Each issue of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC) is devoted to a specific technical topic and thus provides to JSAC readers a collection of up-to-date papers on that topic. These issues are valuable to the research community and become valuable references. The technical topics covered by JSAC issues span the entire field of communications and networking.

JSAC publishes only papers that are submitted in response to a Call-for-Papers. These calls are published in JSAC issues and other publications of the IEEE Communications Society as appropriate to the subject area of the call. Papers submitted for review for possible publication in a JSAC issue must be submitted to one of the Guest Editors listed in the Call-for-Papers.

Special Issue on Large AI Model for Future Wireless Communication Systems
Submission Date: 2025-05-15

The emergence of future wireless networks, e.g., 6G aims to further enhance users’ experience by offering services of superior reliability, speed, and quality compared to existing wireless technologies. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved from traditional algorithms to deep learning and now to Large AI Models (LAMs), increasingly revolutionizing wireless communication systems. Renowned LAMs like SORA, GPT-4o and Gemini have demonstrated amazing performance across diverse applications, positioning them as powerful tools for tackling complex challenges in future wireless communication systems. For example, by integrating advanced cognitive modules such as comprehensive perception, world modeling, and action planning, LAMs can achieve fully autonomous and intelligent network operations, handle unforeseen communication scenarios, and provide revolutionary capabilities and experiences in various complex environments. These applications not only demonstrate the powerful learning and optimization capabilities of LAMs but also offer new directions and insights for the development of future wireless network technologies.

Despite the potential benefits of LAMs in future wireless communication systems, deploying them in the practical environment introduces several challenges, such as computational power requirements, efficient training methodologies, and model parameter scaling along with the characteristics of wireless networks. The primary goal of this Special Issue is to encourage researchers to tackle the crucial challenges that emerge when applying LAMs to future wireless communication systems. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

    LAMs for cognitive-level resource allocation, channel estimation, mobility management and physical layer algorithm design
    LAMs for semantic communications
    LAMs for intelligent operation and maintenance
    LAMs for telecom language understanding
    LAMs for low-latency digital twins
    LAMs for network protocol design, control and architecture development
    LAMs for intent-driven edge intelligence applications
    LAMs for future energy-efficient and green networks
    Performance analysis of LAMs in wireless networks, e.g., explainability, trust, privacy, and security-related issues
    Novel testbeds, complex simulations and experiment of LAMs in future wireless networks

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Papers should be submitted through ScholarOne Manuscripts according to the following schedule.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 May 2025 (Deadline Extended)
First-round Decision Notification: 30 July 2025
Revised Manuscript Submission: 1 October 2025    
Final Decision Notification: 20 November 2025 
Final Manuscript Due: 15 December 2025    
Planned Publication: First Quarter 2026

Guest Editors

Cunhua Pan (Lead Guest Editor)
Southeast University, China

Feibo Jiang
Hunan Normal University, China

Kezhi Wang
Brunel University London, UK

Pietro Michiardi
EURECOM, France

Octavia A. Dobre
Memorial University, Canada

Peiying Zhu
Huawei Technologies Company Ltd., Canada

Merouane Debbah
Khalifa University of Science and Technology, UAE

Special Issue on Key Technologies Towards Standardization of 6G and NextG
Submission Date: 2025-05-15

The ever-increasing demand of mobile data traffic has been driving the continuous evolutions of wireless communications, including the move to the next generation of standardization roughly in every decade. In response to the development of IMT-2030, 3GPP is organizing its first 3GPP-wide 6G workshop in March 2025, to understand better the potential values of 6G and the associated enabling technologies before the start of the full-scale 6G standardization. 

The discussion of 6G requires a careful evaluation of what 6G can bring compared with 5G. IMT-2030 defines the following six areas:

    Immersive communication
    Hyper-reliable and low-latency communication
    Massive communication
    Integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) and communication
    Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC)
    Ubiquitous connectivity

These areas represent more expanded and comprehensive features and use cases compared to 5G. Thus, the standardization work for 6G and potentially the next generation (NextG) is expected to be more challenging.

The goal of this special issue is not to publish a broad range of 6G papers covering all possible research areas. Rather, it is to publish a set of research papers that collectively focus on the potential key technologies enabling fundamental values for 6G, with the intention to positively impact 6G and NextG standardization in 3GPP and other standardization bodies.  These fundamental values are expected to bring improved end-user experience not only in terms of the perceived throughput, but also in terms of other aspects such as coverage and energy efficiency. In addition, these fundamental values are expected to be realized not only in new spectrum (e.g., in the range of 7 to 24 GHz, also known as frequency range 3 or FR3), but also in existing spectrum (e.g., below 7 GHz and above 24 GHz). In particular, we solicit high-quality original research papers on aspects of the air interface for potential 6G and NextG standardization bringing practical and fundamental values, including but not limited to the following topics:

    Flexible and efficient co-existence between 5G and 6G
    Improved efficiency in spectrum usage, including spectrum sharing, by considering practical constraints 
    Techniques towards an AI-native 6G and NextG
    MIMO evolutions, including distributed and cell-free MIMO systems, extremely-large scale phase-coherent MIMO, e.g., particularly in FR3 
    Models and physical-layer technologies for the use of new spectrum
    Energy efficiency for networks and end users, including the interaction with other features (e.g., MIMO)
    Coverage enhancements involving both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks
    Integrated/joint sensing and communication, particularly how it will bring fundamental values to 6G and NextG
    Support of low-end devices, including backscattering communications and communication with energy-neutral devices
    Distributed optimization and machine learning supported by 6G wireless networks
    Open, virtualized, programmable and intelligent networks for 6G and NextG
    Native support of Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) in 6G and NextG radio interface 
    Others, e.g., (sub-)THz, reconfigurable intelligence surfaces or RIS, etc.

