IEEE Communications Magazine is a hybrid open access periodical. IEEE has recently signed an agreement with academic institutions in your country offering the possibility for authors affiliated to these institutions to publish in open access periodicals at no additional cost (more details at Institutional OA Agreements - IEEE Open).

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IEEE Communications Magazine covers all areas of communications such as lightwave telecommunications, high-speed data communications, personal communications systems (PCS), ISDN, and more. It includes special feature technical articles and monthly departments: book reviews, conferences, short courses, standards, governmental regulations and legislation, new products, and Society news such as administration and elections.

IEEE Communications Magazine (ComMag) is a flagship publication of the IEEE Communications Society and the world’s most recognized magazine in Telecommunications with a top-ranking Impact Factor.
ComMag serves its broad readership by publishing highest-quality, accessible and tutorial papers in three main tracks:
1) regularly scheduled Series addressing selected areas in the telecommunications field,
2) individually from open call on an ongoing basis, and
3) as part of very selective Feature Topics (FTs) which focus on emerging trends and hot subjects.

We would like to invite you to submit your manuscript to
IEEE Communications Magazine Series on
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DATA SCIENCE FOR COMMUNICATIONS

https://www.comsoc.org/publications/magazines/ieee-communications-magazine/cfp/artificial-intelligence-and-data-science

Please use this link to submit your new manuscript to the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for Communications Series:

https://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/COMMAG-IEEE


CALL FOR PAPERS
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The objective of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for Communications Series is to provide a forum across industry and academia to advance the development of network and system solutions using data science and artificial intelligence.

Advances of the Internet, mobile and fixed communications, and computing have opened new frontiers for tomorrow’s data-centric society. New applications are increasingly depending on machine-to-machine communications, in turn creating untraditional workloads and demanding more efficient and reliable infrastructures. Such immensely diverse traffic workloads and applications will require dynamic and highly adaptive network environments that are capable of self-optimization for the task at hand while guaranteeing high reliability and ultra-low latency.

Networking devices, sensors, agents, meters, smart vehicles/systems generate tremendous amounts of data while requiring new levels of security, performance, and reliability. Such complexities demand new tools and methodologies for effective services, management, and operation. Predictive network analytics will have an important role in insight generation, process automation required for adapting and scaling to new demands, resolving issues before they impact operational performance (e.g. prevent network failures, anticipate capacity requirements), and overall decision making throughout the network. Data mining and analytic tools for inferring quality of experience (QoE) signals are needed to improve user experience and service quality.

Innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning and network data analytics introduce new opportunities in various areas, such as channel modeling and estimation, cognitive communications, interference alignment, mobility management, resource allocation, network control and management, network tomography, multi-agent systems, prioritization of network ultra-broadband deployments. These new analytic platforms will help revolutionize our networks and user experience. Through gathering, processing, learning and controlling the vast amounts of information in an intelligent manner future networks will enable unprecedented automation and optimization.

This Series solicits articles addressing numerous topics within its scope including, but not limited to, the following:

All aspects of artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning and data analytics aiming at enabling and enhancing next generation networks. The scope of issues that can be addressed includes both conventional measures such as traffic management, QoE, service quality, as well as future network behavior through intelligent services and applications.
Methods, systems and infrastructure for the analysis of network, service traffic and user behavior for efficient and reliable design of networks, including deep learning and statistical methods for network tomography.
Predictive analytics and artificial intelligence for network optimization, network security, network assurance, and data privacy and integrity. Diagnosis of network failures using analytics and AI.
Automated communication infrastructure among smart machines and agents (including humans, e.g. speech and vision), and information fusion for automation and enablement of multi-agent systems.
Communication and networking to facilitate smart data-centric applications

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts must be submitted through the magazine’s submissions Website, Manuscript Central. You will need to register and then proceed to the author center. On the manuscript details page, please select Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for Communications Series from the drop-down menu. Manuscripts should be tutorial in nature and should not be under review for any other conference or journal. They should be written in a style comprehensible and accessible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Mathematical equations should not be used. For detailed submission guidelines please refer to the magazine website for the list of Manuscript Submission Guidelines that must be followed by all submissions to the IEEE Communications Magazine.

