Call for Papers

Metaverse is expected to revolutionize the way people interact by building an immersive environment where people can communicate via digital avatars in real-time. This new kind of immersive digital world is built upon a globally distributed computing and communication infrastructure consisting of not only mobile devices but also edge/cloud servers. It requires symmetric high-revolution content delivery and ultra-low and uniform network latency for hyper-interactivity, which exceeds the capability of existing communication and network infrastructure. For example, 720p resolution is sufficient for video streaming on smartphones and it requires about 2 Mbps of downlink bandwidth. However, Retina-level resolution is preferred on a head-mounted display just several centimeters from the eyes, and complex scenes should be rendered in real-time among avatars, which imposes higher requirements on network bandwidth and latency.

A unique feature of metaverse is that humans are the main players, which brings new challenges and opportunities for network design. People would manifest and teleport across different virtual immersive landscapes. Successful experiences in the metaverse hinge on understanding and adapting to emerging customer behaviors and expectations. If we can learn and predict human activities in metaverse, we can better optimize our network settings and resource allocation. To achieve this, we need fundamental innovation of human-centric communication and networking for metaverse, by integrating human behavior data analysis and prediction, dynamic network control, as well as privacy and security protection, so as to maximize system efficiency and improve user experiences. There are many open technical challenges, in both wireless access networks and core networks, from the physical layer to the application layer.

Conquering these challenges requires fundamental innovation of human-centric communication and networking technologies in the coming-soon 5G and beyond network infrastructure. Moreover, we need to rely on big data, machine learning, crowdsensing, social analytics and other inter-disciplinary techniques. This Special Issue solicits contributions of solving human-centric communication and networking challenges for metaverse over 5G and Beyond networks. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Human-attention-aware content delivery in metaverse
• Crowdsensing and analytics of user behavior data in metaverse
• Novel sensing and cognition for human-centric metaverse
• Metaverse network architecture integrating human factors
• Artificial intelligence for user behavior modeling and prediction in metaverse
• Human-aware dynamic and predictive network control for metaverse
• Incentive mechanisms for human-centric metaverse
• Cross-layer and cross-domain design for human-centric networking in metaverse
• Blockchain and decentralized design of human-centric metaverse
• Network security and privacy based on human trust in metaverse
• SDN/VNF for human-centric communication and networking in metaverse
• Network system deployment and testbeds of human-centric metaverse

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript to EDAS.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 March 2023 (Deadline Extended)
First Notification: 15 June 2023
Acceptance Notification: 31 August 2023
Final Manuscript Due: 30 September 2023
Planned Publication: First Quarter 2024

Guest Editors