabler to close this gap and to provide ubiquitous high-speed Internet access beyond 5G. Moreover, an increasing number of mobile and fixed users in the private and industry sectors will require hundreds of Gbit/s of connectivity to or between cell towers (backhaul) or between cell towers and remote radio heads (fronthaul). In such scenarios, apart from the data rates in the order of Tbit/s, other critical parameters are the communications range and the achieved spectral and energy efficiency at reasonable capital and operational expenditures.
Utilizing the THz frequency bands for access and backhaul connectivity brings unique and novel challenges that require several conventional communications and networking mechanisms to be rethought. The root cause for these challenges is the ultra-wideband and highly directional nature of THz radio links and other THz communications peculiarities, in terms of signal and antenna design, channel and interference modelling, and hardware constraints. The fundamentally different structure of radio interference due to narrow beams calls for a thorough characterization and detailed modelling of interference. Building on past propagation and channel modelling studies, contributions of the line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight reflected and scattered components should be considered, as should be the inherent molecular noise and blockage probability. Medium access control and radio resource management protocols need to operate with pencil beams and must therefore be based on radically new principles; fast handover procedures have to incorporate the time required for discovery, localization, and tracking functionalities. The Tbits/s data rates create significant challenges in transceiver processing, which include algorithm and architecture design as well as hardware implementation.
Motivated by the potential of THz technologies to shape the future of wireless communications, this Feature Topic seeks to identify the critical technology gaps as well as the feasible enablers in terms of baseband processing. These include RF frontend and antenna design; propagation and channel modelling; waveforms, signals, and coding; beamforming and (ultra-massive) MIMO; resource management and medium access control schemes; as well as relaying and routing. Most importantly, this Feature Topic (FT) aims to shed light on the potential accelerators or showstoppers in the adoption of THz communications as viewed by the different stakeholders, both incumbent and newcomers.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:
- THz propagation and channel modelling
- THz information theory and fundamentals
- Beam intelligence and spatial processing
- Baseband processing for THz links
- RF frontend and antenna design aspects
- Resource and interference management
- System-level protocol design for THz networks
- Routing and data management in THz systems
- THz prototypes, testbeds, and demonstrations
- Standardization and regulatory matters behind THz
Important Dates
Manuscript Submission Deadline: 1 May 2020
Decision Notification: 1 August 2020
Final Manuscript Due: 15 September 2020
Publication Date: November 2020
Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Please, check these guidelines carefully since they have been updated recently.
All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select the “November 2020/THz Communications” topic from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles. Please observe the dates specified here below noting that there will be no extension of submission deadline.
Guest Editors
aalexiou(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)ieee.org
University of Piraeus, Greece
Sergey Andreev
Tampere University, Finland
Gabor Fodor
Ericsson Research and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Tadao Nagatsuma
Osaka University, Japan
