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Novel Insights into Optical Networks, Including Their Role in the 6G Era

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Optics and Lasers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 739

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Educators, School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, 15122 Maroussi, Greece
Interests: telecommunications (physical layer); optical communications; optical waveguides; electromagnetic propagation

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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of West Attica, 12241 Egaleo, Greece
Interests: 6G networks; numerical simulation; network optimization; applications of machine learning; derivation of 6G system requirements
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Optical networks have come a long way since the deployment of the first wavelength–division–multiplexing (WDM) links in the second half of the 1990s. Since then, we have seen the development of all-optical reconfigurable networks in which switching and routing can be implemented in the optical domain by means of modules such as reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and reconfigurable optical cross-connects (ROXCs).

On the other hand, 6G will support even more demanding mobile use case categories, as compared to 5G, and for this purpose, a number of innovations at component, system, and control levels need to be introduced. As a consequence, further progress is expected in various domains, encompassing the development of fixed Internet Protocol/optical transport network (known as x-haul) which interlinks the radio access network (RAN), mobile core network (CN), and the Internet. This network will serve as the foundation for 6G since it facilitates the transmission of combined user traffic and its global circulation.

Authors are invited to submit manuscripts within the scope of this Special Issue, which includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Enabling technologies regarding modules, devices, and subsystems for optical networking;
  • All-optical switching and networking for core, metro, access, and data center applications;
  • Hybrid networks;
  • 6G networks and optical communication systems;
  • Network-wide modeling and optimization methods;
  • AI and network automation;
  • Integration of optical and wireless networks;
  • Low-cost and low-power consumption transceivers.

Prof. Dr. Gerasimos Pagiatakis
Dr. Dimitris Uzunidis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • optical communications
  • optical networks
  • 6G

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 11262 KiB  
Article
Fiber Sensing in the 6G Era: Vision Transformers for ϕ-OTDR-Based Road-Traffic Monitoring
by Robson A. Colares, Leticia Rittner, Evandro Conforti and Darli A. A. Mello
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(6), 3170; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15063170 - 14 Mar 2025
Viewed by 428
Abstract
This article adds to the emergent body of research that examines the potential of 6G as a platform that can combine wired and wireless sensing modalities. We apply vision transformers (ViTs) in a distributed fiber-optic sensing system to evaluate road traffic parameters in [...] Read more.
This article adds to the emergent body of research that examines the potential of 6G as a platform that can combine wired and wireless sensing modalities. We apply vision transformers (ViTs) in a distributed fiber-optic sensing system to evaluate road traffic parameters in smart cities. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are also assessed for benchmarking. The experimental setup is based on a direct-detection phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer (ϕ-OTDR) implemented using a narrow linewidth source. The monitored fibers are buried on the university campus, creating a smart city environment. Backscattered traces are consolidated into space–time matrices, illustrating traffic patterns and enabling analysis through image processing algorithms. The ground truth is established by traffic parameters obtained by processing video camera images monitoring the same street using the YOLOv8 model. The results indicate that ViTs outperform CNNs for estimating the number of vehicles and the mean vehicle speed. While a ViT necessitates a significantly larger number of parameters, its complexity is similar to that of a CNN when considering multiply–accumulate operations and random access memory usage. The processed dataset has been made publicly available for benchmarking. Full article
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