IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials最新文献

{"title":"Approximation Algorithms for Vehicle Routing Problems: A Survey","authors":"Jingyang Zhao;Uman Khalid;Saw Nang Paing;Chaoning Zhang;Zhi-Hui Zhan;Hyundong Shin","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2026.3731146","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2026.3731146","url":null,"abstract":"The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem with wide-ranging applications in networks, logistics, transportation, and distribution systems. At its core, the VRP seeks to design a set of vehicle routes that serve a collection of customers from one or more depots while minimizing the total routing cost, subject to various operational constraints. Among its numerous variants, the capacitated VRP (CVRP) stands out as one of the most classical and extensively studied models. While several surveys have addressed VRPs, existing surveys tend to concentrate on experimental and heuristic approaches, with comparatively less attention paid to approximation algorithms and their theoretical guarantees. Motivated by this gap, as well as by recent theoretical advances in approximation algorithms and practical considerations such as time windows, multiple depots, stochastic demands, and diverse objective functions (e.g., cumulative cost, makespan, and latency), this survey provides a systematic classification of VRPs. Specifically, we examine two broad classes of variants: single-depot VRPs and multiple-depot VRPs. In particular, we provide a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art approximation algorithms, their theoretical bounds, and key algorithmic techniques that have emerged in recent years. In addition, we explore emerging connections between VRPs and quantum networks, highlighting how quantum technologies can offer new perspectives for addressing complex routing challenges. Finally, we outline several open challenges and promising directions for future research in the study of VRPs.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"7391-7440"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148902191","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":"Cyber Deception: Taxonomy, State of the Art, Frameworks, Trends, and Open Challenges","authors":"Pedro Beltrán-López;Manuel Gil Pérez;Pantaleone Nespoli","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3594788","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3594788","url":null,"abstract":"The growing interest in cybersecurity has significantly increased articles designing and implementing various Cyber Deception (CYDEC) mechanisms. This trend reflects the urgent need for new strategies to address cyber threats effectively. Since its emergence, CYDEC has established itself as an innovative defense against attackers, thanks to its proactive and reactive capabilities, finding applications in numerous real-life scenarios. Despite the considerable work devoted to CYDEC, the literature still presents significant gaps. In particular, there has not been (i) a comprehensive analysis of the main components characterizing CYDEC, (ii) a generic classification covering all types of solutions, nor (iii) a survey of the current state of the literature in various contexts. This article aims to fill these gaps through a detailed review of the main features that comprise CYDEC, developing a comprehensive classification taxonomy. In addition, the different frameworks used to generate CYDEC are reviewed, presenting a more comprehensive one. Existing solutions in the literature using CYDEC, both without Artificial Intelligence (AI) and with AI, are studied and compared. Finally, the most salient trends of the current state of the art are discussed, offering a list of pending challenges for future research.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"1520-1556"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11106825","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144763322","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":"Exhaled Breath Analysis Through the Lens of Molecular Communication: A Survey","authors":"Sunasheer Bhattacharjee;Dadi Bi;Pit Hofmann;Alexander Wietfeld;Sophie Becke;Michael Lommel;Pengjie Zhou;Ruifeng Zheng;Ulrich Kertzscher;Yansha Deng;Wolfgang Kellerer;Frank H. P. Fitzek;Falko Dressler","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3605748","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3605748","url":null,"abstract":"Molecular Communication (MC) has long been envisioned to enable an Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) with medical applications, where nanomachines within the human body conduct monitoring, diagnosis, and therapy at micro- and nanoscale levels. MC involves information transfer via molecules and is supported by well-established theoretical models. However, practically achieving reliable, energy-efficient, and bio-compatible communication at these scales still remains a challenge. Air-Based Molecular Communication (ABMC) is a type of MC that operates over larger, meter-scale distances and extends even outside the human body. Therefore, devices and techniques to realize ABMC are readily accessible, and associated use cases can be very promising in the near future. Exhaled breath analysis has previously been proposed. It provides a non-invasive approach for health monitoring, leveraging existing commercial sensor technologies and reducing deployment barriers. The breath contains a diverse range of molecules and particles that serve as biomarkers linked to various physiological and pathological conditions. The plethora of proven methods, models, and optimization approaches in MC enable macroscale breath analysis, treating humans as the transmitter, the breath as the information carrier, and macroscale sensors as the receiver. Using ABMC to interface with the inherent dynamic networks of cells, tissues, and organs could create a novel Internet of Bio Things (IoBT), a preliminary macroscale stage of the IoBNT. This survey extensively reviews exhaled breath modeling and analysis through the lens of MC, offering insights into theoretical frameworks and practical implementations from ABMC, bringing the IoBT a step closer to real-world use.