Papers can be submitted anytime during the year. They will receive a review process, and, if accepted, they will be published in the first slot available for this Series.

Sincerely,
the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science for Communications Series Editors

Special Issue on Near-Field MIMO Technologies Towards 6G
Submission Date: 2023-12-30

MIMO has been widely adopted into wireless standards and commercial deployments from 4G LTE (long term evolution) to 5G NR (new radio), as well as IEEE 802.11n/ac/ax (also known as Wi-Fi 4/5/6), etc. In the past few years, 6G research and development activities have been initiated and are heating up worldwide. The extreme requirements of 6G set a challenging target for the wireless community towards the next decade, which call for great efforts in research, standardization, development, and trial activities to realize 6G commercialization in 2030. Among the many candidate key technologies, MIMO still plays an important role to boost the system performance, especially with higher frequency band and larger antenna array size. After several decades of research, standardization, and implementation, one important question to answer now is how MIMO can continue to evolve. 

The radiation field of antenna array can be divided into far-field and near-field. In the far-field, the wave front is approximately planar, while in the near-field, the spherical wave front shall be considered. The near-field boundary is proportional to the aperture size and the carrier frequency. For 5G and previous systems, far-field assumption is widely adopted and reasonable, considering that low frequency and small array aperture yields negligible near-field, i.e., less than 1 meter. However, due to the increasing carrier frequency and array size, the near-field range can be up to tens or hundreds of meters, which should be considered for 6G system design. NF-MIMO technologies have the potential to open up a new era of MIMO evolution, not only to increase the communications capacity, but also to closely interact with other emerging technologies, including reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), integrated communications and sensing (ISAC), and wireless AI/ML, etc. With collaborative efforts from both academy and industry, NF-MIMO may reshape the MIMO technologies in the future. 

Some recent studies reveal that near-field MIMO technologies are promising to significantly improve the system performance towards 5G-Advanced and 6G. However, in addition to the opportunities, many challenges remain to be solved for near-field MIMO technologies. Considering the 6G standardization may start in the end of 2025, now it is a good timing to call for more research efforts worldwide to accelerate the research progress of near-field MIMO technologies. 

This Feature Topic (FT) will provide a comprehensive overview about the emerging research interests and efforts related to near-field MIMO technologies, potentially shedding some light on the future evolutions of MIMO towards 5G-Advanced, 6G and beyond. Original technical contributions are solicited in the relevant areas including, but not limited to, the following: 
- Channel modeling for near-field MIMO 
- Performance bound analysis of near-field MIMO, such as capacity, degree of freedom, etc. 
- Antenna designs to enable large array size in different bands, e.g., sub-6GHz, mmW, sub-THz, etc. 
- Near-field beamforming schemes 
- Near-field multi-layer transmission schemes for SU-MIMO, under both LOS and NLOS channel conditions 
- Near-field multi-user multiplexing schemes for MU-MIMO 
- Channel state information (CSI) acquisition, including channel sounding, channel estimation, CSI compression and feedback, etc. 
- Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) aided near-field MIMO schemes 
- Wireless sensing and imaging with near-field MIMO technologies 
- AI/ML-driven near-field MIMO algorithms design 
- Experiments and trials related to near-field MIMO technologies 
- Standards related activities (e.g., IEEE, 3GPP, or reginal SDOs, etc.)

Special Issue on Integrated Non Terrestrial and Terrestrial (NTN/TN) Quantum Networks
Submission Date: 2023-12-31

Quantum networks towards the so-called Quantum Internet are the ultimate target in quantum communications, where many connected users can share information carried by quantum systems. The keystones of such structures are the reliable generation, transmission, and manipulation of quantum states.

The framework of the future Quantum Internet (QI) is modeled as an entangled network structure, based on quantum entanglement and teleportation phenomena. The most critical issues still concern the creation of entanglement over long distances, due to the exponential losses of fiber optics.

In order to further address the limitation of optical fibers, freespace quantum links have been considered in recent years and quantum links are already tested between satellite and ground stations for quantum key exchange.

