Survivability of Mobile and Wireless Communication Networks

Recent developments in mobile and wireless networks have paved the way for them to become an indispensable form of technology that is used by technology-savvy, business, and lay people, everywhere and at any time. The ever-increasing penetration rate of mobile telephony, the excitement of consumers for a fully mobile Internet, and the ubiquity of WiFi are just a few examples of the phenomenon. Data traffic volumes being carried by mobile communications networks have steadily increased over the years. Moreover, sudden outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic have pushed nations across the globe to entirely rely on digital, mobile, and communication networks technologies to enable crucial businesses, and industries to continue and provision their necessary services such as sharing healthcare information, online learning, and virtual meetings/conferences to name a few. Consequently, massive user growth and sheer data traffic have posed unexpected significant pressure on these networks.

Despite considerable advancements and merits, mobile and wireless networks are still lacking robustness and susceptible to cyberattacks. Overwhelming network traffic may not only affect performance of user services but may also cause service or network outage. Moreover, network failures may cause drastic effects on network performance and hinder network operation. Furthermore, cyberattacks are continuously on the rise during this pandemic and severely affecting the network performance. These problems emphasize the need for mechanisms to enhance the network survivability and availability and to sustain the flow of information in the case of failures or attacks. The communication ability of wireless networks to deliver data successfully in a timely and efficient manner and continue its services despite the presence of overwhelming traffic, failures, and attacks is referred to as survivability and is an important characteristic which must be provisioned.

The aim of this special issue is to solicite high quality research articles that articulate recent advancements in this domain, highlight open research issues and challenges, and indicate future directions. This special issue is expected to report on recent research and spark novel research on the wireless networks design, architecture, algorithms, and protocols for existing and prospective applications. Visionary, work-in-progress, and unpublished original research and survey/tutorial articles are solicited on survivability, safety, and security aspects of wireless networks.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Survivability strategies for mobile and wireless networks such as LTE-A, 5G and Beyond

• Survivability techniques for IoT/M2M/IoE

• Artificial intelligence-based survivable network operation

• Network analytics for efficient and reliable network operation

• Network adaptability towards abrupt traffic changes

• Autonomous and seamless mechanisms to handle node and link failures

• Optimization strategies for agile and efficient recovery

• Testbeds and experimental studies of survivability strategies

• Self-Organizing Networks (SONs) and Self-healing mechanisms

• Fault tolerant network pre-planning and deployment

• Fault tolerant resource allocation and scheduling

• Reliability and dependability of mobile and wireless communication networks

• Green and energy efficient survivability techniques

• Network coding-based survivability

• Safety, security, and privacy for network survivability

Important dates:

Manuscript Submission Due: 30th Oct. 2020

Acceptance/Rejection notification: 15th Dec. 2020  

Revised Paper due: 15th Jan. 2021

Final Decision due: 15th Feb. 2021

Expected Publication of the Special Issue: 2nd Quarter of 2021

Guest Editors:

• Muhammad Imran (Lead Guest Editor), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Email: cimran@ksu.edu.sa

• Pascal Lorenz, University of Haute Alsace, France. Email: pascal.lorenz@uha.fr

• Ammar Rayes, CISCO Systems, USA. Email: rayes@cisco.com

• Shui Yu, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Email: shui.yu@uts.edu.au