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript through Scholar One Manuscripts (authors should have an account on the platform).

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission: 15 May 2025
First Notification: 15 August 2025
Revised Manuscript Submission: 15 October 2025
Final Decision Notification: 1 December 2025
Final Manuscript Submission: 20 December 2025
Publication Date: Second Quarter 2026

Guest Editors

Wanshi Chen (Lead Guest Editor)
Apple, USA

Lingjia Liu (Co-Lead Guest Editor)
Virginia Tech, USA

Erik G. Larsson
Linköping University, Sweden

Xiaofeng Liu
China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China

Mohamed El Jaafari
Thales Alenia Space, France

Tony Quek
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Robert Schober
Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), Germany

Special Issue on Secure Communication, Sensing, and Computation in Future Intelligent Wireless Networks
Submission Date: 2025-07-15

We are at a pivotal moment in defining what the sixth generation (6G) of wireless networks will be. Many promising new technologies have recently been proposed, ranging from the integration of sensing and communication capabilities to the deployment of reconfigurable antennas/elements, and from the adoption of machine learning (ML)-based designs to the integration of higher frequency bands, including millimeter wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) bands. While these exciting new technologies promise significant performance gains and offer new services and opportunities for 6G, they also introduce new security and privacy risks and attack surfaces that are of paramount concern and can even be a dealbreaker for some of these technologies. 

With emerging technologies such as intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS)/reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), holographic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), and extremely large-scale arrays (XL-array), electromagnetic wave propagation will shift from the traditional far-field model to the near-field model. This shift introduces new security issues in integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), such as increased susceptibility to eavesdropping due to higher spatial resolution and more precise jamming attacks targeting specific users or devices. In parallel, there is a significant move towards integrating ML-based solutions for future network designs; however, these come with associated risks in terms of the reliability and robustness of these models (e.g., against adversarial attacks), the privacy and security of data used in training, as well as the security of the models themselves. Another promising solution considered in 6G is semantic communications, where the meaning and intent behind raw data are transmitted, necessitating considerations of feature privacy and security. Moreover, a common solution approach for semantic communication relies on joint source-channel coding, which introduces new security risks due to the correlation between transmitted signals and the underlying data to be conveyed. It is clear that each of these new advancements comes with its own security challenges and vulnerabilities across communication, sensing, and computation layers, necessitating robust and comprehensive security measures. The real benefits of these technologies can only be fully assessed when considered alongside the associated multilayered security risks and collaborative mitigation strategies across all physical and application layers. On the other hand, new developments in ML techniques provide new capabilities for various security solutions that can be incorporated into future network designs. 

In this context, this special issue will focus on security issues in future intelligent networks, including aspects of sensing and communication, semantic communications, artificial intelligence (AI)-native design of network components, as well as the privacy and security risks of AI services over wireless networks. Our goal is to attract novel research works that highlight such non-trivial security risks, propose rigorous solution approaches, and evaluate the pros and cons of emerging technologies in light of these security vulnerabilities. We solicit high-quality original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

    Security and privacy issues in positioning and sensing systems
    IRS/RIS-aided anti-detection for secure sensing and communication
    Data and model privacy in ML solutions for wireless systems
    Security of ML-aided designs for future communication networks
    Data and model poisoning attacks in federated/distributed learning over wireless networks
    Security in semantic-based joint source-channel coding solution
    Algorithm and hardware design for secure ISAC systems
    ML-aided covert communication and anti-detection techniques
    ML-aided jamming detection and anti-jamming techniques
    Secure near-field communication and sensing systems
    Secure integrated air-to-ground systems
    Resource management to guarantee security
    Secure mmWave and THz systems
    Information-theoretic analysis of security in sensing/ISAC
    Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted wireless secure transmission
    IRS/RIS-assisted secure transmission and secret key generation
    Reconfigurable antenna technologies, e.g., fluid antenna system (FAS), movable antenna (MA), and rotatable antenna (RA), for secure transmission and sensing
    Other advanced MIMO techniques, e.g., holographic MIMO, and XL-array, for secure transmission and sensing
    Experimental testbeds for secure XL-array/ISAC systems
    Secret key generation over near-field communication
    Differential privacy for federated/distributed learning over wireless networks
    Quantum entanglement and post-quantum AI for secure ISAC

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript through Scholar One Manuscripts (authors should have an account on the platform).

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 July 2025
First Notification: 1 November 2025
Acceptance Notification: 31 January 2026
Final Manuscript Due: 20 February 2026
Publication Date: Second Quarter 2026

Guest Editors

Beixiong Zheng
South China University of Technology, China

Deniz Gündüz
Imperial College London, UK

Ruiqi (Richie) Liu
ZTE Corporation, China

Jemin Lee
Yonsei University, South Korea

Si-Hyeon Lee
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea

Georges Kaddoum
École de Technologie Supérieure, Canada

Onur Günlü
Linköping University, Sweden