As consequence, the satellite segment will gain a fundamental role to achieve a global scale quantum communication network. Recently, a large scale Low- Earth -Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation is considered for this purpose also in hierarchical double layer with GEO satellite. Moreover, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are expected to be a breakthrough technology together with constellation of quantum satellites (CQS) towards a global Quantum Internet.

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers on this Feature Topic (FT) including, but not limited to:

- Integrated Non Terrestrial and Terrestrial (NTN/TN) Quantum Networks
- Satellite Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)
- Ad hoc quantum satellite backbone design
- Quantum satellite channel
- Ad hoc quantum UAV network design
- Quantum communications
- Quantum Internet protocol stack
- Quantum cryptography
- High dimensional quantum communication
- Quantum Routing
- Co-existence quantum and classical signal
- Quantum Sensing
- Hybrid classical-quantum systems
- Standardization approaches for quantum communications
- Quantum cloud

Special Issue on Techno-Economic Analysis of Telecommunications Systems
Submission Date: 2024-02-15

Techno-economics methods are essential for evaluating telecommunications systems. For example, the success or failure of new telecommunications technologies and business models depend on achieving techno-economic viability. Indeed, network operators must be able to generate revenue streams which outweigh required investment costs. Given this circumstance, there is a great need for research which considers both techno-economic aspects of different technologies, and the methodological aspects of techno-economic techniques.

As new telecommunication technologies emerge from R&D laboratories and are assessed for deployment, a range of questions need to be answered by network operators and policy makers. These include a range of questions pertaining to the provided capacity, coverage, and enhanced Quality of Service. For example, how cost-efficient is a new technology? How profitable may a new network deployment be and what is the expected return on investment? How much financial risk is potentially involved if demand is lower than forecast, and what mitigation strategies could be implemented at the planning stage?

Given the evolution of telecommunications markets in different regions across the world, the following types of networks require continuous techno-economic assessment: mobile access networks (Long Term Evolution (LTE), 5G, 6G, etc.), fixed access networks (Fiber-To-The-x, cable networks, copper-based networks etc.), different types of unlicensed wireless access networks (Wi-Fi, Li-Fi, etc.), satellite networks (Low Earth Orbit, geosynchronous equatorial orbit), aerial platforms, fixed wireless access networks, cloud networks, backhaul networks, transport and optical networks, core networks (mobile, fixed), and applications systems. Additionally, as many networks are dependent on access to spectrum (which is experiencing increased scarcity), the techno-economics of spectrum sharing is also a key area of interest.

The telecommunication sector is undergoing fundamental changes, driven by new market and technical developments, in combination with the continued influence of capital and financial markets. Furthermore, the telecommunications sector is becoming more competitive due to the increased number of network and service providers, offering customers a variety of communication products and services. The sector is also critical for society as the provider of critical infrastructure necessary for digital transformation. Finally, renewable energy and power consumption reduction aspects play an important role in current and future telecom networks, and broader world economy.

The goal of this Feature Topic (FT) is to contribute state-of-the-art methods and findings from the application of techno-economic assessment to telecommunications systems. The Feature Topic will consider studies conducted for advanced and emerging markets. Authors of manuscripts can take as reference the articles that were published in the Special Issue about techno-economics for telecommunications published in the February 2023 issue of the IEEE Communications Magazine. Subjects of interest in the 2024 Feature Topic include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Techno-economic assessment
- Cost considerations: capital expenditure (CAPEX), operational expenditure (OPEX), total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Business case assessment and business case frameworks
- Risk analysis
- Financial analysis: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), net present value (NPV), cash flows, return on investment (ROI), return on invested capital (ROIC) etc.
- Revenue calculation, demand analysis
- Business models
- Uncertainty quantification in techno-economic models (e.g., sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo)
- Importance of techno-economics for the definition of new telecommunications technologies 

Special Issue on Internet of Sounds
Submission Date: 2024-02-29

Current sound-based practices and systems point to convergent research trends that bring together the field of Sound and Music Computing with that of the Internet of Things (IoT). These endeavors are spurring the emergence of the Internet of Sounds (IoS) research area. The IoS relates to the network of devices capable of sensing, acquiring, processing, actuating, and exchanging data serving the purpose of communicating sound-related information. The IoS can be seen as the union of two paradigms: the Internet of Musical Things and the Internet of Audio Things, which respectively address musical and non-musical domains in networked contexts.

