Call for Papers

The fifth generation of cellular networks (5G) is significantly more complex than its predecessors due to a number of factors such as increased cell-density, differentiated service requirements, and coexistence with legacy networks. Traditional operation and management (O&M) solutions, which heavily rely on human intervention, become infeasible to support such complex networks at reasonable operating expense (OPEX).  Over the past few years, the telecommunication industry has realized that leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enable a fully automated network O&M is a must to lowering OPEX and enhancing network key performance indicators (KPIs) for 5G and beyond (B5G) and 6G networks.  There have been numerous research efforts from both industry and academia to develop AI-powered network automation solutions. Many operators have already introduced AI technology to automate some repetitive operation tasks and reduce reliance on personnel experience, such as network deployment simplification, fault detection, and KPI optimization.   

While making good initial progress for certain network O&M applications, the development of network automation solutions needs to further overcome a number of unique technical challenges that arise from telecommunication fields, including overwhelming network complexity, massive and diverse proprietary data, lack of accurate and efficient network-level simulators, and scarcity of labelled datasets. The objective of this Special Issue (SI) is to bring together the state-of-the-art research contributions that address fundamental challenges and opportunities associated with such development. We welcome submissions from AI researchers, telecommunication practitioners, and interdisciplinary scholars. The topics of interest of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• AI for network planning and construction
• AI for network maintenance and monitoring
• Network traffic prediction and classification
• AI-based RAN parameter optimization
• AI for NR air interface
• AI for next-generation RAN
• AI for coverage and capacity optimization  
• Network load balancing and traffic steering
• Intelligent network slicing
• Data-driven path-loss prediction models
• AI for network deployment automation
• AI for service quality assurance and improvement
• AI for autonomous and self-driving networks
• AI for network energy saving and efficiency improvement
• Interpretability and robustness of ML for networking systems
• Reinforcement learning for networking systems
• Federated learning for networking systems
• Intelligent telecommunication customer service

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 “February 2023/AI-Powered Telco Network Automation: 5G Evolution and 6G” from the dropdown menu of topics.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 1 June 2022
Initial Decision Date: 1 August 2021
Revised Manuscript Due: 1 September 2022
Final Decision Date: 1 October 2022
Final Manuscript Due: 15 December 2022
Publication Date: February 2023

Guest Editors

Yan Xin
Samsung Research America Inc., USA

Kai Yang
Tongji University, China

Chih-Lin I
China Mobile, China

Sanyogita Shamsunder
Verizon, USA

Xingqin Lin
Ericsson, USA

Lifeng Lai
University of California, Davis, USA