Tunable devices for modern communications: materials, integration, modeling, and applications

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Tunable devices for modern communications: materials, integration, modeling, and applications.

The tunability of devices is a prerequisite for modern communications: the next generation of systems operating at RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, THz, and optical frequencies requires operation over ultra-wide bands, fast switching between channels, and low noise, along with easy integration and low cost. With the advent of novel applications related to 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), different technologies are being developed for answering these needs in various frequency bands. In particular, new materials have been proposed, which allow device tunability at high frequencies, such as liquid crystals, ferroelectrics, atomically thin materials, and metamaterials. Novel tunable components and properties have been recently developed, in particular in the field of tunable filters and reconfigurable antennas. Furthermore, innovative integration technologies for the complete integration of millimeter-wave systems are gaining increasing interest, including substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) and circuit (SIC) technologies. In addition to the scientific and technological developments, new and efficient modeling & CAD techniques are required to design such components and systems, which guarantee reliable modeling, design flexibility, and fast time-to-market.

For developing a successful tunable device operating in the RF, microwave, or terahertz frequency ranges, there is an intense need for interdisciplinary efforts to achieve accurate and cost-effective modeling (by means of advanced mathematics & CAD tools, optimization, etc.), advanced fabrication techniques involving a variety of new and smart materials which are capable of dealing with the new trends in 5G and IoT systems, and experimental characterization of all elements of the devices and systems and their performance characteristics.

5G technologies are meant to enhance a user’s experience because they will provide better information transference. However, to achieve this goal with the next generation of smaller mobile platforms, reconfigurable devices and systems must be developed. Consequently, the topic is of great importance to the future of wireless systems.

The objective of this Special Section in IEEE Access is to cover an area which is at the frontier between several fields of engineering, applied physics, and advanced mathematical modeling/CAD.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Reconfigurable antennas
  • Directional antennas
  • Multi-functional antennas
  • Active metasurfaces
  • Graphene tunable and/or reconconfigurable devices for high frequencies
  • 2D materials tunable and/or reconconfigurable devices for high frequencies
  • Phased antennas arrays for 5G applications
  • Tunable microwave components
  • Tunable filters
  • Microwave filter synthesis
  • Reliability of tunable components
  • Advances and challenges in simulation tools and methods (CAD)
  • Advances in analytical methods for the design of tunable components and systems
  • CAD based on modern mathematics/ differential geometry/ topology for microwave /terahertz materials/components modeling
  • Cognitive radios for spectrum reconfigurability
  • Spectrum Sensible devices and radios
  • 3D printable devices with reconfigurability

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Andrei Muller, Nanolab, EPFL Lausanne ( Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), Switzerland

Guest Editors:

  1. Richard Ziolkowski, University of Arizona, USA
  2. Mircea Dragoman,Institute of Microtechnology, Romania
  3. Maurizio Bozzi, University of Pavia, Italy
  4. Elena Blokhina, University College Dublin, Ireland
  5. Jusung Kim, Hanbat National University, South Korea

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Nano-antennas, Nano-transceivers, and Nano-networks / Communications
  2. Optimization for Emerging Wireless Networks: IoT, 5G and Smart Grid Communication Networks

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: specialsections@ieee.org

The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications (Part II)

Submission Deadline: 31 December 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications.

Energy crisis and carbon emission have become two critical concerns universally. As a very promising solution, the concept of Internet of Energy has appeared to tackle these challenges. The Internet of Energy is a new power generation paradigm by developing a revolutionary vision of smart grids into the Internet. The communication infrastructure is an essential component for implementing the Internet of Energy. A scalable and robust communication infrastructure is crucial in both operating and maintaining smart energy systems. The wide-scale implementation and development of Internet of Energy into industrial applications should take into account the following challenges:

  • Integrating highly scalable and distributed alternative energy generating sources with other available power grid systems: to promote a green-energy-based industry and society and realize the optimization of energy utilization, the efficient gathering, transportation, storage and integrating these into the existing power grid are faced with great challenges.
  • Advanced metering, monitoring and controlling systems: since the observability, controllability and predictability are three critical aspects in the Internet of Energy, real-time monitoring and controlling are faced with great challenges in order to collect precise energy consumption data, give deep analysis and provide rich users information. In this way, users can adjust their energy consumption intelligently with optimization goals.
  • Cyber Security and Privacy-aware data management for Internet of Energy: Among many applications in Internet of Energy, energy consumption data could be linked and mined to gain useful insights for optimization of energy utilization. At the same time, privacy and security concerns can prevent the information disclosure, energy wastage and disaster. Further safeguards are needed to build trust in the data, which is instrumental for making critical decisions for the development of Internet of Energy.

