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Workshop on Emerging Technologies in Aerial and Space Networks

In conjunction with IEEE ICC 2024, 9–13 June 2024, Denver, CO, USA

Call For Papers

Aerial and space networks (ASNs) refer to various airborne and space assets, such as unmanned aerial systems (UASs), balloons, and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, that are interconnected together to establish a high-speed and universal data network. As compared to terrestrial networks, ASNs can potentially offer higher wireless coverage to users, more flexible network configurations to meet various requirements, and less capital costs. Hence, it is promising and has drawn much attention to apply ASNs to connect a massive number of devices, especially in an area, where 1) it is expensive or impossible to deploy a terrestrial network, or 2) a terrestrial network is out of service when, for example, a disaster struck the area. In addition, NASA recently proposed to build an Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem to make soaring over traffic in air taxis, providing public good missions. Achieving high-speed and reliable ASNs to enable UASs to share information is critical to ensure air traffic safety. Moreover, ASNs can provide not only data communication services but also reliable edge computing capabilities with the assistance of, for example, blockchain technologies. That is, various airborne and space assets are capable of collaboratively processing big data generated by ground users to generate high-level knowledge in real time. The purpose of this workshop proposal is to stimulate the discussion to explore the potential challenges and emerging technologies of achieving high-speed, reliable, flexible, and scalable ASNs.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

Massive MIMO, mmWave, and terahertz communications, and free space optics for ASNs
Advanced antenna design for ASNs
Ground-to-space, air-to-space, air-to-air, and space-to-space wireless channel measurement and modelling
Semantic communications for ASNs, such as semantic entropy, semantic compression, semantic encoding and decoding, resource management for semantic communications, network protocols for semantic communications, federated learning for semantic communications
Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) for ASNs
New networking architecture design for ASNs, such as OpenRAN and SDN
Intelligent network orchestration in ASNs
Radio resource management in ASNs
Optimized coexistence among terrestrial, aerial, and space networks
Task offloading optimization in ASN-based edge computing
Wireless network optimization in ASN-based edge computing
Privacy and security for ASNs and ASN-based edge computing
Non-terrestrial networks and space-air-ground integrated networks

Important Dates:

Paper submission deadline: 20 January 2024 04 February 2024

Notification of acceptance: 6 March 202 14 March 2024

Camera-ready papers: 15 March 2024 29 March 2024

Submission Link:

https://sites.google.com/njit.edu/icc-asn/home

Workshop Agenda

Thursday, 13 June
Time: 8:30 - 17:30
Location: Director's Row I/Lobby Level

Each paper allows for a 16-minute presentation, followed by a 5-minute Q&A.

Morning Session 1: Advanced Modeling and Simulation Techniques in Aerial Networks;

Time: 8:30 am-10:15 am; Chair: Xiang Sun

Welcome and Introduction (5 min)
Keynote speaker (1 hour): Prof. Ismail Guvenc, North Carolina State University.
- Title: AERPAW and Its Digital Twin for Supporting AI Research with Autonomous Vehicle Networks
- Abstract: This talk will first overview the NSF Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform on Advanced Wireless (AERPAW), an outdoor infrastructure supporting research and experimentation with software-defined radios and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). We will discuss the significance of AERPAW's digital twin to support remote development and testing of artificial intelligence (AI) aided solutions for UAV trajectory optimization and wireless parameter adaptation. We will provide various research examples conducted over the NSF AERPAW platform, including 3D spectrum measurements, and sharing, propagation modeling, wireless localization, and Kriging-based spectrum interpolation.
- Biography: Ismail Guvenc is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State University. His recent research interests include 5G/6G wireless networks, digital twins, UAV communications, and millimeter/terahertz wireless systems. He has published nearly 400 conference/journal papers and book chapters, several standardization contributions, four books, and over 30 U.S. patents. Dr. Guvenc is the PI and the director for the NSF AERPAW project and a site director for the NSF BWAC I/UCRC center. He is an IEEE Fellow, a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, and recipient of several awards, including NC State COE Alcoa Distinguished Engineering Research Award (2023), NC State Faculty Scholar Award (2021), R. Ray Bennett Faculty Fellow Award (2019), FIU COE Faculty Research Award (2016), NSF CAREER Award (2015), Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award (2014), and USF Outstanding Dissertation Award (2006).
Paper 1: 1570995855 Aerial-DRaGon: Machine Learning-based Channel Modeling for Airspace Communication Networks
Paper 2: 1570990323 Downlink-Uplink Symmetry in Mobile Battery-Free Retro-Reflective VLC: Enabling Sensing-Assisted Communications

Morning Session 2: Advanced Federated Learning and Cross-Layer Optimization in UAV Networks

Time: 10:45 am-12:30 pm; Chair: Xiang Sun

Paper 1: 1570989607 Energy-Efficient Federated Knowledge Distillation Learning in Internet of Drones
Paper 2: 1570994673 Federated Learning Model Aggregation in Heterogenous Aerial and Space Networks
Paper 3: 1570996184 Orchestrating UAVs for Prioritized Data Harvesting: A Cross-Layer Optimization Perspective
Paper 4: 1570995990 Cross-layer Topology Control Mechanism for FSO-based UAV Relay Networks
Paper 5: 1570989952 Flexible FSO/RF Aerial Topology Reconstruction for High Network Throughput in Dynamic Atmosphere Condition

Afternoon Session 1: Cutting edge Techniques in UAV Communication and Cooperative Network Optimization

Time: 1:30 pm-3:15 pm; Chair: Xiang Sun

Paper 1: 1570989618 Joint Channel Estimation and Data Detection for Time-Varying MIMO Channels in UAV Networks
Paper 2: 1570989772 Codebook Design for Air-to-Air Communication Systems Operating in the UAM Corridor
Paper 3: 1570988937 Deep Learning based Joint Source-Channel Coding for Computer-generated Holograms
Paper 4: 1570989283 Joint Trajectory and Resource Optimization for Multi-UAV Cooperative Computation
Paper 5: 1570989408 Communication Receiver Design for PSK-LFM Joint Sensing and Communication Waveform

Afternoon Session 2: Enhancing Network Efficiency and Extended Reality in Hybrid Communication Systems

Time: 3:45 pm-5:30 pm; Chair: Xiang Sun

Paper 1:1570996171 Impact of Objective Function on Spectral Efficiency in Integrated HAPS-Terrestrial Networks
Paper 2: 1570996026 Nash Equilibrium-Based Spectrum Pricing and Allocation in Satellite-Terrestrial Network
Paper 3: 1570989333 A Simulation Study of mmWave 5G-enabled Medical Extended Reality (MXR)
Paper 4: 1570995730 Can Millimeter-Wave Support Interactive Extended Reality under Rapid Rotational Motion?