I welcome you to the third issue of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials in 2024. This issue includes 19 papers covering different aspects of communication networks. In particular, these articles survey and tutor various issues in “Wireless Communications”, “Cyber Security”, “Network Virtualization”, “Vehicular and Sensor Communications”, “Multimedia Communications”, “Network and Service Management

In this survey paper, we first provide insights on the evolution of radio access networks (RANs) through investigating the existing paradigms and future trends towards 6G. We then present the fully-decoupled RAN (FD-RAN), which aligns with the trends by integrating existing paradigms and introducing new features such as physical decoupling of uplink and downlink base stations. We also discuss the key

The growing interest in the Metaverse has generated momentum for members of academia and industry to innovate toward realizing the Metaverse world. The Metaverse is a unique, continuous, and shared virtual world where humans embody a digital form within an online platform. Through a digital avatar, Metaverse users should have a perceptual presence within the environment and can interact and control

Autonomous vehicles and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have started to become a reality in recent years. However, shortcomings of these early intelligent vehicles demonstrate a need to increase an intelligent vehicle’s perceptual bubble beyond the vehicle’s onboard sensors. Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications is a technology intended to enable intelligent vehicles to increase their perceptive

The digital transformation within the automotive industry is accelerating towards an era dominated by autonomous vehicles, with vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications being a fundamental enabler for this advancement. As vehicular networks evolve to meet the complex demands of autonomous driving, traditional communication systems encounter limitations in bandwidth and data transfer rates. Millimeter-wave

Home networks increasingly support important networked applications with limited professional network administration support, while sophisticated attacks pose enormous security risks for networked applications. A Unified Threat Management (UTM) system strives to comprehensively protect a home network by providing firewall, intrusion detection and prevention, as well as antibot protection in an integrated

In this tutorial we present recipes for dynamic systemlevel simulations (SLSs) of 5G and beyond cellular radio systems. A key ingredient for such SLSs is selection of proper models to make sure that the performance determining effects are properly reflected to ensure output of realistic radio performance results. We therefore present a significant number of SLS models and related methodologies for

In this paper, we review the current state-of-the-art of resource allocation for power line communication systems. The study systematically presents the advancements achieved in this field over the past decades. To achieve this, we adopt two complementary perspectives: a power line communication-centric view and an optimization-centric view. The former highlights resource allocation within the eye

Despite the great success of blockchain systems in recent years, blockchains still struggle to provide the same level of latency and throughput as centralized financial systems. The core of this problem lies in the inefficiency of consensus protocols. In this paper, we provide a survey on recent efforts to improve the scalability of blockchains. We focus on layer-two protocols, such as payment channel

Modern interactive and data-intensive applications must operate under demanding time constraints, prompting a shift toward the adoption of specialized software and hardware network acceleration technologies. This specialization, however, poses significant scalability, flexibility, security, and economic sustainability challenges for application developers. Cloud computing holds the potential to overcome

Interfaces play a crucial role in the Fifth Generation (5G) architecture as they interconnect Network Functions (NFs) to exchange data and services. Certain interfaces are particularly critical because they are involved in the exchange of sensitive data or are exposed externally. To the best of our knowledge, no literature work analyzes the 5G security from a network architecture or interface perspective

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most promising new millennial technologies, having numerous applications in our surrounding environment. The fundamental goal of an IoT system is to ensure effective communication between users and their devices, which is accomplished through the application layer of IoT. For this reason, the security of protocols employed at the IoT application layer are

The effects of transport development on people’s lives are diverse, ranging from economy to tourism, health care, etc. Great progress has been made in this area, which has led to the emergence of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) concept. The main objective of this concept is to offer a safer and more comfortable travel experience through making available a vast array of applications, by relying on a

Indoor positioning technology has become undisputedly pervasive in modern society. It can be used for numerous applications in various environments, ranging from agriculture to smart industry. Among the different indoor positioning technologies, the development of the indoor visible light positioning (VLP) system has gained momentum recently thanks to its low cost and centimetre-order accuracy. Moreover

Smart cities demand resources for rich immersive sensing, ubiquitous communications, powerful computing, large storage, and high intelligence (SCCSI) to support various kinds of applications, such as public safety, connected and autonomous driving, smart and connected health, and smart living. At the same time, vehicles equipped with significantly powerful SCCSI capabilities are expected to become

I welcome you to the first issue of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials in 2024. This issue includes 18 papers covering different aspects of communication networks. In particular, these articles survey and tutor various issues in “Wireless Communications”, “Cyber Security”, “IoT and M2M”, “Vehicular and Sensor Communications”, “Internet Technologies”, “Network Virtualization” and “Network

Frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) have attracted extensive attention for suppressing interference and improving channel quality and coverage by selectively transmitting or directionally reflecting electromagnetic waves in a specific frequency range in wireless communication networks. Therefore, FSS technology is considered to be another candidate after intelligent reflective surfaces (IRSs) in the

Communication security has to evolve to a higher plane in the face of the threat from the massive computing power of the emerging quantum computers. Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) constitutes a promising branch of quantum communication, which is provably secure and overcomes the threat of quantum computing, whilst conveying secret messages directly via the quantum channel. In this survey

Deep learning shows immense potential for strengthening the cyber-resilience of renewable energy supply chains. However, research gaps in comprehensive benchmarks, real-world model evaluations, and data generation tailored to the renewable domain persist. This study explores applying state-of-the-art deep learning techniques to secure renewable supply chains, drawing insights from over 300 publications

Sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication networks are expected to have dense infrastructures, large antenna size, wide bandwidth, cost-effective hardware, diversified positioning methods, and enhanced intelligence. Such trends bring both new challenges and opportunities for the practical design of 6G. On one hand, acquiring channel state information (CSI) in real time for all wireless links becomes

Security at the physical layer (PHY) is a salient research topic in wireless systems, and machine learning (ML) is emerging as a powerful tool for providing new data-driven security solutions. Therefore, the application of ML techniques to the PHY security is of crucial importance in the landscape of more and more data-driven wireless services. In this context, we first summarize the family of bespoke

Due to the greatly improved capabilities of devices, massive data, and increasing concern about data privacy, Federated Learning (FL) has been increasingly considered for applications to wireless communication networks (WCNs). Wireless FL (WFL) is a distributed method of training a global deep learning model in which a large number of participants each train a local model on their training datasets

With the development of quantum technologies, the quantum Internet has demonstrated unique applications beyond the classical Internet and has been investigated extensively in recent years. In the construction of conventional Internet software, the protocol stack is the core architecture for coordinating modules. How to design a protocol stack for the quantum Internet is a challenging problem. In this

Communication in millimeter wave (mmWave) and even terahertz (THz) frequency bands is ushering in a new era of wireless communications. Beam management, namely initial access and beam tracking, has been recognized as an essential technique to ensure robust mmWave/THz communications, especially for mobile scenarios. However, narrow beams at higher carrier frequency lead to huge beam measurement overhead

Due to the ever-growing powers in sensing, computing, communicating and storing, mobile devices (e.g., smartphone, smartwatch, smart glasses) become ubiquitous and an indispensable part of people’s daily life. Until now, mobile devices have been adopted in many applications, e.g., exercise assessment, daily life monitoring, human-computer interactions, user authentication, etc. Among the various applications

Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) are expected to be a critical component of 6th Generation (6G) networks, providing ubiquitous, continuous, and scalable services. Satellites emerge as the primary enabler for NTN, leveraging their extensive coverage, stable orbits, scalability, and adherence to international regulations. However, satellite-based NTN presents unique challenges, including long propagation

With the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there is an increasing need to prioritize their security, especially in the context of identity and authentication mechanisms. However, IoT devices have unique limitations in terms of computational capabilities and susceptibility to hardware attacks, which pose significant challenges to establishing strong identity and authentication systems

Blockchain is becoming increasingly popular in the business and academic communities because it can provide security for a wide range of applications. Therefore, researchers have been motivated to exploit blockchain characteristics, such as data immutability, transparency, and resistance to single-point failures in the Internet of Things (IoT), to increase the security of the IoT ecosystem. However

The fifth generation (5G) and beyond wireless networks are envisioned to provide an integrated communication and computing platform that will enable multipurpose and intelligent networks driven by a growing demand for both traditional end users and industry verticals. This evolution will be realized by innovations in both core and access capabilities, mainly from virtualization technologies and ultra-dense

Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC) is an automated method for generating, manipulating, and modifying valuable and diverse data using AI algorithms creatively. This survey paper focuses on the deployment of AIGC applications, e.g., ChatGPT and Dall-E, at mobile edge networks, namely mobile AIGC networks, that provide personalized and customized AIGC services in real time while maintaining

The importance of safeguarding individuals’ privacy rights in online activities is unmistakable in today’s anonymity networks. Since the introduction of Mixnet by Chaum, numerous anonymity networks with different objectives and design principles have emerged, providing a diverse range of applications for privacy-conscious users. However, security issues in anonymity networks have persistently existed