Till now, an increasing number of research efforts have been done and some articles have been published on the integration and interaction between Internet of Energy and advanced technologies, towards new applications and security issues.

The response to our Call for Papers on this Special Section in IEEE Access (PART I) were overwhelming. In this Special Section PART II, we would like to again invite researchers who are working on related research issues to contribute high quality papers to further advance people’s understanding of the relationship among Internet of Energy, target applications and advanced technologies. We welcome both original, practical work and review articles.

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Kun Wang, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China

Guest Editors:

  1. Yan Zhang, Simula Research Laboratory & University of Oslo, Norway
  2. Song Guo, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
  3. Mianxiong Dong, Muroran Institute of Technology, Japan
  4.  Rose Qingyang Hu, Utah State University, USA
  5. Lei He, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications (Part I)
  2. Power Quality and Harmonics Issues of Future and Smart Grids
  3. Battery Energy Storage and Management Systems

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: specialsections@ieee.org

Energy Efficient Wireless Communications with Energy Harvesting and Wireless Power Transfer

Submission Deadline: 15 September 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Energy Efficient Wireless Communications with Energy Harvesting and Wireless Power Transfer.

With technological advancements, future wireless communications networks are expected to incorporate densely deployed base stations serving tens of billions of low-power wireless devices, in order to enable the emerging Internet-of-things (IoT) applications. However, this leads to a dramatic increase in energy cost at the wireless networks, and makes it a difficult task to efficiently power massive wireless devices. Therefore, how to reduce the energy cost at the network side and how to provide sustainable energy supply at the wireless device side become two increasingly important issues for the success of IoT. Recently, energy harvesting (EH) from ambient sources (e.g., solar and wind) and dedicated wireless power transfer via radio frequency (RF) signals have emerged as appealing solutions to power base stations and low-power wireless devices. Such techniques have several promising advantages over the traditional grid/battery-powered systems, such as improved energy efficiency, reduced energy and maintenance costs, prolonged lifetime, and even perpetual and uninterrupted operations. Hence, EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications have attracted significant interests recently from both academia and industry.

Different from the conventional fixed and stable energy supplies, such as the grid and the battery, the EH from ambient sources is usually random and intermittent with time-varying energy arrival rate. On the other hand, the end-to-end power transfer efficiency of wireless power transfer is rather limited due to the severe path-loss and fading of wireless channels. Therefore, the integration of these new energy techniques brings new challenges and opportunities in wireless communications networks, and calls for a paradigm shift on joint energy and information management, by taking into account the unique characteristics of ambient energy sources and wireless power transfer. As a result, numerous new research problems need to be addressed from multiple technique aspects across communication theory, information theory, circuit theory, signal processing, and optimization.

This Special Section in IEEE Access will focus on various theoretical and practical design issues for EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications, aiming at bringing together researchers, industry practitioners, and individuals working on the related areas to share their new ideas, latest findings, and state-of-the-art results. Comprehensive surveys and original technical contributions, which are not published previously and not under review by another journal currently, are solicited in the relevant topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Trends and challenges for EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications
  • Cognitive radio networks with EH and wireless power transfer
  • Relay channels with EH and wireless power transfer
  • Mobile edge networks with EH and wireless power transfer
  • Multi-antenna EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications
  • Full-duplex EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications
  • Security issues in EH wireless communications and wireless powered communications
  • Offline and online power allocation in EH wireless communications
  • Joint energy and communication cooperation
  • Communications and signals design for wireless power transfer
  • Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT)
  • Wireless powered communication networks
  • Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with SWIPT

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Jie Xu, Guangdong University of Technology, China

Guest Editors:

  1. Bruno Clerckx, Imperial College London, UK
  2. Zhiguo Ding, Lancaster University, UK
  3. Xin Wang, Fudan University, China
  4. Yong Zeng, National University of Singapore, Singapore

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Exploiting the Benefits of Interference in Wireless Networks: Energy Harvesting and Security
  2. Energy Harvesting and Scavenging: Technologies, Algorithms, and Communication Protocols
  3. Resource Management in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks: Energy Management, Communication Protocol and Future Applications

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: specialsections@ieee.org

Recent Advances on Radio Access and Security Methods in 5G Networks

Submission Deadline: 1 December 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Recent Advances on Radio Access and Security Methods in 5G Networks.

