With the rapid proliferation of wireless devices and the emergence of new internet-based services, 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) wireless networks are required to support various use cases, such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable and low latency (URLLC), and massive machine type communications (mMTC). These new use cases have some different characteristics from the conventional ones, and they bring new challenges regarding traffic, interference, and control signaling. Hence, communication strategies should be redesigned to cope with the new requirements for next-generation communication systems.
In particular, multi-antenna techniques have been widely utilized in conventional communication environments as an effective tool to improve the data rate and communication reliability. However, basic assumptions in the conventional multi-antenna techniques, such as channel state information, i.i.d. channel gains, coordinated user access, and long blocklength, may no longer be valid for the new environments considered in 5G and B5G. For this reason, there is a critical need to re-examine existing multi-antenna techniques and develop them to fulfill the requirements for 5G and B5G wireless networks.
The objective of this Special Issue is to address, discuss, and present novel multi-antenna techniques for 5G and B5G wireless networks. The topics of Special Issue include, but are not limited to the following:
Massive MIMO for mmWave communications
Multi-antenna communications with short blocklength coding
Grant-free random access with multi-antenna devices
Spatial domain non-orthogonal multiple access
Multi-antenna technique for device-to-device communications
