No Arabic abstract
Smart grid, regarded as the next generation power grid, uses two-way flows of electricity and information to create a widely distributed automated energy delivery network. In this work we present our vision on smart grid from the perspective of wireless communications and networking technologies. We present wireless communication and networking paradigms for four typical scenarios in the future smart grid and also point out the research challenges of the wireless communication and networking technologies used in smart grid
Future mobile communication networks require an Aerial Base Station (ABS) with fast mobility and long-term hovering capabilities. At present, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones do not have long flight times and are mainly used for monitoring, surveillance, and image post-processing. On the other hand, the traditional airship is too large and not easy to take off and land. Therefore, we propose to develop an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Drone-Cruiser base station that can help 5G mobile communication systems and beyond quickly recover the network after a disaster and handle the instant communications by the flash crowd. The drone-cruiser base station can overcome the communications problem for three types of flash crowds, such as in stadiums, parades, and large plaza so that an appropriate number of aerial base stations can be accurately deployed to meet large and dynamic traffic demands. Artificial intelligence can solve these problems by analyzing the collected data, and then adjust the system parameters in the framework of Self-Organizing Network (SON) to achieve the goals of self-configuration, self-optimization, and self-healing. With the help of AI technologies, 5G networks can become more intelligent. This paper aims to provide a new type of service, On-Demand Aerial Base Station as a Service. This work needs to overcome the following five technical challenges: innovative design of drone-cruisers for the long-time hovering, crowd estimation and prediction, rapid 3D wireless channel learning and modeling, 3D placement of aerial base stations and the integration of WiFi front-haul and millimeter wave/WiGig back-haul networks.
Wireless technologies can support a broad range of smart grid applications including advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and demand response (DR). However, there are many formidable challenges when wireless technologies are applied to the smart gird, e.g., the tradeoffs between wireless coverage and capacity, the high reliability requirement for communication, and limited spectral resources. Relaying has emerged as one of the most promising candidate solutions for addressing these issues. In this article, an introduction to various relaying strategies is presented, together with a discussion of how to improve spectral efficiency and coverage in relay-based information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure for smart grid applications. Special attention is paid to the use of unidirectional relaying, collaborative beamforming, and bidirectional relaying strategies.
5G wireless communications technology is being launched, with many smart applications being integrated. However, 5G specifications merge the requirements of new emerging technologies forcefully. These include data rate, capacity, latency, reliability, resources sharing, and energy/bit. To meet these challenging demands, research is focusing on 6G wireless communications enabling different technologies and emerging new applications. In this report, the latest research work on 6G technologies and applications is summarized, and the associated research challenges are discussed.
Many emerging technologies, such as ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output (UM-MIMO), terahertz (THz) communications are under active discussion as promising technologies to support the extremely high access rate and superior network capacity in the future sixth-generation (6G) mobile communication systems. However, such technologies are still facing many challenges for practical implementation. In particular, UM-MIMO and THz communication require extremely large number of radio frequency (RF) chains, and hence suffering from prohibitive hardware cost and complexity. In this article, we introduce a new paradigm to address the above issues, namely wireless communication enabled by programmable metasurfaces, by exploiting the powerful capability of metasurfaces in manipulating electromagnetic waves. We will first introduce the basic concept of programmable metasurfaces, followed by the promising paradigm shift in future wireless communication systems enabled by programmable metasurfaces. In particular, we propose two prospective paradigms of applying programmable metasurfaces in wireless transceivers: namely RF chain-free transmitter and space-down-conversion receiver, which both have great potential to simplify the architecture and reduce the hardware cost of future wireless transceivers. Furthermore, we present the design architectures, preliminary experimental results and main advantages of these new paradigms and discuss their potential opportunities and challenges toward ultra-massive 6G communications with low hardware complexity, low cost, and high energy efficiency.
In the aeronautics industry, wireless avionics intra-communications have a tremendous potential to improve efficiency and flexibility while reducing the weight, fuel consumption, and maintenance costs over traditional wired avionics systems. This survey starts with an overview of the major benefits and opportunities in the deployment of wireless technologies for critical applications of an aircraft. The current state-of-art is presented in terms of system classifications based on data rate demands and transceiver installation locations. We then discuss major technical challenges in the design and realization of the envisioned aircraft applications. Although wireless avionics intra-communication has aspects and requirements similar to mission-critical applications of industrial automation, it also has specific issues such as complex structures, operations, and safety of the aircraft that make this area of research self-standing and challenging. To support the critical operations of an aircraft, existing wireless standards for mission-critical industrial applications are briefly discussed to investigate the applicability of the current solutions. Specifically, IEEE 802.15.4-based protocols and Bluetooth are discussed for low data rate applications, whereas IEEE 802.11- based standards are considered for high data rate applications. Eventually, we propose fundamental schemes in terms of network architecture, protocol, and resource management to support the critical avionics applications and discuss the research directions in this emerging area.