5G wireless access solutions will include an evolution of LTE-Advanced in combination with new Radio Access Technologies (RATs). Currently there are no detailed specification of the new 5G RAT by the 3GPP at the time of this Special Section’s call for papers, there is inherent uncertainty about its nature. 5G is envisioned to support a wide range of different applications, many of which are yet unknown or unexplored. Therefore, the radio access solutions should be able to evolve and adapt to encompass new requirements and new service characteristics.

At the same time, 5G will be a cornerstone for connectivity in the upcoming applications made possible by the progressive implementations of Internet of Things, as well as Smart Cities concepts, in order to pave the way to the so-called Networked Society. For these reasons, security and privacy represent two demanding aspects in 5G solutions in order to become the platform regarding to the future above-mentioned networked infrastructures for public communication and human empowerment. Specifically, 5G will have to face new requirements in terms of security and privacy imposed by the upcoming applications, which some novel threats and increasing privacy problems have to be solved.

This Special Section in IEEE Access aims to bring together researchers to report recent advances in radio access and security for 5G networks, exchange new ideas with innovative technologies and solutions towards IMT-2020. The Special Section will include the collections of outstanding technical surveys and new research results, while covering a wide range of topics within the scope of the special section.

Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished papers in any of, but not limited to, the following topics of interest:

  • Advanced Multiple Access Scheme
  • Waveform Design
  • Flexible Duplex
  • New Type of FDD/TDD Frame Structure
  • Channel Coding, Channel, and Traffic Models
  • Multi-antenna Transmission and Beam-forming
  • Multi-site Connectivity and Tight Interworking
  • System-access Functionality Improvement
  • Scheduled and Contention-based Transmissions
  • New Types of Wireless Links, Wireless Backhaul Solutions
  • Interoperability between FDD and TDD Systems
  • Routing/relay and Re-transmission Protocols
  • Cooperative Communications
  • Cognitive Radio Techniques
  • Could Computing
  • Cloud Security in a 5G Context
  • Energy Efficient Transmissions
  • Energy-efficient Security
  • 5G radio Network Security and Identity Management
  • Conflicts between Usability and Security in 5G Systems
  • Implications for Security and Privacy in 5G and Standardization Efforts
  • 5G MAC and PHY Layers Security
  • Smart Devices Privacy Protection and Authentication

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Guangjie Han, Hohai University, China

Guest Editors:

  1. Richard Yu, Carleton University, Canada
  2. Hsing-Chung Chen, Asia University, Taiwan
  3. Bin Shen, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications University, China
  4. Christian Esposito, University of Salerno, Italy
  5. Xin Su, Hohai University, China

 

Relevant IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Physical and Medium Access Control Layer Advances in 5G Wireless Networks
  2. Security and Privacy in Applications and Services for Future Internet of Things
  3. The Internet of Energy: Architectures, Cyber Security, and Applications

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: hanguangjie@gmail.com

Visual Surveillance and Biometrics: Practices, Challenges, and Possibilities

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Visual Surveillance and Biometrics: Practices, Challenges, and Possibilities.

Visual surveillance is the latest paradigm of monitoring public security through machine intelligence. It includes the use of visual data captured by IR sensors, cameras placed in car, corridors, traffic signals etc. Visual surveillance facilitates the classification of human behavior, crowd activity, and gesture analysis to achieve application-specific objectives.

Biometrics is the science of uniquely identifying or verifying an individual among a set of people by exploring the user’s physiological or behavioral characteristics. Due to their ease of use in many application scenarios (including time attendance systems, border control, access control for high security, etc.), biometric systems are currently being introduced in many day-to-day activities.
Sometimes, algorithms developed for visual surveillance systems have been applied to biometric identification. Recently, several research efforts have been devoted to merge these two technologies especially for adverse and covert scenarios. This Special Section in IEEE Access will serve as a cross-platform to cover the recent advancements at the intersection of ‘visual surveillance’ and ‘biometrics’.

