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As the second issue in 2020 of the Optical Communications and Networks Series (OCNS), this series selects articles that cover interesting advances on devices, systems and networks regarding optical communications and networking. We are pleased to witness active innovations in this area, which will make the data exchange and processing in the future Internet more adaptive, application- aware, and cost-eff

Future generations of optical networks will require optical interfaces that operate beyond 1 Tb/s to keep up with the exploding worldwide Internet data capacity. The data converters, digital- to-analog converter (DAC) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC), significantly define the signal bandwidth that can be transmitted or received with an electro-optic transceiver. The foreseen improvements of complementary

This article reviews the recent investigations on improving modulation designs for visible light communication (VLC) systems subject to signal-dependent noise (SDN). The existence of signal-dependent noise degrades the system performance and leads to modulation deficiency issues due to the constellation distortion caused by the SDN. For single-carrier systems, a joint constellation and threshold design

The surging numbers of wireless devices and the accompanying exponential growth of user traffic have led edge and fog computing to become essential components in future access networks. By bringing more processing toward the edge of the network, they enable the realization of various demanding applications while supporting numerous resource-constrained devices. Their integration with passive optical

This work provides a techno-economic evaluation of optical disaggregation architectures in the context of metropolitan area networks. The study compares two optical disaggregation options (partial vs. total) against the legacy benchmark where optical equipment is subject to vendor lock-in, as it is deployed in most networks today. We show that emerging open source software projects within the software-defined

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One of the fascinating aspects of modern communications is how it is interwoven into every new advance in technology. In fact, it is difficult to find a new technology, renewable power generation, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc., that does not feature wireless communications in some form. The Internet of Things would not be possible without mobile networks. This is driving an explosion of interest in

Distributed ML at the network edge is a promising paradigm that can preserve both network bandwidth and privacy of data providers. However, heterogeneity and limited computation and communication resources on edge servers (or edges) pose great challenges on distributed ML and formulate a new paradigm of edge learning (i.e., edge-cloud collaborative machine learning). In this article, we propose a novel

By natively supporting in-network caching and name-based forwarding, ICN brings in features that are relevant to better support data transmission in opportunistic wireless networks. Such environments are highly challenged because of the node mobility and intermittent contacts. Therefore, forwarding packets to the right node at the right moment is critical to data retrieval performance. This article

With the prominent advancement of flight control and intelligent transportation technology, UAVs will play an important role in air traffic. Besides being deployed as dedicated aerial communication platforms, a large proportion of UAVs will be operated by different companies with various flight missions. In the existing literature, such UAVs are usually treated as consumers of spectrum resources. However

Terahertz (THz)-band communications are celebrated as a key enabling technology for next-generation wireless systems that promises to integrate a wide range of data-demanding and delay-sensitive applications. Following recent advancements in optical, electronic, and plasmonic transceiver design, integrated, adaptive, and efficient THz systems are no longer far-fetched. In this article, we present a

The Design and implementation of Devices, Circuits, and Systems Series continues to attract original articles that cover a broad range of topics in telecommunication devices, circuits and systems advances and developments. The Series welcomes contributions from various industrial sectors like healthcare, automotive, energy, agriculture, smart manufacturing, consumer electronics, smart city, VR/AR/hologram

Implantable medical devixes (IMDs) have been gaining increasing interest for their advantages of precise monitoring and diagnostics of chronic diseases. The usefulness of IMDs resides in improving the power efficiency of the implantsto- surface communication, which consumes most of the battery power. To tackle this challenging requirement, this article introduces a novel optical wireless communication

In this article, we demonstrate bringing the Internet to underwater environments by deploying a low power and compact underwater optical wireless system, called Aqua-Fi, to support today's Internet applications. Aqua-Fi uses an LED or laser to support bidirectional wide-range communication services with different requirements, low cost, and simple implementation. LEDs introduce robust short distance

In this article, we propose a hybrid positioning system (HPS) for various seamless localization applications. The base stations in the HPS incorporate four wireless protocols, namely, WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and utral-wideband (UWB); as a result, the HPS shows better target detection because it can localize persons/ objects with different positioning devices (e.g., smartphone, UWB tag, Bluetooth tag)

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Along with supporting new business opportunities, data analytics -- understood as the pursuit of extracting meaning from raw data -- will be key to getting 5G radio access networks (RANs) efficiently rolled out and operated. The exploitation of data analytics services within the RAN itself, that is, to empower the operation of the RRM algorithms executed within the RAN nodes, is an incipient area of

Cellular-connected wireless connectivity provides new opportunities for virtual reality (VR) to offer seamless user experience from anywhere at anytime. To realize this vision, the quality-of-service (QoS) for wireless VR needs to be carefully defined to reflect human perception requirements. In this article, we first identify the primary drivers of VR systems in terms of applications and use cases

