Technical Program

Slot 1: 09:00-10:30

09:00-10:00 Keynote Speaker: Prof. Krishna Narayanan, Texas A&M University

Title: Re-engineering the Uplink for Next Generation Massive Multiple Access

Abstract: Current wireless infrastructures have been designed to serve human-operated devices, with popular applications such as voice telephony, Internet browsing, navigation, and music/video streaming. Much of the engineering behind existing systems has focused on developing an efficient and high-throughput downlink. Yet, the emergence of machine-type communication (MTC) is forcing a paradigm shift because unattended devices interact with their environments in fundamentally different ways compared to humans. Machine-type communication is characterized by the sporadic and fleeting nature of traffic, short payloads, and large number of transmitting users. Supporting machine-type traffic requires a re-engineering of the physical and medium access control layers in the uplink. I will provide an overview of our recent results on how we can use the 2-step random access channel (RACH) procedure as a blueprint and enhance it to design massive multiple access schemes for the next generation. We will present an overview of how recent research (from many research groups) has revitalized classical approaches such as slotted ALOHA, interference cancellation, compressed sensing, interleave-division multiple access, and code division multiple access to support machine type communication.

10:00-10:15 An SCMA-Based Grant-Free Access Scheme
Alessandro Mirri, Diego Forlivesi, Lorenzo Valentini, Marco Chiani, Enrico Paolini

10:15-10:30 An Investigation of the Compressed Sensing Phase in Unsourced Multiple Access
Federico Clazzer, Farouk Amri, Marcel Grec

BREAK

Slot 2: 11:00-12:30

11:00-11:15 Age-optimal Joint Sampling and Transmitting Scheduling for Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting
Yonghao Ji, Xiaoli Xu

11:15-11:30 Massive Opportunistic Sensing with Limited Collaboration for Age of Information
Alessandro Buratto, Leonardo Badia

11:30-11:45 Timeliness Analysis of CSMA/CA with Truncated HARQ in the Finite Blocklength Regime
Zhiwei Bao, Wei Gao, Xiaopeng Yuan, Yulin Hu, Anke Schmeink

11:45-12:00 Towards 6G Data-Oriented Uplink RSMA Systems: Delay-Outage Ratio Analysis
Mehmet Can, Mehmet Ilter, İbrahim Altunbaş, Mikko Valkama

12:00-12:15 Secrecy Communications for Wireless-Powered Cooperative NOMA Systems: A Power Allocation and Friendly Jamming Approach
Yuan Ren, Xu Zhang and Xuewei Zhang, Guangyue Lu

12:15-12:30 Decentralized Massive Access Random Scheme in User-Centric Cell-free Massive MIMO System
Yanfeng Hu, Dongming Wang, Xinjiang Xia, Xiaohu You

Call for Papers

The ability to provide connectivity to a massive number of low-power, low-complexity devices will play a pivotal role in the definition of next generation 6G systems, targeting a variety of diverse internet-of-things verticals enriched by the non-terrestrial segment. In this context, grant-free multiple-access protocols are a fundamental enabler in serving a dynamic population of devices that share the same communication medium to transmit in sporadic and unpredictable patterns. While traditional random-access protocols often treat collisions as wasteful, recent years have seen ground-breaking developments in the vision of beyond-5G and 6G communications. These new approaches, often categorized under the broad name of unsourced massive access, offer an entirely different perspective on grant-free protocols by constructively embracing interference, and have triggered a large amount of research in the past few years. Research in the field is further buttressed by clearly defined market-driven goals from the industry, in the quest for highly reliable, highly efficient, low-complexity access solutions for a massive number of devices. The road towards 6G and more generally IoT communications represent only some relevant application examples where upcoming research has the potential to leave a fundamental mark.

The goal of this workshop is to stimulate new contributions to the topic, with an emphasis on cross-layer interactions between the MAC and PHY layers of the protocol stack, as well as on the connections to coding theory. Additionally, we seek to explore the integration of machine learning techniques in the design and optimization of these protocols, unlocking innovative approaches to further enhance network efficiency and adaptability in the rapidly evolving landscape of 6G and IoT communications.

The workshop is supported by the 6G Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC), an interdisciplinary collaboration linking a total of 32 research groups from 20 universities and research institutions supported by over 60 associate partners from science, industry and the public sector in Germany, designed to lay the scientific and technical foundations for the next generation of mobile communications.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Multiple access techniques for massive 6G radio access networks

• Fundamental limits on massive random access

• Hybrid random/deterministic access protocols

• Signal processing for successive interference cancellation with random access

• Signal processing for successive interference cancellation with random access

• Machine learning/artificial intelligence aided for massive access networks

• Random access protocols for real-time applications

• Efficient access schemes for very short-packet communications

• Energy efficient MAC-PHY spatial processing

• Channel estimation and user detection in massive access protocols

• Medium access strategies for IoT connectivity in non-terrestrial networks

• Information freshness and data significance in massive connectivity







The workshop accepts only novel, previously unpublished papers. All submitted papers should be written in English with a maximum paper length of six (6) printed pages (10-point font) including figures. Accepted papers will be submitted for inclusion in IEEE Xplore/IEEE Digital Library, provided they are covered by one registration and they are presented at the workshop.




Important dates:

Full paper submissions: 22 Dic. 2023.

Notification of acceptance: 15 Jan. 2024.

Final manuscript: 25 Jan. 2024