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 Private and Covert Communications: Fundamentals, Methods, and Applications
Submission Date: 2025-04-15

With the proliferation of terminal devices in fifth-generation (5G) and upcoming sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications, modern society is becoming increasingly reliant on information transmission. Wireless communications offer convenience, but information privacy is increasingly critical and cannot be overlooked. Research into transmission security and privacy is advancing, particularly with the rise of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) era. Transmitted data often includes sensitive individual information, such as personal health and location data. In addition to ensuring the secrecy and integrity of transmitted information, there may be scenarios where a transmitter wishes to send messages over wireless networks without being detected. This is particularly important to protect the transmitter's privacy, especially in situations involving government and military operations where stealth is essential.

Private and covert communications aim to conceal the transmission's existence from adversarial wardens. They are also known as low probability of detection/intercept communications. By concealing the transmission within environmental or artificial noise, private and covert communications can offer a higher level of security to preserve the privacy compared to cryptography and physical layer security. Wardens are less likely to attempt decoding signals they are unaware of, thereby reducing the risk of detection and interception. Concealing wireless communication through covert methods has received significant research attention and has various applications. By leveraging inherent or man-made uncertainties such as background noise uncertainty, channel uncertainty, location uncertainty, artificial noise, and other factors, private and covert communications can degrade the detection performance of potential adversaries. 

Furthermore, research in private and covert communications has flourished across various applications, including cognitive radio, non-orthogonal multiple access, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, IoT networks, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted networks, remote networks, satellite networks, and more. The evolution of wireless technologies necessitates the evolution of methodologies for private and covert communications to introduce additional uncertainty and adapt to new security requirements in emerging applications and scenarios. This is crucial to counteract the increasing computational capabilities of potential adversaries.

Based on these observations, this Special Issue will provide a comprehensive collection of the state-of-the-art theory, design, optimization, and applications of private and covert communications. We solicit high-quality original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

    Fundamentals and methods of private and covert communications;
    Novel uncertainty techniques for private and covert communications;
    Information-theoretic limits of private and covert communications;
    Tradeoff between transmission and covertness;
    Potential attacks towards private and covert communications;
    Privacy preservation via covert communications;
    Multi-dimensional resource allocation for private and covert communications;
    Private and Covert communications with imperfect channel state information;
    Private and Covert communications towards active wardens;
    Private and Covert communications with massive MIMO;
    Private and Covert communications with multiple access;
    Private and Covert communications for mmWave and Terahertz;
    Private and Covert communications for visible optical communication;
    Private and Covert communications with reconfigurable intelligent surfaces;
    Private and Covert communications for integrated sensing and communication;
    Private and Covert communications in space-air-ground-sea integrated networks;
    Array signal processing for space-air-ground private and covert communications;
    Private and Covert communications assisted satellite networks;
    Private and Covert communications for UAV-assisted networks;
    Private and Covert communications for IoT networks;
    Artificial intelligence aided private and covert communications;
    Other related topics for private and covert communications.

Special Issue on Large AI Model for Future Wireless Communication Systems
Submission Date: 2025-05-01

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