In the past few years the IoS area has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers in both industrial and academic contexts. Today there is a flowering of scholarly interest in the IoS as demonstrated by an increasing number of publications on IoS related topics, the growing number of practitioners gathering at the annual conference of the community (the International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds), as well as the creation of a dedicated Emerging Technology Initiative by the IEEE Communications Society.

This Feature Topic (FT) aims to bring together researchers, industry practitioners, and individuals working on IoS systems and related areas to share their new ideas, latest findings, and state-of-the-art results. Prospective authors are invited to submit articles on topics including, but not limited to:

- 5G/6G architectures for the Internet of Sounds
- Wireless acoustic sensor networks
- Networked music performance systems
- Spatial Audio for the Internet of Sounds
- Networked Musical XR
- Detection and classification of sounds in acoustic sensor networks
- Machine learning over wireless networks of embedded audio systems
- Sound-based anomaly detection and sound-based predictive maintenance in networked settings
- Web Audio for the Internet of Sounds
- Packet loss concealment methods
- Protocols and exchange formats for the Internet of Sounds
- Cloud-based services for musical and audio applications
- Music education applications for the Internet of Musical Things
- Intelligent music production in Internet of Musical Things contexts
- Musical haptics for the Internet of Musical Things
- Sonification for Internet of Sounds applications
- Improving accessibility and inclusiveness within the Internet of Sounds
- Semantic Audio applications for the Internet of Sounds
- Sustainability and ethical aspects of the Internet of Sounds
- Privacy and security in the Internet of Sounds
- Industrial applications of the Internet of Sounds
- Implementation/experimental results of prototypes/testbeds 

Special Issue on Digital Twins Meet Artificial Intelligence in 6G
Submission Date: 2024-03-31

Digital twins (DTs) and artificial intelligence (AI) are two vital technologies that are anticipated to play a significant role in the development and deployment of the sixth generation (6G) communication systems. A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical object, system, or process, including its components, behavior, and data. DTs can be used to model complex systems in real time, providing valuable insights into system behavior and performance. AI, on the other hand, can provide advanced analytics and decision-making capabilities, enabling communication systems to self-optimize, self-configure, and self-heal. The integration of DTs and AI offers a powerful approach for modeling, simulating, and optimizing 6G communication systems. It is expected to lead to the creation of a highly intelligent and dynamic network environment, where physical and virtual objects can interact seamlessly, and where decisions can be made and executed in real time. This will improve efficiency and performance, enable new use cases and services, enhance network management, optimization, and security, automate decision making and problem solving, and drive innovation and growth.

This Feature Topic (FT) aims to contribute to the development of a comprehensive understanding of the potential and challenges of the integration of DTs and AI in the context of 6G communication systems, and to provide guidance for future research and development in this field. This Feature Topic is intended to be interdisciplinary, and contributions from a variety of fields, including computer science, electrical engineering, and communications engineering, are welcome.

This Feature Topic of integration of DTs and AI in 6G covers both theoretical and practical aspects of this field. Its scope includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

- Modeling, simulation, and optimization of networks, devices, and applications
- Network planning and design
- Network management, performance evaluation, and optimization
- Network predictive maintenance, fault diagnosis, and decision-making
- Resource management
- Green communications & computing
- Edge computing
- Internet of Things
- Industrial and vertical applications such as health, transportation, manufacturing, smart cities, smart homes, and the energy sector
- Cross-disciplinary perspectives
- Security and privacy
- Standardization, interoperability, and testing
- Testbeds, proof of concepts, field trials, and commercial deployments 

Special Issue on Experimentation in Large-Scale Wireless Community Testbeds
Submission Date: 2024-05-15

