Opportunities in 5G Networks ─ A Research and Development Perspective

5G is a dramatic paradigm shift from 4G that requires a high flexibility and intelligence in spectrum sharing, millimeter wave communications, integrated IoT access, massive MIMO, smart antennas, Big Data, cloud computing, and many other disruptive technologies. 5G means a new transmission scheme, virtualized SDN-like control, extreme energy efficiency, new regulatory and standardization issues, and support 1000x higher data rate than 4G. The book focuses on the R&D of 5G networks, especially its core components such as millimeter wave communications, Massive MIMO, cloud-based networking, SDN support, Big Data, energy-efficient protocols, and cognitive spectrum management.

Dr. Fei Hu is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama (main campus), Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He obtained his PhD at Tongji University (Shanghai, People’s Republic of China) in the field of signal processing (in 1999) and at Clarkson University (New York) in the field of electrical and computer engineering (in 2002). He has published more than 150 journal/conference articles and book chapters.

Dr. Hu’s research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DoD), Cisco, Sprint, and other sources. His research expertise can be summarized as 3S: Security, Signals, Sensors. (1) Security: This is about how to overcome different cyber attacks in a complex wireless or wired network. Recently, he focused on cyber-physical system security and medical security issues. (2) Signals: This mainly refers to intelligent signal processing, that is, using machine learning algorithms to process sensing signals in a smart way to extract patterns (i.e., achieve pattern recognition). (3) Sensors: This includes microsensor design and wireless sensor networking issues.