Mobile Communications and Networks Series

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Since the early research on MIMO several decades ago and the early adoption of MIMO into wireless standards and commercial deployments such as 4G LTE (long term evolution), MIMO has become an even-increasingly important part of recent advances in wireless standardization in IEEE (e.g., 802.11be) and in 3GPP (e.g., 5G). In particular, MIMO is one of the key technical enablers for 5G in 3GPP in accommodating use cases and services such as evolved mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliability low latency communications (URLLC), QoS-demanding extended reality (XR), mobilizing and commercializing millimeter wave (mmw) deployments, and matching or bettering LTE coverage at higher carrier frequencies. More recently, a study on integrating AI/ML into 5G with MIMO as a primary use case was started in 3GPP, as part of 5G-Advanced.

Early days of MIMO standardization focused on a limited number of transmit antennas and receive antennas for macro deployments. The first release of 4G standardized both closed-loop and open-loop MIMO, where both channel measurement and data demodulation are based on a cell-specific reference signal (CRS), up to 4 ports and common to all users in a cell. Since channel and interference conditions, consequently the potential MIMO operations, are specific to each user, user-specific channel-state-information reference signals (CSI-RS) and demodulation reference signals (DM-RS) were introduced not-long-after. Combined with multi-carrier aggregation and other technical enablers, the evolutions of MIMO gradually pushed 4G LTE to reach hundreds of Mbps and even to the Gbps level that can be enjoyed by LTE users.

MIMO in 5G in 3GPP played an even important role, where massive number of transmit antennas and receive antennas are possible especially at higher carrier frequencies in various deployment scenarios (e.g., macro/small cells, indoor or outdoor). For example, due to the shift towards higher frequencies in 5G and the increasing demand for in-building capacity, 5G deployment becomes more densified, including the potential increase of usage of distributed antenna systems (DAS). While MIMO is an indispensable part for throughput and capacity (e.g., up to 8-layer for single-user MIMO, and up to 24 orthogonal DM-RS ports for multi-user MIMO), MIMO is also an essential element for many advances in 5G, including:

• Satisfying URLLC services, where besides multi-layer and transmit diversity, a user can be served by multiple transmit and receive points (TRPs) with the corresponding enhancements in channel feedback and control and data communications;
• Serving XR services, which are extremely demanding due to high throughput and low latency needs. Consequently, it is even more critical to exploit channel and interference conditions;
• Mobilizing mmw based commercial deployments, where beam management is essential to ensure robust operations within one cell and across cells with good coverage; and
• Matching or bettering LTE coverage, where 5G may be deployed reusing the same LTE sites but at higher carrier frequencies. Advanced beamforming is thus necessary not only for control and data channels serving traffic needs of users, but also for channels and signals enabling initial access for users, such as synchronization signals, random access channels, etc.

As the interest level on AI/ML grows, a new study was recently kicked-off in 3GPP as part of 5G-Advanced. Channel state information feedback and beam management enhancements are two important use cases for the study. With the help of AI/ML, further advances in MIMO are possible in terms of improved throughput with a same amount of overhead, or reduced overhead with a same throughput need, or a combination thereof.

The interest level of AI/ML is expected to be even higher for future generations of wireless standards, e.g., 6G, where AI/ML and MIMO may be more tightly integrated. Technological advances and practical needs will evolve MIMO, including the need to exploit an extremely large number of antennas (e.g., >1000). There is also strong interest for MIMO in other areas, such as fiber optics, automotive radar, etc.

This Feature Topic will provide a comprehensive presentation of the state-of-the-art findings including technology, theory, design, optimization, and applications of MIMO, potentially shaping future evolutions of MIMO in research and standardization. Original technical contributions are solicited in the relevant areas including, but not limited to, the following:

• Channel modelling for MIMO
• MIMO performance such as capacity, outage capacity, coverage/link budget, etc., for both downlink and uplink
• Reliability and robustness for MIMO
• Channel state information including measurement and feedback for MIMO
• Channel estimation and demodulation for MIMO
• Single-user and multi-user MIMO
• Single-TRP and multi-TRP MIMO
• Expanded and new services for MIMO
• MIMO for sidelink (e.g., peer-to-peer, vehicle-to-everything or V2X) communications
• Future areas for MIMO in wireless, e.g., gigantic MIMO with extremely large number of antennas, AI/ML for MIMO, etc.
• Standards related activities (e.g., IEEE, 3GPP, etc.)

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Manuscript Submission Guidelines in the IEEE Communications Magazine website. Please, check these guidelines carefully before submitting since submissions not complying with them will be administratively rejected without review.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Author Portal. Select the “Series Mobile Communications and Networks” topic from the drop-down menu of topics and indicating "MIMO evolutions" in Keywords. Please observe the dates specified here below noting that there will be no extension of the submission deadline.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 January 2023
Decision Notification: 31 March 2023
Final Manuscript Due: 15 April 2023
Tentative Publication Date: Third Quarter 2023

Series Editors

Wanshi Chen (Lead Editor)
Qualcomm Inc., USA

Ilker Demirkol
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain

Miraj Mostafa
American Tower Corporation (ATC), USA

Stefano Ruffini
Ericsson, Italy

Honorary Guest Editor

Arogyaswami Paulraj
Stanford University, USA