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By introducing rapid and innovative network functions, software-based networking and virtualization are fundamentally revamping how the communication infrastructures are designed, programmed and operated. Network slicing, mobile edge computing, new radio access networks, and programmable cloud-native services represent some of the key technical components of future network infrastructures, including

RAN slicing refers to a vision where multiple MNOs are assigned virtual networks (i.e., slices) instantiated on top of the same physical network resources. Existing work in this area has addressed RAN slicing at different levels of network abstraction, but has often neglected the multitude of tightly intertwined inter-level operations involved in practical slicing systems. For this reason, this article

The MEC paradigm calls for a distribution of computational capacity at the network's edges. While MEC will play a key role in future 5G deployments, it will take some time until the existing 4G networks evolve into a full 5G system. A challenge exists to devise a transition mechanism that allows MEC features to be seamlessly integrated in the current 4G networks. This article introduces a lightweight

End-to-end network slicing is a novel concept based on virtualization and softwarization technology that can efficiently address the problems of legacy networks. It can leverage agile physical and network layer adaptability, and foster optimal user and system performance. These features make end-to-end network slicing suitable for scenarios such as flash crowds and emergency situations. This article

Current network virtualization allows tenants to have their own virtual networks. However, new demands to "program" virtual networks at a finer granularity have arisen as tenants want the ability to provision and control switches and links in their virtual networks. This study proposes a new concept called the p-NIaaS model. The p-NIaaS model enables tenants to program their own packet processing logic

As the number of network devices is increasing and they are highly connected, network attacks have become more complex and varied. To mitigate these attacks, multiple types of network security equipment are used in combination, requiring considerable security knowledge of each type of network security equipment. Also, the deployment of network security equipment requires considerable cost and time

Distribution of accurate synchronization has been a fundamental prerequisite for the correct operation of telecommunications networks for a long time. The recent evolution of mobile networks (e.g., 5G) has further increased the need for the distribution of accurate and reliable time synchronization, due to wider use of time-division duplex (TDD) techniques and the support of critical infrastructure

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This article focuses on position, navigation, and time (PNT) applications for smart city mobility services, in particular those applicable to highly automated vehicles (HAVs). We examine precise timing applications that are being experimented from a PNT perspective. Aspects discussed include precision timing requirements for HAV, whether or not these can be met by evolving GNSS services or onboard

The finance industry is being pushed by regulation to register most of its operations with timestamps legally traceable to a Coordinated Universal Time reference with up to 1 ms error. This poses a challenge for the sector, since the most commonly used solutions to provide time in the industry might not comply with the requirements. While the typical network-based solutions might not be able to reach

Any mobile telecommunications network requires syntonization among its various elements. The need to exploit the available radio spectrum efficiently and providing new kinds of services render frequency syntonization insufficient. Phase and time-of-day synchronization will be necessary in the future. Thus, network operators are searching for efficient and reliable synchronization architectures. In

With the global spread of COVID-19 and the respective measures, the Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling frontline applications. Drones are being used for public surveillance to control the quarantine and the wearing of masks. Robots and digital assistants help us cope with indoor isolation more easily. With the aid of capable IoT devices, one can trace the origins of outbreaks and ensure patient compliance

The Internet of Things connects a large number of smart mobile devices with the Internet, where these devices are embedded with often limited communication, computation, and caching resources. To address the heterogeneity of these devices and achieve efficient overall system resource utilization, researchers have proposed various device-to-device resource sharing models, enabling mobile devices to

IoT is emerging as the future evolution of the Internet, aiming to provide connectivity for everyone and everything. Since IoT is expected to carry important and private information, a high level of PHY security is critical for wireless communications in IoT, as a complement for traditional security techniques that are employed at high layers. In this overview, we examine the recent interest in energy-efficient

In this article, we envision a hybrid opto-acoustic network design for IoUT. The software defined underwater network (SDUN) is presented as an enabler of hybridizing benefits of optic and acoustic systems and adapting IoUT nodes to the challenging and dynamically changing underwater environment. We explain inextricably interwoven relations among functionalities of different SDUN layers and analyze

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh networking is an emerging technology domain that promises an important role in the Internet of Things. Significant market opportunities for BLE mesh networking have motivated the recent development of two different BLE mesh networking standards, Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh, produced by the Bluetooth SIG and IETF, respectively. These two standards follow different technical

Many study programs include courses on communication technology. All these courses explain the basis of communication technology, but they have different levels of detail depending on the study program and the related organization. Several courses include experimental activities, and some of these are based on certification related to a network device manufacturer. This article is based on the experience

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