The gap between fundamental research in wireless technologies and their real-world testing has been growing rapidly. As the wireless research community pursues the “next big idea”, many discoveries and basic research findings from universities and national labs end up not getting tested in the field. Validating research outcomes via theoretical analysis and computer simulations alone carries the risk of using models that fall short of capturing real-world circumstances, including propagation conditions, waveforms, protocol aspects, and hardware impairments. These shortcomings in such evaluation methodologies may result in misleading conclusions about the real-world performance of new technology. Even when experiments are conducted, they may often be carried out with a narrow geographical and/or technical scope that is not representative of their typical deployment and operational environments, nor can they be reproduced. Many corporations, on the other hand, are often focused on product development and on short-term research agendas with an immediate impact on revenue, and market pressures may not always permit investing in fundamental research studies and their real-world testing. 

To fill this “valley of death” and enable experimentation with advanced wireless technologies at scale, various open, programmable, and remotely accessible wireless community testbeds (WCTs) have been developed in the past years. Rather than being institutional testbeds, these WCTs are meant to serve the experimental needs of the broader wireless research community. For example, in the United States, Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) WCTs have been funded by the National Science Foundation, which includes POWDER, COSMOS, AERPAW, ARA, and Colosseum, and these platforms are accessible to researchers from academia, industry, and government. In Europe, the Fed4Fire project and the new ESFRI SLICES initiative are addressing this objective. IEEE Future Networks initiative is also working on creating a virtual testing platform to accelerate innovations in 5G networks and beyond. Collectively, these WCTs support experiments in a variety of wireless propagation environments including urban, suburban, rural, fixed wireless and high-mobility, and air-to-ground. They also support experiments in various vertical use cases, including but not limited to smart cities, smart agriculture, public safety, vehicular networks, and advanced aerial mobility. Users of these WCTs can often develop and test their experiments initially using a “digital twin” of the actual testbed, which subsequently gets deployed in the real world. In parallel, fueled by the recent advances in Open RAN technologies, various Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTICs) have also been launched across the world, hosted by academic institutions and companies, to support experimentation and testing with next-generation wireless technologies developed by researchers in industry, academia, and government. 

With the WCTs and OTICS reaching fruition in the past years, we have seen an increase in the research carried out in these testbeds. Various workshops have been dedicated to studying experimental results with open-source platforms and at WCTs, including but not limited to ACM WiNTECH Workshop, IEEE INFOCOM CNERT, IEEE Testbeds4Wireless Workshop, GNU Radio Conference, IEEE Globecom FutureG Experimental Test Platforms, workshops organized by srsRAN and OpenAirInterface, workshops organized by the individual PAWR platforms, among others. With this background, this Feature Topic (FT) aims to bring together researchers, industry practitioners, and individuals working on experimentation and research in large-scale WCTs, OTICs, and their digital twins, to share their new ideas, latest findings, and state-of-the-art results. Prospective authors are invited to submit articles on topics including, but not limited to: 

- Experimental results on 5G/6G technologies in WCTs; 
- Large scale emulation experiments in digital twins; 
- Experimental studies at millimeter wave, sub-terahertz, and terahertz bands using WCTs; 
- Experimental studies on spectrum utilization, sharing, coexistence, and radio dynamic zones using WCTs; 
- Experimental studies on fundamental technologies for next generation wireless networks, including but not limited to massive MIMO, new waveforms (e.g., OTFS, FBMC), and new multiple access techniques (e.g., NOMA, RSMA); 
- Experimental and testing results on Open RAN technologies at WCTs and OTICs; 
- Field deployment and performance evaluation of AI/ML techniques using WCTs; 
- Large scale testing of non-cellular technologies including WiFi and LoRa at WCTs; 
- Channel propagation measurements and modeling using WCTs; 
- Experimentation on vertical use case scenarios using WCTs, including but not limited smart cities, smart agriculture, smart grids, public safety, vehicular networks, and drones; 
- Research studies documenting design, development, deployment, and operational challenges of WCTs and OTICs; 
- Current and emerging use cases of WCTs and lessons learned from experimentation with 3GPP, O-RAN, WiFi, and other standards at WCTs; 
- Open research data and reproducibility of experiments; 
- Experiences in configuring WCTs as a general-purpose data generation platform that can serve more than one specific use case.