The topics of interest include (but they are not limited to):

  • Real-time processing and recognition of humans from long surveillance videos
  • Coping with complex illumination, large pose changes, occlusion and image blur in surveillance videos
  • Emotion / Gesture / Activity Recognition and prediction
  • Recognition at large distance in low-resolution videos
  • Summarization of surveillance videos and person re-identification
  • Novel machine learning algorithms for biometrics under surveillance conditions
  • Video frame quality evaluation approaches
  • Image set modeling for video data analysis
  • Extraction of soft-biometrics and attributes from surveillance videos
  • Heterogeneous authentication / deauthentication using multi-modal surveillance data
  • Efficient algorithms for massive video data analysis
  • Deep learning and pattern recognition frameworks for biometric recognition
  • Protocols and standards in surveillance biometrics
  • Performance assessment and resource computation
  • Adaptive biometric systems, biometric template update and security
  • Biometrics for mobile platforms
  • Biometric database management and indexing techniques

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Sambit Bakshi, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India

Guest Editors:

  1. Guodong Guo, West Virginia University, USA
  2. Hugo Proenca, University of Beira Interior, Portugal
  3. Massimo Tistarelli, University of Sassari, Italy

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: specialsections@ieee.org

Underwater Wireless Communications and Networking

Submission Deadline: 15 December 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Underwater Wireless Communications and Networking.

Underwater wireless communications play an important role in marine activities such as environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and scientific data collection. Underwater wireless communications still remain quite challenging, due to the unique and harsh conditions that characterize underwater channels. These conditions include for example severe attenuation, multipath dispersion, and limited resource utilization. Nonetheless advanced communication techniques using acoustic, electromagnetic and/or optical waves have emerged to tackle fundamental and practical challenges of underwater wireless communications. Recently, many academic and industrial researchers have paid attention to the development of state-of-the-art solutions for future underwater wireless communications and networks. This Special Section will enlighten and guide the potential research communities about the recent progress in the area of underwater wireless communications, and will encourage some of the leading research communities to present the state-of-the-art contributions and future research directions.

Authors are encouraged to submit original work presenting new research topics on underwater wireless communications and networking from the theoretical and practical point of views. Here, underwater wireless communication systems refer to general communication systems utilized or taken into consideration under water including, but not limited to, acoustic, radio-frequency, and optical wireless communications. Special attention will be given to articles reporting new results and insights along the following principal technical areas:

  • Underwater channel characterization, statistical modeling and estimation
  • Underwater wireless communications: Fundamental limits and theories
  • Transceiver design: Modulation, coding and detection techniques
  • Underwater wireless networking protocols and cross-layer design

This Special Section in IEEE Access will also solicit top-quality papers focusing on the applied technical areas. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Advanced signal processing techniques for underwater wireless communications
  • MIMO and diversity systems in underwater communications
  • Multi-carrier systems in underwater communications
  • Cooperative communications in underwater
  • Hybrid and multi-modal underwater communications
  • Optimization and game-theoretic techniques for underwater wireless communications
  • Underwater wireless sensor networks
  • Energy harvesting for underwater sensor networks
  • Real-time data transmission under water
  • Underwater localization, positioning, and tracking in underwater
  • Mobile underwater communications and network
  • Applications of underwater wireless communications
  • Devices and systems for underwater wireless communications
  • Demonstration of field trials, experiments, and test-beds

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Muhammad Ali Imran, University of Glasgow, UK

Guest Editors:

  1. Ki-Hong Park, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
  2. Paolo Casari, IMDEA Networks Institute, Spain
  3. Fraser Dalgleish, Florida Atlantic University, USA
  4. Hovannes Kulhandjian, California State University, Fresno, USA
  5. Ali Abdi, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
  6. Huifang Chen, Zhejiang University, China

 

Related IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Optimization for Emerging Wireless Networks: IoT, 5G and Smart Grid Communication Networks
  2. Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G
  3. The New Era of Smart Cities: Sensors, Communication Technologies and Applications

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: Bora M. Onat, Managing Editor, IEEE Access (Phone: (732) 562-6036, specialsections@ieee.org)

Learning Systems Based Control and Optimization of Complex Nonlinear Systems

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Learning Systems Based Control and Optimization of Complex Nonlinear Systems.

