{"title":"Virtual Network Embedding: Literature Assessment, Recent Advancements, Opportunities, and Challenges","authors":"Anurag Satpathy;Manmath Narayan Sahoo;Chittaranjan Swain;Paolo Bellavista;Mohsen Guizani;Khan Muhammad;Sambit Bakshi","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3531724","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3531724","url":null,"abstract":"Network virtualization (NV) allows service providers (SPs) to instantiate logically isolated entities called virtual networks (VNs) on top of a substrate network (SN). Though VNs bring about multiple benefits, particularly in terms of economic costs and elasticity, they also force various technical challenges to be addressed. The primary one is the issue of optimally allocating resources to VNs, also termed virtual network embedding (VNE). This paper presents an exhaustive survey of VNE by extensively covering the state-of-the-art research field in this very active field and focusing on the emerging research trends in industry and academia over the last decade. In addition, this survey originally contributes to the literature by proposing a novel taxonomy for existing VNE solutions and providing a thorough comparative study of their strategies.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3861-3914"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Diego Passos;Cledson de Sousa;Rafael Caveari Gomes;Danilo Fernandes de Assis;Fernanda Gonçalves de Oliveira Passos;Célio Albuquerque
{"title":"A Tutorial and Security Overview on the IEEE 2030.5-2018 Standard","authors":"Diego Passos;Cledson de Sousa;Rafael Caveari Gomes;Danilo Fernandes de Assis;Fernanda Gonçalves de Oliveira Passos;Célio Albuquerque","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3532110","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3532110","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid growth of grid-integrated solar plants and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) has introduced advanced electrical devices into both domestic and industrial environments. In this expanding landscape, standardization is essential to ensure compatibility, security, and seamless communication among devices from various manufacturers. This paper explores the IEEE 2030.5-2018 standard, which is designed to facilitate communication between the Smart Grid and its end-users. While providing a comprehensive overview of the standard, we particularly focus on its security features, with an emphasis on the challenges associated with managing digital certificates within the IEEE 2030.5 framework. Additionally, we conduct a systematic review of the existing literature related to this standard.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3615-3640"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Akbar Telikani;Arupa Sarkar;Bo Du;Fendy Santoso;Jun Shen;Jun Yan;Jianming Yong;Emily W. Yap
{"title":"Autonomous Aerial Vehicles-Aided Intelligent Transportation Systems: Vision, Challenges, and Opportunities","authors":"Akbar Telikani;Arupa Sarkar;Bo Du;Fendy Santoso;Jun Shen;Jun Yan;Jianming Yong;Emily W. Yap","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3530913","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3530913","url":null,"abstract":"With their inherent attributes such as mobility, flexibility, and adaptive altitude, Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) can potentially enable Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to be more efficient by playing the role of aerial base stations for data collection, data analysis, and communication networks. Their ability to access hard-to-reach locations makes AAVs helpful in emergencies to search for and assess damages/accidents and support communication relays in disrupted infrastructures. Although there is a rising interest in the application of AAVs in the realm of ITS, a comprehensive survey that consolidates existing contributions is noticeably absent. This paper fulfils this research gap by investigating the contributions of AAVs in diverse domains of ITS. We divide existing works into three main categories: Functionality Level, Application Level, and Planning Level. For each category, this paper explores the tasks that AAVs enable in ITS and describes the related proposed schemes. Furthermore, various simulation testbeds and datasets used for the implementation and evaluation of AAV-enabled ITS are described. Based on the identified challenges, we provide recommendations for future research.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3772-3819"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Aygur;Sithamparanathan Kandeepan;Andrea Giorgetti;Akram Al-Hourani;Edward Arbon;Mark Bowyer
{"title":"Narrowband Interference Mitigation Techniques: A Survey","authors":"Michael Aygur;Sithamparanathan Kandeepan;Andrea Giorgetti;Akram Al-Hourani;Edward Arbon;Mark Bowyer","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3531428","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3531428","url":null,"abstract":"The radio frequency (RF) spectrum is a scarce natural resource utilized by terrestrial and satellite systems that operate in regulated frequency bands. The sharing of this scarce resource and the bandwidth of these systems has led to various types of interferences including, narrowband interference (NBI) and wideband interference (WBI). The spectrum congestion problem will only continue to be exacerbated as new applications and technologies are deployed with larger bandwidths to support new user requirements. The handling of NBI in the literature is significant and vast, which deserves recognition in the form of a survey paper. This survey aims to summarize the handful of NBI models and the extent of mitigation techniques that have been reported in the literature over the last decade for various commercial and defense fields which includes terrestrial and satellite systems. More importantly, the source and potential adverse impacts of NBI on different applications and technologies are discussed. A series of mitigation strategies are reviewed including the traditional filter-based methods and recent techniques that utilized machine learning. We strictly limit this survey to time-frequency NBI and ignore the treatment of interference in the spatial domain considering the number of publications reported to date. Lastly, we address some of the identified research gaps and enumerate future research directions to progress NBI mitigation works. This survey provides a brief introduction to the NBI problem and can be applied to future research for emerging applications and technologies.