Call for Articles

Aided by the ubiquitous availability of diverse IoT applications, a vast amount of vertical IoT deployments have emerged in recent years. Among them, Mission Critical IoT (MC IoT) applications show great potential in several vertical markets, such as smart medicine and smart manufacturing. High-value mission-critical tasks require precise and reliable control. Next-generation wireless technologies could enable mission-critical functions that were not possible before. It is critical to investigate how different MC IoT applications will drive the future research and development of 6G system design.

In order to ensure successful adoption, technological challenges need to be addressed to support MC IoT. These technological challenges could be addressed using an evolutionary path to investigate beyond 5G URLLC+ toward future MC IoT. On the other hand, researchers look for revolutionary ideas to enable breakthroughs in 6G MC IoT. International research and standards organizations have been actively investigating future wireless 6G systems. The NGMN Alliance (Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance) has published 6G whitepaper on use cases and has started investigating the 6G requirements. ITU-R (ITU Radiocommunication Sector) has initiated work on developing IMT vision 2030 and beyond. MC IoT applications and enabling technologies will play critical roles in those initiatives.

6G technologies will extend beyond communications. In future 6G systems, wireless technologies will be integrated with computing, sensing, localization, and machine learning techniques. Enhancing wireless communications with low latency capabilities and enhanced reliability are needed to enable MC IoT. Novel 6G air interface design, such as AI-native air interface, could facilitate MC IoT services. 6G wireless will be integrated with computing infrastructure to enable low-latency interactions for MC use cases. In addition, MC IoT will be benefited from the networked sensing capability provided by 6G. High-precision localization techniques in 6G would enable the needed Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) for MC services. Machine learning techniques will be widely applied for 6G for self-organized operations and smart MC IoT services. Challenges and opportunities exist to enable next-generation MC IoT services in 2030 and beyond.

This Special Issue (SI) is aimed to cover a wide variety of topics on 6G MC IoT, including vision toward MC IoT, vertical deployment scenarios for MC IoT services, and key technologies for 6G MC IoT. We welcome viewpoints and contributions from academia and industry.

The topics of interest for the special issue include, but not limited to, the following:

• Visions toward 6G MC IoT
• 6G MC IoT services and applications
• Novel air interface design for 6G MC IoT
• New networking architecture for 6G MC IoT
• Massive IoT operations in 6G to enable MC services
• Ultra-reliable communications for 6G MC IoT
• Ultra-low latency design for 6G MC IoT
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning for 6G MC IoT
• Battery-less design or energy harvesting techniques for 6G MC IoT
• Sensing and localization for 6G MC IoT
• Integrated computing and communications design for 6G MC IoT
• Management and orchestration for 6G MC IoT

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the IEEE Internet of Things Magazine standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Article Submission Guidelines. All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through the magazine’s Manuscript Central site. Select “June 2023 / 6G Mission-Critical Internet of Thing: Services and Enabling Technologies” from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31 March 2023 (Extended Deadline)
Authors’ Revision Notification Date: 30 April 2023
Final Notification Date: 30 June 2023
Final Manuscript Due: 15 July 2023
Guest Editorial Due: 22 July 2023
Publication Date: September 2023

Guest Editors

Hung-Yu Wei (Lead Guest Editor)
National Taiwan University, Taiwan

Athul Prasad (Corresponding Guest Editor)
Nokia, USA

Hanna Bogucka
Poznan University of Technology, Poland

Mianxiong Dong
Muroran Institute of Technology, Japan

Alain Mourad
InterDigital, UK

Antonio de la Oliva
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

JaeSeung Song
Sejong University, Korea

Shilpa Talwar
Intel, USA