Recent years have witnessed the growing interests in complex nonlinear systems from both academic and engineering communities since most practical systems, such as wind energy systems or robot manipulators, are inherently nonlinear. Due to their inherent approximation capabilities, learning systems (such as neural network, fuzzy logic, support vector machine, etc.) have been found to be particularly useful for the control and optimization of modern complex nonlinear dynamic systems. The learning system is envisioned as an effective tool to enhance the system performance of complex systems. Past pioneer approaches were developed for multifarious uncertain nonlinear systems such as the strict-feedback systems and the pure-feedback systems in discrete-time or continuous-time forms. The different controllers have been framed using various techniques, e.g., feedback linearization, inversion control, backstepping design, fuzzy control and neural control. Apart from the work focused on the stability of the control system, the optimal solution of the control system has also received a great deal of attention. Although much effort has been made to the control and optimization of complex nonlinear systems, effective systematic methods for this research field are still a challenging topic, especially for the potential of learning based control and optimization design in engineering applications. The primary objective of this Special Section in IEEE Access is dedicated to the learning systems based control and optimization of complex nonlinear systems and to highlight the latest advances in this field. We invite high quality, original research

The primary objective of this Special Section in IEEE Access is dedicated to the learning systems based control and optimization of complex nonlinear systems and to highlight the latest advances in this field. We invite high quality, original research articles, as well as review articles, focused on complex nonlinear system theory with new applications.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Learning systems (e.g., neural network, fuzzy logic) based control of strict-feedback systems, pure feedback systems, switching systems, stochastic systems, and so on
  • Learning systems based fault detection and control in complex nonlinear systems
  • Learning systems based nonlinear multi-agent systems
  • Learning systems based control of complex nonlinear systems with various constraints such as state constraint, input constraint, and output constraint
  • Learning systems based optimal control of complex nonlinear systems in various forms, e.g., adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) for nonlinear systems
  • Learning systems based optimal control of complex nonlinear systems with various constraints
  • Learning systems based optimal control of nonlinear multi-agent systems
  • Learning systems based methods in practical applications such as wind energy systems, solar systems, tele-operation systems, PWM Rectifiers, and robots

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Huanqing Wang, Carleton University, Canada

Guest Editors:

  1. Hamid Reza Karimi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
  2. Wenchao Meng, Carleton University, Canada
  3. Yongming Li, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  4. Dawei Shi, Harvard University, USA

 

Related IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Trends and Advances for Ambient Intelligence with Internet of Things Systems
  2. System-Level Design Automation Methods for Multi-Processor System-on-Chips
  3. Recent Advances in Computational Intelligence Paradigms for Security and Privacy for Fog and Mobile Edge Computing

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: Bora M. Onat, Managing Editor, IEEE Access (Phone: (732) 562-6036, specialsections@ieee.org)

Key Technologies for Smart Factory of Industry 4.0

Submission Deadline: 30 September 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Key Technologies for Smart Factory of Industry 4.0.

Due to the growing global economy and demand for customized products, the manufacturing industry has been transitioning from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market. This transition requires deeper conversion towards manufacturing structures to handle the increasing production complexity. The smart factory of Industry 4.0 can provide a solution for handling the complexity through the establishment of intelligent products and production processes. Realization of smart factory will be possible with the increased adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Smart factory will make the interactions between humans, machines, and products become a highly competitive area for market capitalization. With the foundations of smart factory based on IoT and CPS, various system technologies and architectures have emerged over the past few years. Even though, the smart factory plays an important role in Industry 4.0, it faces many challenges including structural, operational, and managerial independence of the shop floor and enterprise constituent systems, interoperability, plug and play, self-adaptation, reliability, energy-awareness, high-level cross-layer integration and cooperation, event propagation and management, and industrial big data analysis.

