Call for Papers

Multi-input multi-output (MIMO) technology is proven salient in cellular wireless communications standards for improving the end-user experience by increasing the overall spectral efficiency. With the advent of antenna technologies such as active antennas and two-dimensional arrays, deploying base stations with tens or hundreds of antennas even in the 1.8 - 2.6GHz frequency regime is becoming more feasible.

As the 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard emerges, high efficiency in various applications becomes a key design criterion to showcase its differentiation from its predecessor, 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Also included in 5G NR is the use of mmWave bands where an analog-beam-based transmission/reception paradigm, termed beam management, poses a new set of challenges and requirements. The initial release of 5G NR (termed Rel-15) includes the support of high-resolution channel state information (CSI) to facilitate efficient multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) operation, multiple transmit-receive points (multi-TRP) operation, and beam management. Such features are enabled by basic components such as reference signals (RS) for facilitating demodulation and CSI measurements, CSI reporting mechanisms for link adaptation and scheduling, transmission schemes for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL), and control signaling. Some of the above features and components have been enhanced in Rel-16 and will be further enhanced in Rel-17, targeted for completion in physical layer aspects at the end of 2021.

This Special Issue (SI) solicits high-quality papers reporting on the enhanced MIMO features and components specified in Rel-16 and Rel-17 with their pertinent contexts and use cases in real-life (commercial) deployments, possible trajectories for the evolution of the 5G MIMO standards in later releases, and how further enhancing MIMO fits in a bigger picture for the evolution of 5G NR standards. Topics covered include but are not limited to:

• Recent enhancements for 5G NR MIMO in the context of commercial deployment scenarios, including:
  • High-resolution CSI for efficient MU-MIMO operation
  • Beam management for enabling mmWave communications
  • Support for multi-TRP transmissions
  • Enabling energy-efficient transmission and reliable channel measurement
• Future perspectives of the evolution of 5G NR MIMO technology, including
  • Enabling new use cases and commercial deployment scenarios such as lower and higher frequency bands, non-terrestrial networks, and industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
  • Extension of beam management for enhancing inter-cell user mobility 
• Implementation and device commercialization aspects of MIMO

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Paper Submission Guidelines. All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select “December 2021/Evolution of 5G MIMO Standards” from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 1 July 2021 1 August 2021 (Extended Deadline)
First Review Due: 1 September 2021
Revision Due: 1 October 2021
Acceptance Notification: 15 October 2021
Final Files to Publication Staff: 1 November 2021
Publication Date: December 2021

Guest Editors

Juho Lee
Samsung, South Korea

Mihai Enescu
Nokia, Finland

Asbjörn Grövlen
Ericsson, Sweden

Yu Zhang
Qualcomm, China