Extremely large-scale multiple-input-multiple-output (XL-MIMO), which offers vast spatial degrees of freedom, has emerged as a potentially pivotal enabling technology for the sixth generation (6G) of wireless mobile networks. With its growing significance, both opportunities and challenges are concurrently manifesting. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of research on XL-MIMO wireless systems

Building complex entities like Network Slices and their Subnets requires proper models and methods to allow their convenient design and deployment. Despite significant progress in the standardization of the basic Network Slicing concepts, for many it still remains unclear how to organize a Network Slice/Subnet design process that would be aligned to the currently standardized, declarative style of

Metaverse is an evolving orchestrator of the next-generation Internet architecture that produces an immersive and self-adapting virtual world in which humans perform activities similar to those in the real world, such as playing sports, doing work, and socializing. It is becoming a reality and is driven by ever-evolving advanced technologies such as extended reality, artificial intelligence, and blockchain

With the advancement of wireless communication to sub-terahertz (THz) and millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands, accurate channel models and simulation tools are becoming increasingly important for modeling a wide range of frequencies and scenarios. This paper provides a comprehensive tutorial on generating drop-based and spatial consistency-based channels using the open-source MATLAB-based NYU Channel Model

The proliferation of Wi-Fi devices has led to the rise of privacy concerns related to MAC Address-based systems used for people tracking and localization across various applications, such as smart cities, intelligent transportation systems, and marketing. These systems have highlighted the necessity for mobile device manufacturers to implement Randomized And Changing MAC address (RCM) techniques as

The next frontier in wireless connectivity lies at the intersection of cognitive radio (CR) technology and machine learning (ML), where intelligent networks can provide pervasive connectivity for an ever-expanding range of applications. In this regard, this survey provides an in-depth examination of the integration of ML-based CR in a wide range of emerging wireless networks, including the Internet

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are increasingly relying on machine learning (ML) techniques to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency. However, the adoption of ML also exposes CPS to potential adversarial ML attacks witnessed in the literature. Specifically, the increased Internet connectivity in CPS has resulted in a surge in the volume of data generation and communication frequency among devices

Recent advancements in wireless local area network (WLAN) technology include IEEE 802.11be and 802.11ay, often known as Wi-Fi 7 and WiGig, respectively. The goal of these developments is to provide Extremely High Throughput (EHT) and low latency to meet the demands of future applications like as 8K videos, augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things, telesurgery, and other developing technologies

Machine learning is widely used to solve networking challenges, ranging from traffic classification and anomaly detection to network configuration. However, machine learning also requires significant processing and often increases the load on both networks and servers. The introduction of in-network computing, enabled by programmable network devices, has allowed to run applications within the network

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have received considerable attention as a key enabler for envisioned 6G networks, for the purpose of improving the network capacity, coverage, efficiency, and security with low energy consumption and low hardware cost. However, integrating RISs into the existing infrastructure greatly increases the network management complexity, especially for controlling

Exploiting ultra-wide bandwidths is a promising approach to achieve the terabits per second (Tbps) data rates required to unlock emerging mobile applications like mobile extended reality and holographic telepresence. However, conventional digital systems are unable to exploit such bandwidths efficiently. In particular, the power consumption of ultra-fast, high-precision digital-to-analogue and analogue-to-digital

To meet high data rate requirements of future wireless communication systems, there is a need for advanced communication technologies that could be used in combination with existing wireless RF technologies. Recently, optical wireless communication (OWC) has been extensively investigated as an attractive alternate technology to RF. OWC uses the optical carrier to convey data, with wavelengths ranging

The cloud-edge-terminal collaborative network (CETCN) is considered as a novel paradigm for emerging applications owing to its huge potential in providing low-latency and ultra-reliable computing services. However, achieving such benefits is very challenging due to the heterogeneous computing power of terminal devices and the complex environment faced by the CETCN. In particular, the high-dimensional

The proliferation of ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and smart devices in several domains embracing healthcare, Industry 4.0, transportation and agriculture are giving rise to a prodigious amount of data requiring ever-increasing computations and services from cloud to the edge of the network. Fog/Edge computing is a promising and distributed computing paradigm that has drawn extensive

In the era of sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications, integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is recognized as a promising solution to upgrade the physical system by endowing wireless communications with sensing capability. Existing ISAC is mainly oriented to static scenarios with radio-frequency (RF) sensors being the primary participants, thus lacking a comprehensive environment feature