This Special Section in IEEE Access will bring together academic and industrial researchers to identify and discuss technical challenges and recent results related to smart factory of Industry 4.0. To meet the requirements of smart factory, in addition to the need for new concepts and design approaches, improvements in the areas of standardized communication mechanism, efficient monitoring, effective and flexible manufacturing resource management, transparent data processing, better system scalability, and reconfiguration are required. The next industrial revolution is still in its early days, and a large part of the potential for value creation is still untapped. In order to achieve the economic goal chased by the markets, the key technologies for smart factory must be discussed and studied. Therefore, the topics considered for this Special Section will discuss the analytical capabilities that are required to capture the full potential of smart factory, ranging from embedded systems that are already existing in the bottom layer to some cloud techniques that have not yet been used in the top layer.

In general, Industry 4.0 includes the horizontal integration, end-to-end digital integration, and vertical integration. The vertical integration refers to the smart factory in the form of CPS or IoT. This Special Section in IEEE Access mainly focuses on the key technologies for smart factory of Industry 4.0 (e.g., industrial wireless network, industrial SDN, and industrial cloud) rather than all the domains of Industry 4.0. The topics of interests for this special section include, but not limited to:

  • Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems in smart factory
  • Smart agents and systems in smart factory
  • System engineering and human factors for Industry 4.0
  • Semantic technologies for manufacturing cyber-physical systems
  • Cloud computing techniques for smart factory
  • Cloud-assisted intelligent devices, e.g., cloud robotics
  • Wireless sensor and actuator networks
  • Information coordination and interaction
  • Industrial integration and industrial information integration in smart factory
  • Software-defined industrial internet of things
  • Machine learning and decision science models for data analysis
  • Tools and technologies for deploying and managing big data
  • Security in industrial networks
  • Security and privacy protection

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

 

Associate Editor: Jiafu Wan, South China University of Technology, China

Guest Editors:

  1. Min Xia, University of British Columbia, Canada
  2. Jun Hong, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
  3. Zhibo Pang, ABB Corporate Research, Sweden
  4. Bharat Jayaraman, SUNY Buffalo, USA
  5. Fangyang Shen, New York City College of Technology, USA

 

Related IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Industry 4.0
  2. Cooperative and Intelligent Sensing
  3. Intelligent Systems for the Internet of Things

 

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: Bora M. Onat, Managing Editor, IEEE Access (Phone: (732) 562-6036, specialsections@ieee.org)

Advanced Control and Health Management for Aircraft and its Propulsion System

Submission Deadline: 30 August 2018

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Advanced Control and Health Management for Aircraft and its Propulsion System.

With the increased emphasis on aircraft safety, enhanced performance, reliability, affordability and operating life, advanced control and health management of aircraft and its propulsion system become more critical. Both aircraft control systems and propulsion control systems play an important role in enlarging the flight envelope and providing enhanced maneuvering capabilities. Moreover, integrated aircraft/propulsion control systems have been verified effective to further enhance aircraft performance with minimum pilot workload. The key enabling technologies are the increased efficiencies of components through active control, advanced diagnostics and prognostics integrated with intelligent control to enhance operational reliability and component life, and distributed control with smart sensors and actuators in an adaptive fault tolerant architecture. In order to catch up with the developments and requirements of aircraft, it is of great significance to investigate intelligent aircraft and propulsion control with advanced health management systems.

The primary objective of this Special Section in IEEE Access is to provide up-to-date discussions on technical trends and advanced methodologies in controls and health management of aircraft and its propulsion systems. Of particular interest, the papers in this Special Section should be devoted to the development of intelligent control technology used in aircraft and propulsion systems, fault diagnostics and prognostics, fault tolerant control, decentralized/distributed state estimation, and integrated aircraft/propulsion strategies. The contributions to this Special Section are expected to provide the latest results in advanced analysis, optimization, control and fault diagnostics and prognostics for aircraft and its propulsion systems. Topics to be covered in this special issue include, but are not limited to:

  • Control Theory, Analysis, and Design for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Modeling and Simulation for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Fault Diagnostics and Prognostics for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Fault Tolerance and Recovery Control Design for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • State Estimation and Health Management for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Distributed Control and Intelligent sensors for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Aircraft/Propulsion Control Analysis and Test Evaluation
  • Technology for Construction of the Aircraft Propulsion System Test Platforms
  • Hydraulic Mechanical Actuators for Aircraft and Propulsion Systems
  • Active Control of Components and Life-extending Control Design
  • Integrated Flight/Propulsion Control Strategies

