Call for Papers

Recently, the first version of 5G NR with Massive MIMO has been finished by 3GPP and early deployments took place in 2018. However, there are many future requirements that cannot be addressed by 5G, such as exceptionally high bit rates, super low latencies, great energy efficiency, robustness against blocking, and wireless charging. It is time to analyse what lies beyond 5G, or rather what the current Multiple Antenna Technologies can be evolved into beyond what is currently envisaged. Potential paradigm shifts in wireless network design for beyond 5G are cell-free Massive MIMO, lens antenna arrays (beamspace massive MIMO), and large intelligent surfaces (LIS). Cell-free Massive MIMO consists of a large number of distributed access points (APs) that jointly serve all the users in a coordinated fashion, using only local channel state information at each AP. While the performance of cell-free Massive MIMO can be analysed using similar methodology as in cellular Massive MIMO, the fundamental limits, signal processing, and resource allocation are substantially different. In order to reduce the hardware cost and energy consumption in mmWave Massive MIMO systems, the beamspace MIMO has been proposed to significantly reduce the number of required RF chains by using lens antenna arrays or phase shifters. Alternatively, the LIS concept utilizes electromagnetically controllable surfaces that can be integrated into the existing infrastructure, for example, along the walls of buildings in a mega-city, in airports and large shopping malls, or along the structure of a stadium. There are active and partially passive forms of LIS, and variants with either large antenna spacing or continuous aperture. There are also some substantial differences between the new multiple antenna technologies and traditional MIMO systems, such as transceiver design and propagation models.

This special issue has the objective of bringing the above concepts, and other related concepts, closer to reality and will provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art on multiple antenna communications for beyond 5G. Prospective authors are invited to submit original manuscripts on these topics including, but not limited to:

• Information-theoretic analysis
• Channel and propagation modelling
• Channel estimation and feedback designs
• Precoding/decoding and power control
• Wireless resource management
• Backhaul and fronthaul designs
• Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence-based designs
• Antenna and beamforming designs
• mmWave and THz communications
• Wirelessly powered communications
• Physical layer security
• Novel waveform design and multiple access methods
• Cost efficient transceiver designs
• Transceiver hardware impairment analysis
• Distributed and cell-free network architectures
• Large intelligent surfaces, reflectarrays, and holographic beamforming
• Lens antenna arrays and beamspace MIMO processing
• Practical super directive arrays
• Prototyping, measurements and experimentation

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors must follow the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications guidelines regarding the manuscript and its format. For details and templates, please refer to the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications Author Information webpage. All papers should be submitted through EDAS according to the following schedule:

Important Dates

Manuscript Due: 1 October 2019 (Deadline Extended) 
Acceptance Notification: 1 February 2020
Final Manuscript Due: 15 February 2020
Expected Publication: Second Quarter 2020

Guest Editors

Jiayi Zhang (Lead Guest Editor)
Beijing Jiaotong University, China

Emil Björnson
Linköping University, Sweden

Michalis Matthaiou
Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Derrick Wing Kwan Ng
The University of New South Wales, Australia

Hong Yang
Nokia Bell Labs, USA

David J. Love
Purdue University, USA