High-Frequency Electromagnetic Technologies for 5G/6G Communications: Antenna Design and Signal Optimization
A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026 | Viewed by 29
Special Issue Editors
Interests: mathematical techniques in electromagnetics; antennas; scattering; diffraction; EM propagation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: algorithms and signal processing in the baseband and intermediate frequency for wireless telecommunications
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The extremely rapid development of communication systems over the last few decades cannot be overemphasized. Fifth-generation systems have been under development since 2019, and research on 6G is already highly intensive, although it is yet to be used in practical applications.
As expected, both hardware and software issues are being raised regarding the full implementation of these technologies, prompting a search for efficient solutions. With respect to hardware, as 5G operates from just below 1 GHz to 100 GHz, with the highest usable band (24–100 GHz) facilitating data rates of up to 10 Gbps, suitable antenna configurations include specific arrays, such as multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems; systems employing beam-forming and beam-steering techniques; metasurfaces; and microwave and mm wave devices such as power dividers, phase shifters, filters, and amplifiers.
Although it has not yet been officially determined, 6G is expected to operate in the THz band, where severe constraints arise with respect to electromagnetic propagation. Novel THz-radiating structures include (but are not limited to) special versions of photoconductive, horn, lens, microstrip, and on-chip antennas. Beam-forming and beam-steering are important analog and digital signal processing techniques in 5G and 6G networks, enabling efficient communication. They can be used through the deployment of multiple antennas, such as MIMO systems, at both the transmitter and receiver. MIMO antenna array structures may incorporate microwave and mm wave power dividers and phase shifters in order to produce good radiation characteristics.
Beam-forming uses phase shifting to delay signals sent to different antennas and can be implemented using static analog beam-forming structures or digital signal processing to control the phase shifters. Beam-steering uses signal processing techniques that control the direction of a beam of the signal’s energy without physically moving the source. In wireless communication systems, machine learning (ML) is used to enhance beam-forming and beam-steering techniques to enable their adaption to dynamic channel conditions, optimize their performance, reduce their computational complexity, improve the signal quality, increase the data rates, and enhance their energy efficiency.
The ambition of this Special Issue is to showcase the most recent advancements made by internationally renowned scholars in this fascinating research area. Original research articles and reviews are welcome. The research areas covered may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Antenna design;
- Propagation modeling;
- Analytical methods and numerical simulations;
- Microwave and mm wave devices and systems;
- Adaptive antenna arrays;
- Indoor 5G/6G mm wave ceiling-mounted antennas;
- Spherical phased-array antenna systems;
- MIMO antenna arrays;
- Algorithms for beam-forming and beam-steering ;
- Machine learning for beam-forming and beam-steering.
Prof. Dr. Hristos T. Anastassiu
Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Efstathiou
Prof. Dr. Stylianos Tsitsos
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- 5G/6G antenna design
- microwave and mm wave devices and systems
- signal processing algorithms
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