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"412-445"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144987735","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":"A Survey on Artificial Noise for Physical Layer Security: Opportunities, Technologies, Guidelines, Advances, and Trends","authors":"Hong Niu;Yue Xiao;Xia Lei;Jiangong Chen;Zhihan Xiao;Mao Li;Chau Yuen","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3610758","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3610758","url":null,"abstract":"Due to the broadcast nature of wireless communications, physical-layer security has attracted increasing attention from both academia and industry. Artificial noise (AN), as one of the promising physical-layer security techniques, leverages the spatial degree-of-freedom of channels to effectively enhance the security of wireless communications. In contrast to other physical-layer security techniques, the key distinguishing feature of AN lies in its ability to generate specific interfering signals according to channel characteristics, thereby increasing the secrecy capacity by reducing the wiretap channel capacity without affecting the legitimate channel capacity. Hence, this paper provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of AN, including its evolution, modeling, background, applications, and future trends. Initially, we introduce the development, fundamentals, and technical background of AN. Subsequently, we review the current state of research across various AN-empowered scenarios and AN-combined technologies. Finally, we discuss open challenges and outline potential future directions for AN-aided wireless security.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"341-381"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072740","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":"Toward One-Second Latency: Evolution of Live Media Streaming","authors":"Abdelhak Bentaleb;May Lim;Mehmet N. Akcay;Ali C. Begen;Sarra Hammoudi;Roger Zimmermann","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3555514","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3555514","url":null,"abstract":"This survey presents the evolution of live media streaming and the technological developments behind today’s IP-based low-latency live streaming systems. Live streaming primarily involves capturing, encoding, packaging and delivering real-time events such as live sports, live news, personal broadcasts and surveillance videos. Live streaming also involves concurrent streaming of linear TV programming off the satellite, cable, over-the-air or IPTV broadcast, where the programming is not necessarily a real-time event. The survey starts with a discussion on the latency and latency continuum in streaming applications. Then, it lays out the existing live streaming workflows and protocols, followed by an in-depth analysis of the latency sources in these workflows and protocols. The survey continues with the technology enablers, low-latency extensions for the popular HTTP adaptive streaming methods and enhancements for robust low-latency playback. An entire section is dedicated to the detailed summary and findings of Twitch’s grand challenge on low-latency live streaming. The survey concludes with a discussion of ongoing research problems in this space. We expect this survey to be the one-stop reference for those who would like to learn how low-latency live streaming has evolved and works today, and what further developments could happen in the future.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"2418-2456"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143734132","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":"A Survey on Satellite Computing: Connecting the Dots Between Networks and Applications","authors":"Carlos Guimarães;Alessio Netti;Markus Sauer;Florian Zeiger;Hans-Peter Huth;Elizaveta Boriskova","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3579525","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3579525","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past decade, there has been a significant and rapid progression in satellite technology, mostly motivated by a wide deployment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mega-constellations and, more recently, emerging technologies like Inter-Satellite (Laser) Links (ISL) and multi-orbital constellations approaching maturity. This has rekindled interest towards the exploitation of satellite systems for a variety of tasks, including their use as computational servers similar to traditional Edge and Cloud infrastructures. Such paradigm, known as Satellite Computing, can serve any area on Earth in a holistic manner, enhancing applications anywhere and anytime in several distinct domains (e.g., environmental monitoring, emergency response and intelligent transportation). Despite being a highly active research area, Satellite Computing is still in early stages and, therefore, most research works are insular and target specific aspects and use cases. Moreover, the concept of Satellite Computing has not been standardized yet, thus its role in future network systems (e.g., beyond 5G/6G) remains unclear. This work aims to fill these gaps by providing a comprehensive survey of the state of the art. First, it discusses the network- and computing-related aspects that impact the realization of Satellite Computing in future systems. And second, it overviews specific use cases and applications enabled by Satellite Computing. Based on this two-fold analysis, a taxonomy of applications is derived from each application’s requirements and key networking design choices. Finally, it provides an overview from an industrial perspective, while identifying open challenges in the Satellite Computing area in order to boost and steer possible pathways for future research.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"567-592"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144288329","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":"A Survey of Quantum Deep Reinforcement Learning for Resource Allocation in Future Wireless Networks","authors":"Ni Made Erma Pratiwi Astiti;Byung Moo Lee","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3638435","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3638435","url":null,"abstract":"The significant rise in wireless communication, driven by sixth-generation (6G) networks, underscores the urgent need for innovative resource allocation methods to achieve efficiency, scalability, and reliability. This survey explores the integration of Quantum Deep Reinforcement Learning (QDRL) as a strategy to address the challenges posed by dynamic and complex wireless environments. By leveraging quantum computing features such as superposition and entanglement, QDRL enhances computational efficiency and mitigates the scalability limitations of classical and deep reinforcement learning (DRL) in high-dimensional optimization. The study reviews recent QDRL approaches for key resource allocation tasks, including power distribution, user scheduling, and channel assignment, and examines quantum algorithms such as the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) and Quantum Neural Networks (QNN) for improved decision-making in wireless systems. Furthermore, it emphasizes the connection between quantum computing and DRL, highlighting hybrid architectures that balance computational cost, energy efficiency, and scalability. Finally, the survey identifies research gaps and outlines future directions, paving the way for robust QDRL strategies to support next-generation wireless networks.