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3455-3482"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10845757","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mobile Edge Intelligence for Large Language Models: A Contemporary Survey","authors":"Guanqiao Qu;Qiyuan Chen;Wei Wei;Zheng Lin;Xianhao Chen;Kaibin Huang","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3527641","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3527641","url":null,"abstract":"On-device large language models (LLMs), referring to running LLMs on edge devices, have raised considerable interest since they are more cost-effective, latency-efficient, and privacy-preserving compared with the cloud LLM paradigm. Nonetheless unlike cloud LLMs, the performance of on-device LLMs is intrinsically constrained by resource limitations on edge devices. Sitting between cloud and on-device AI, mobile edge intelligence (MEI) may address this dilemma by provisioning AI capabilities at the edge of mobile networks, e.g., on base stations. This article provides a contemporary survey on harnessing MEI for LLM deployment. We begin by illustrating several killer applications to demonstrate the urgent need for deploying LLMs at the network edge. Next, we present the preliminaries of LLMs, MEI, and resource-efficient LLM techniques. We then provide an architectural overview of MEI for LLMs (MEI4LLM), outlining its core components and how it supports LLM deployment. Subsequently, we delve into various aspects of MEI4LLM, extensively covering edge LLM caching and delivery, edge LLM training, and edge LLM inference. Finally, we identify future research opportunities. We hope this article inspires researchers in the field to leverage mobile edge computing to facilitate LLM deployment, thereby unleashing the potential of LLMs across various privacy- and delay-sensitive applications.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3820-3860"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142940129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Edge Graph Intelligence: Reciprocally Empowering Edge Networks With Graph Intelligence","authors":"Liekang Zeng;Shengyuan Ye;Xu Chen;Xiaoxi Zhang;Ju Ren;Jian Tang;Yang Yang;Xuemin Shen","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3527561","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3527561","url":null,"abstract":"Recent years have witnessed a thriving growth of computing facilities connected at the network edge, cultivating edge networks as a fundamental infrastructure for supporting miscellaneous intelligent services. Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) frontiers have extrapolated to the graph domain and promoted Graph Intelligence (GI). Given the inherent relation between graphs and networks, the interdiscipline of graph learning and edge networks, i.e., Edge GI or EGI, has revealed a novel interplay between them – GI aids in optimizing edge networks, while edge networks facilitate GI model deployment. Driven by this delicate closed-loop, EGI is recognized as a promising solution to fully unleash the potential of edge computing power and is garnering growing attention. Nevertheless, research on EGI remains nascent, and there is a soaring demand within both the communications and AI communities for a dedicated venue to share recent advancements. To this end, this paper promotes the concept of EGI, explores its scope and core principles, and conducts a comprehensive survey concerning recent research efforts on this emerging field. Specifically, this paper introduces and discusses: 1) fundamentals of edge computing and graph learning, 2) emerging techniques centering on the closed loop between graph intelligence and edge networks, and 3) open challenges and research opportunities of future EGI. By bridging the gap across communication, networking, and graph learning areas, we believe that this survey can garner increased attention, foster meaningful discussions, and inspire further research ideas in EGI.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3417-3454"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142940131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anton Tishchenko;Mohsen Khalily;Arman Shojaeifard;Fraser Burton;Emil Björnson;Marco Di Renzo;Rahim Tafazolli
{"title":"The Emergence of Multi-Functional and Hybrid Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Integrated Sensing and Communications - A Survey","authors":"Anton Tishchenko;Mohsen Khalily;Arman Shojaeifard;Fraser Burton;Emil Björnson;Marco Di Renzo;Rahim Tafazolli","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2024.3519785","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2024.3519785","url":null,"abstract":"Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) are positioned as one of the key enabling technologies for 6G networks as they can provide ubiquitous coverage for areas with blocked line-of-sight (LOS) links. However, to be successfully integrated into functional networks such structures will require the addition of sensors and other radio network elements, thereby resulting in a multi-functional RIS (MF-RIS). These structures are expected to be deployed for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) and radar and communication coexistence (RCC) in 6G, which will enhance the performance of radio communication and enable a smart wireless environment (SWE) that is programmable and self-reconfigurable. This survey provides an up-to-date summary of the state of the art. It considers applications for MF-RISs and the challenges associated with their deployment.