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

Associate Editor: Xudong Zhao, Dalian University of Technology, China

Guest Editors:

  1. Ximing Sun, Dalian University of Technology, China
  2. Hanz Richter, Cleveland State University, USA
  3. Shui-Ting Ding, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
  4. Rogelio Lozano, Jules Verne University in Amiens, France
  5. Zhongzhi Hu, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China

Related IEEE Access Special Sections:

  1. Complex System Health Management Based on Condition Monitoring and Test Data
  2. Recent Advances on Modelling, Optimization and Signal Processing Methods in Vehicle Dynamics and Crash-worthiness
  3. Communication, Control and Computation Issues in Heterogeneous Vehicular Networks

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: Bora M. Onat, Managing Editor, IEEE Access (Phone: (732) 562-6036, specialsections@ieee.org)

Optical Wireless Technologies for 5G Communications and Beyond

Submission Deadline: 31 August 2017

IEEE Access invites manuscript submissions in the area of Optical Wireless Technologies for 5G Communications and Beyond.

The explosive increase in the demand for high data-rate communications has triggered the re-emergence of optical wireless communication (OWC) technologies as promising ingredients of future communication systems. The vast potential of OWC has attracted significant global attention, both from communications and optoelectronics viewpoints, and continues to do so. This potential stems from various interesting desirable properties including its wide and free spectrum and its spatial locality, leading to great advantages in terms of data-rates, spatial reuse, and more. As such, it becomes important to study this potential, and how it can solve the envisioned challenges of future wireless communications, including 5G and beyond.

To this end, the purpose of this Special Section in IEEE Access is to attract innovative research addressing the capabilities of OWC, and its existing and emerging theoretical and practical challenges. It aims to bring together theoretical as well as experimental boundary-pushing research works that improve upon the state-of-the-art, illustrate and justify the applicability of OWC as a future communication technology, and open up new research topics related to OWC. This special section will solicit top quality papers focusing on the following applications:

  • OWC for small-cell 5G heterogeneous networks and optical attocells
  • OWC for long and short range outdoors communications (free-space optical, street light-posts, optical backhauling, etc.)
  • OWC for the internet-of-things (IoT) and large sensor networks, device-to-device, machine-to-machine, and machine-to-infrastructure communications.

Here, OWC refers to general optical wireless communication including infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), and visible-light communications (VLC), whichever is suitable for the given application. Special attention will be given to papers reporting new results and insights along the following principal technical areas:

  • Channel modeling, modulation, coding, and equalization
  • Channel capacity analysis and diversity techniques
  • Optical MIMO, WDM, and color-frequency modulation
  • Energy efficiency and dimming issues of simultaneous illumination and communication using VLC
  • Mobility and robustness issues in optical small cells (attocells)
  • Multiuser techniques, optical CDMA, and optical OFDMA
  • Access, scheduling and interference mitigation for multiuser OWC
  • Protocols, architecture, and PHY/MAC cross-layer design for multiuser OWC
  • Multi-tier systems integrating OWC and RF for 5G and future communication systems
  • Optoelectronic transmitter and receiver design for indoors and outdoors OWC
  • Experimental demonstrations, tests, and performance characterizations of devices and components for OWC

We also highly recommend the submission of multimedia with each article as it significantly increases the visibility, downloads, and citations of articles.

Associate Editor: Muhammad Ali Imran, University of Glasgow, UK

Guest Editors:

  1. Anas Chaaban, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
  2. Nan Chi, Fudan University, China
  3. Hany Elgala, University at Albany – State University of New York, USA
  4. Zouheir Rezki, University of Idaho, USA
  5. Majid Safari, University of Edinburgh, UK
  6. Harilaos Sandalidis, University of Thessaly, Greece

IEEE Access Editor-in-Chief: Michael Pecht, Professor and Director, CALCE, University of Maryland

Paper submission: Contact Associate Editor and submit manuscript to:
http://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/ieee-access

For inquiries regarding this Special Section, please contact: Bora M. Onat, Managing Editor, IEEE Access (Phone: (732) 562-6036, specialsections@ieee.org)