Journal of Communications and Information Networks

Call for Paper

It has been envisioned that future space networks will go beyond the network connectivity to support ubiquitous computing and intelligence services, including earth observation, natural disaster predictions, deep space exploration, etc. By integrating communication and computation capabilities into the space networks, space computing power networks (Space-CPN) provides a holistic way to harness the benefits of the evolution of satellite fabrications, space-air-ground integration, and cloud-edge-end computing, thereby improving the timeliness, effectiveness, and trustworthiness of space information processing. The Space-CPN thus becomes a new network architecture to realize the optimized resource allocation, by distributing communication, computing, storage, network, and other resource information of service nodes through a network control plane. Unlike conventional space communications networks, the Space-CPN will be transformative and revolutionize the evolution of space networks from “space connectivity” to “space intelligence”.

Although the architectures and requirements of the CPN were approved by the ITU in 2021 and the standards for satellite communications have begun to support satellite access through new radio for non-terrestrial networks starting with the 3GPP Release 17 specifications in 2020, the study of Space-CPN is still in its infancy due to the unique challenges such as highly dynamic network topologies and complicated information structures. These challenges need to be tackled by developing novel network information theories, highly efficient operation architectures across hardware, software, and network levels, as well as efficient network resource allocation methods for communication, computation, and intelligence orchestration. This special issue aims to bring together researchers and experts from academia and industry to consider space computing and communication opportunities across theoretical, algorithmic, systematic, hardware, software, and entrepreneurial considerations to embrace the exciting era of space computing and intelligence. We solicit original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

(1)Network information theory for communication and computation in space networks

(2)Task modelling and decomposition theory for space computing power networks

(3)Task-oriented communication and coding theory for space computing

(4)Architectures for computing and space networks convergence

(5)Hierarchical learning and computing architectures over space networks

(6)Hardware architectures for communication and computation integration

(7)Brain-inspired computing and learning in space networks

(8)Service-driven resource allocation for space-air-ground heterogeneous networks 

(9)Computing, communication, and intelligence co-design over space networks

(10)Machine learning for space networks resource optimization

(11)Digital twin for space computing power networks modelling

(12)Satellite-based distributed learning and inference

(13)Foundation model pre-training, fine-tunning, and inference over space networks

(14)End-edge-cloud computing over space-air-ground integrated networks

(15)Privacy and security in space computing power networks

(16)Experimental testbeds for space computing power networks

(17)Application scenarios in computing and space networks convergence

Important Dates

Submission Deadline: Aug. 30, 2024

Initial Decision: Sept. 30, 2024

Revised Manuscript: Oct. 30, 2024

Final Decision: Nov. 20, 2024

Final Upload: Nov. 30, 2024

Guest editors

Yuanming Shi, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China Email: shiym@shanghaitech.edu.cn
Chunxiao Jiang, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Email: jchx@tsinghua.edu.cn
Linling Kuang, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Email:  kll@tsinghua.edu.cn
Khaled B. Letaief, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China Email: eekhaled@ust.hk

Submission Guideline

All original manuscripts to JCIN must be submitted through the Manuscript Central https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcin. Please indicate that your manuscript is intended for this Special Issue by adding the Special Issue topic to your manuscript title (e.g., Your Manuscript Title - Special Issue on Space-CPN).Manuscripts for this Special Issue should adhere to the requirements for regular papers of JCIN specified in the Author Guidelines at  http://www.jcin.com.cn/.