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 5","pages":"2895-2936"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10833623","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142937474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Survey on Intelligent Network Operations and Performance Optimization Based on Large Language Models","authors":"Sifan Long;Jingjing Tan;Bomin Mao;Fengxiao Tang;Yangfan Li;Ming Zhao;Nei Kato","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526606","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526606","url":null,"abstract":"As Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved significant success in handling multi-modal tasks such as text, images, videos, and sounds, particularly showcasing emergent capabilities in natural language tasks, they hold great potential for network operations that similarly involve vast amounts of text data, fault data, and log files. This paper focuses on the development of LLMs, detailing their fundamental principles and application scenarios across different domains. It highlights the remarkable capabilities of LLMs in tasks such as fault diagnosis, causal inference, and intelligent question answering, and applies these abilities to the field of network operations. Moreover, the paper reviews some of the key issues and technical barriers faced by intelligent networks, such as efficiently monitoring networks in real-time and providing timely alerts when necessary. In addition to examining the utilization of LLM in network operations, this paper introduces a framework for intelligent network operations and performance optimization, leveraging LLM. The objective of this framework is to bolster network robustness and furnish users with exceptional, personalized network services. Ultimately, we conclude by delineating the challenges encountered in LLM-based intelligent network operations and performance optimization, while presenting potential solutions to overcome these hurdles and propel the comprehensive deployment of LLM-driven network intelligence.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3915-3949"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142936172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jemin Ahn;Rasheed Hussain;Kyungtae Kang;Junggab Son
{"title":"Exploring Encryption Algorithms and Network Protocols: A Comprehensive Survey of Threats and Vulnerabilities","authors":"Jemin Ahn;Rasheed Hussain;Kyungtae Kang;Junggab Son","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526605","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526605","url":null,"abstract":"Cryptographic network protocols play a crucial role in enabling secure data exchange over insecure media in modern network environments. However, even minor vulnerabilities can make protocols an easy target for cyber attackers. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the threats and vulnerabilities stemming from the cryptographic network protocols. Furthermore, it is necessary to comprehensively investigate the weaknesses of network protocols that use cryptographic primitives to inform users and developers about potential attack points. This comprehensive survey examines the relationship between encryption schemes and network protocols and presents an in-depth review of associated threats and vulnerabilities. Given that most cryptographic protocols operate in the Transport and Application layers of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol stack, our investigation primarily centers around encryption algorithms used by representative and notable cryptographic network protocols such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Shell (SSH). Furthermore, we delve into the attackers’ methods to exploit the already identified and existing vulnerabilities, seeking to understand the mechanisms employed to compromise these protocols. Through this survey, we aim to provide the readership with an in-depth understanding of the existing and new vulnerabilities associated with modern cryptographic protocols and provide valuable insights into securing them effectively. We also discuss the existing challenges and future research directions in this domain.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3587-3614"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10829860","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142934436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zhaolong Ning;Tengfeng Li;Yu Wu;Xiaojie Wang;Qingqing Wu;Fei Richard Yu;Song Guo
{"title":"6G Communication New Paradigm: The Integration of Autonomous Aerial Vehicles and Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces","authors":"Zhaolong Ning;Tengfeng Li;Yu Wu;Xiaojie Wang;Qingqing Wu;Fei Richard Yu;Song Guo","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526251","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3526251","url":null,"abstract":"With the continuous development of Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRSs) and autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs), their combination has become foundational technologies to complement the terrestrial network by providing communication enhancement services for large-scale users. This article provides a comprehensive overview of IRS-assisted AAV communications for 6th-Generation (6G) networks. First, the applications supported by IRS-assisted AAV communications for 6G networks are introduced, and key issues originated from applications supported by IRSs and AAVs for 6G networks are summarized and analyzed. Then, prototypes and main technologies related to the integration of IRSs and AAVs are introduced. Driven by applications and technologies of IRS-assisted AAV communications, existing solutions in the realms of energy-constrained communications, secure communications, and enhanced communications are summarized, and corresponding empirical lessons are provided. Finally, we discuss some research challenges and open issues in IRS-assisted AAV communications, offering directions for the future development.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"27 6","pages":"3382-3416"},"PeriodicalIF":34.4,"publicationDate":"2025-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142934676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}