Contributions are requested for a special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section “Communications“.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2020 (extended) ( (All submissions will be processed as soon as received and published immediately if accepted after review, don’t wait until the deadline to submit)

Dear Colleagues,

With the advent of 5G, agile machine-type communications (MTC) may finally become a reality. The three pillars of technological improvements: higher throughput, significantly increased number of connected devices, and especially lower latency are seen as major enabling factors in the wider deployment of mission-critical applications (MCAs). These applications range from autonomous vehicles and drones, haptic communications over 5G, electrical grid, and industrial automation to smart cities and medical applications, and are typically characterized by the need for extremely reliable transport in addition to low latency and potentially high bandwidth. One of the main challenges for supporting MCA-type services lies in the creation of overall network architectures that adapt to fluctuating traffic patterns and enable overall high adaptability that spans not only the radio access layer and core network services but also extends to edge and core computing that are essential in supporting MCAs.

The objective of this Special Issue is to bring together state-of-the-art contributions related to 5G-based mission-critical applications and services covering topics such as the development and operation of MCA/M2M applications using the 5G service stack, the role of NFV and network slicing in mission-critical communications, exposing the network to the application (programmable RAN, core network interfaces, transport network configuration with SDN, etc.), over-the-top approaches to MCAs, transport protocols and APIs for MCAs, testbeds to validate 5G MCAs, lessons from trials with MCAs, the impact of multiple operators and roaming in 5G applications, challenges from MCA regulation and governance, as well as security and privacy issues related to MCAs.

This Special Issue is connected to the activities in the European project 5GENESIS (under the umbrella of 5G PPP) and the US project COSMOS (under the umbrella of PAWR). An email to the Guest Editors with the tentative title and abstract is expected before submission.

Guest Editors  (Click to contact)

Pedro Merino-Gómez,
Ivan Seskar,

For full information please click this link: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors/special_issues/5G_mission