This text covers the key technologies employed in wireless links that enable increased data rates and thus are likely to be employed in support of 5G wireless transport networks, i.e., backhaul, midhaul, and fronthaul networks. The author presents technologies at an introductory level but nonetheless at a level that imparts to the reader a sound understanding of the fundamentals. The book is intended for those practicing engineers and graduate and upper undergraduate students who have an interest in acquiring, where missing, the necessary technology background in order to comprehend the functioning and capability of 5G based wireless transport links. The author focuses on those technologies that are key to achieving the high data rates and high reliability required of this transport. The material is presented in a clear, concise, and mathematically light fashion. Covers key wireless transport (backhaul, midhaul, and fronthaul) technologies for 5G and beyond, presented in a clear tractable fashion; Outlines the basic wireless transport transmitter/receiver terminal architecture, provides specifications of some such terminals, and indicates the link performance afforded by such terminals; Provides sufficient mathematics to make it technically coherent, but not so much as to make it challenging for a reader with no or limited familiarity with these technologies.

Standards for 5G and beyond will require communication systems with a much more flexible and cognitive design to support a wide variety of services including smart vehicles, smart cities, smart homes, IoTs, and remote health. Although future 6G technologies may look like an extension of their 5G counterparts, new user requirements, completely new applications and use-cases, and networking trends will bring more challenging communication engineering problems. New communication paradigms in different layers will be required, in particular in the physical layer of future wireless communication systems.

This book provides an accessible and comprehensive tutorial on the key enabling technologies for 5G and beyond, covering both the fundamentals and the state-of-the-art 5G standards. The book begins with a historical overview of the evolution of cellular technologies and addresses the questions on why 5G and what is 5G. Following this, six tutorial chapters describe the fundamental technology components for 5G and beyond. These include modern advancements in channel coding, multiple access, massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), network densification, unmanned aerial vehicle enabled cellular networks, and 6G wireless systems. The second part of this book consists of five chapters that introduce the basics of 5G New Radio (NR) standards developed by 3GPP. These include 5G architecture, protocols, and physical layer aspects. The third part of this book provides an overview of the key 5G NR evolution directions. These directions include ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) enhancements, operation in unlicensed spectrum, positioning, integrated access and backhaul, air-to-ground communication, and non-terrestrial networks with satellite communication.

The deployment of 4G/LTE (Long-Term Evolution) mobile networks has solved the major challenge of high capacities to build a real broadband mobile internet. This was possible mainly through a very strong physical layer and flexible network architecture. However, bandwidth-hungry services such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), have been developed in an unprecedented way. Furthermore, mobile networks are facing other new services with extreme demand for greater reliability and almost zero-latency performance, like vehicle communications and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). Therefore, industries and researchers are investigating new physical layers and softwarization techniques and including more intelligence in 5G and beyond 5G (B5G/6G). This book discusses some of these softwarization techniques, such as fog computing, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It also presents use cases showing practical aspects from 5G deployment scenarios, where other communications technologies will co-habit to build the landscape of next-generation mobile networks (NGMNs).

Inclusive Radio Communication Networks for 5G and Beyond is based on the COST IRACON project that consists of 500 researchers from academia and industry, with 120 institutions from Europe, US and the Far East involved. The book presents state-of-the-art design and analysis methods for 5G (and beyond) radio communication networks, along with key challenges and issues related to the development of 5G networks. Covers the latest research on 5G networks – including propagation, localization, IoT and radio channels Based on the International COST research project, IRACON, with 120 institutions and 500 researchers from Europe, US and the Far East involved Provides coverage of IoT protocols, architectures and applications, along with IoT applications in healthcare Contains a concluding chapter on future trends in mobile communications and networking

The mobile market has experienced unprecedented growth over the last few decades. Consumer trends have shifted towards mobile internet services supported by 3G and 4G networks worldwide. Inherent to existing networks are problems such as lack of spectrum, high energy consumption, and inter-cell interference. These limitations have led to the emergence of 5G technology. It is clear that any 5G system will integrate optical communications, which is already a mainstay of wide area networks. Using an optical core to route 5G data raises significant questions of how wireless and optical can coexist in synergy to provide smooth, end-to-end communication pathways. Optical and Wireless Convergence for 5G Networks explores new emerging technologies, concepts, and approaches for seamlessly integrating optical-wireless for 5G and beyond. Considering both fronthaul and backhaul perspectives, this timely book provides insights on managing an ecosystem of mixed and multiple access network communications focused on optical-wireless convergence. Topics include Fiber–Wireless (FiWi), Hybrid Fiber-Wireless (HFW), Visible Light Communication (VLC), 5G optical sensing technologies, approaches to real-time IoT applications, Tactile Internet, Fog Computing (FC), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and many others. This book aims to provide an inclusive survey of 5G optical-wireless requirements, architecture developments, and technological solutions.