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"109-148"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145613497","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":"A Comprehensive Tutorial and Survey of O-RAN: Exploring Slicing-Aware Architecture, Deployment Options, Use Cases, and Challenges","authors":"Khurshid Alam;Mohammad Asif Habibi;Matthias Tammen;Dennis Krummacker;Walid Saad;Marco Di Renzo;Tommaso Melodia;Xavier Costa-Pérez;Mérouane Debbah;Ashutosh Dutta;Hans D. Schotten","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3598406","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3598406","url":null,"abstract":"Open-radio access network (O-RAN) seeks to establish the principles of openness, programmability, automation, intelligence, and hardware-software disaggregation with interoperable and standard-compliant interfaces. It advocates for multi-vendorism and multi-stakeholderism within a cloudified and virtualized wireless infrastructure, aimed at enhancing the deployment, operation, and management of RAN architecture. These enhancements promise increased flexibility, performance optimization, service innovation, energy efficiency, and cost effectiveness across fifth-generation (5G), sixth-generation (6G), and beyond networks. A silent feature of O-RAN architecture is its support for network slicing, which entails interaction with other domains of the cellular network, notably the transport network (TN) and the core network (CN), to realize end-to-end (E2E) network slicing. The study of this feature requires exploring the stances and contributions of diverse standards development organizations (SDOs). In this context, we note that despite the ongoing industrial deployments and standardization efforts, the research and standardization communities have yet to comprehensively address network slicing in O-RAN. To address this gap, this paper provides a comprehensive exploration of network slicing in O-RAN through an in-depth review of specification documents from O-RAN Alliance and research papers from leading industry and academic institutions. The paper commences with an overview of the relevant standardization and open source contributions, subsequently delving into the latest O-RAN architecture with an emphasis on its slicing aspects. Furthermore, the paper explores O-RAN deployment scenarios, examining options for the deployment and orchestration of RAN and TN slice subnets. It also discusses the slicing of the underlying infrastructure and provides an overview of various use cases related to O-RAN slicing. Finally, it summarizes the potential research challenges identified throughout the study.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"1637-1678"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11124199","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144850719","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":"Survey of Graph Neural Network for Internet of Things and NextG Networks","authors":"Sabarish Krishna Moorthy;Jithin Jagannath","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3625399","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2025.3625399","url":null,"abstract":"The exponential increase in Internet of Things (IoT) devices coupled with 6G pushing towards higher data rates and connected devices has sparked a surge in data. Consequently, harnessing the full potential of data-driven machine learning has become one of the important thrusts. In addition to the advancement in wireless technology, it is important to efficiently use the resources available and meet the users’ requirements. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have emerged as a promising paradigm for effectively modeling and extracting insights which inherently exhibit complex network structures due to its high performance and accuracy, scalability, adaptability, and resource efficiency. There is a lack of a comprehensive survey that focuses on the applications and advances GNN has made in the context of IoT and Next Generation (NextG) networks. To bridge that gap, this survey starts by providing a detailed description of GNN’s terminologies, architecture, and the different types of GNNs. Then we provide a comprehensive survey of the advancements in applying GNNs for IoT from the perspective of data fusion and intrusion detection. Thereafter, we survey the impact GNN has made in improving spectrum awareness. Next, we provide a detailed account of how GNN has been leveraged for networking and tactical systems. Through this survey, we aim to provide a comprehensive resource for researchers to learn more about GNN in the context of wireless networks, and understand its state-of-the-art use cases while contrasting to other machine learning approaches. Finally, we also discussed the challenges and wide range of future research directions to further motivate the use of GNN for IoT and NextG Networks.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"1803-1844"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145381491","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":"Space Computing Power Networks: A Survey","authors":"Shi Chen;Yingying Wu;Bomin Mao;Fengxiao Tang;Nei Kato","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2026.3712767","DOIUrl":"10.1109/COMST.2026.3712767","url":null,"abstract":"Space Computing Power Networks (SCPNs), also termed as Satellite Comptuting Power Networks, as an integration of satellite networks, orbital computing, and terrestrial infrastructure, have been becoming an emerging architecture and attracting growing research attention during the past few years. Beyond meeting the differentiated intelligent communication, computing, and caching service requirements from users and terminals across space, air, ground, and sea, SCPNs hold significant importance for space exploration, earth observation, environment monitoring, remote user activities, and so on. There is no doubt that SCPNs will be the critical part of 6G to realize the ubiquitous and seamless intelligence. However, compared to traditional Terrestrial Computing Power Networks (TCPNs) and Satellite Computing Networks (SCNs), SCPNs holds the uniqueness, such as the cycled node movements, hierarchical network topology, extremely large network scalability, ubiquitous resource heterogeneity and constraints, and particular space computing environment. The system integration, protocol optimization, service orchestration, and sustainable operation of SCPN have inspired many meaningful research and projects. Considering existing survey papers mainly focus on scenarios of TCPNs carrying large-scale and complex computing tasks, this paper presents a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research on SCPN, covering various aspects ranging from system architecture, applications and challenges, and diversified Quality of Service (QoS) metric analysis and optimization. Finally, a number of potential future research directions have also been discussed to enlighten more innovative works.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"6628-6664"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148432322","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}