Call for Papers

With the explosive growth of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), a massive number of IoT devices will access the wireless networks for realizing advanced applications, such as metropolitan time-frequency perception, virtual navigation/virtual management, smart traffic, and environmental monitoring, etc. Next-generation wireless networks are required to provide seamless access with quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees for a massive number of IoT devices. It is predicted that the number of IoT devices will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. However, it is very challenging for the currently-used multiple-access techniques to support massive access over limited radio spectrum. Hence, the third-generation partnership project (3GPP) has identified massive IoT as one of the three main use cases of 5G, and issued a specification for cellular IoT in Release 13 in 2015. 5G is expected to be commercially available in 2020, and the evolution of the corresponding technology standard is nearing completion. Yet, 5G cannot fully satisfy the performance requirements of massive IoT. As a typical 5G cellular IoT, narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) can admit only 50,000 devices per cell. Thereby, the goal of enabling massive IoT has to be realized by beyond 5G (B5G) wireless networks. In this context, this special issue aims to give a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art theories and techniques for massive access in cellular IoT, and to provide useful guidelines for the design of B5G wireless networks. Prospective authors are invited to submit original manuscripts on massive access for 5G and beyond. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Capacity analysis and fundamental performance limits
• Access protocol design for massive access
• Low-complexity modulation and coding schemes
• Joint activity detection and channel estimation
• Orthogonal and non-orthogonal multiple access schemes
• Ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC)
• Mobility management for massive IoT
• Interference avoidance, management, and cancellation techniques
• Privacy and security guarantee for massive IoT
• Wireless charging control and energy management for IoT devices
• Practical massive MIMO and cell-free massive MIMO techniques
• Coverage enhancement based on large intelligent reflecting surfaces
• Machine learning-based massive access

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript to EDAS according to the following schedule:

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31 January 2020 (New Deadline)
First Notification: 1 April 2020
Acceptance Notification: 1 June 2020
Final Manuscript Due: 20 June 2020
Expected Publication: First/Second Quarter 2021

Guest Editors