Enabling Technologies for 6G Maritime Communications

Dear Colleagues,

In the coming smart ocean era, reliable and efficient communications are crucial for promoting a variety of maritime activities. Current maritime communication networks (MCNs) mainly rely on marine satellites and on-shore base stations (BSs). The former generally provides a limited transmission rate, while the latter lacks wide-area coverage capability. Due to these facts, the state-of-the-art MCN falls far behind terrestrial fifth-generation (5G) networks. In the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) era, cutting-edge technologies are widely envisioned to fill up the gap and enable intelligent maritime communications.

This Special Issue seeks to bring together the state-of-the-art original research, and the latest advances and innovations in theories, key technologies, and innovative applications of 6G maritime communications. We solicit high-quality original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

• Hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks for MCNs;
• Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled agile MCNs;
• AI-native network architecture for maritime communications;
• Integrated sensing and communication for MCNs;
• MIMO/RIS for enhancing MCNs;
• Mobile edge computing for MCNs;
• Measurements and modeling for maritime channels;
• Hardware testbed or field trial for MCNs.

Prof. Dr. Wei Feng
Dr. Yunfei Chen
Dr. Jue Wang
Guest Editors

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