Intelligent Radio for Next Generation Wireless Communications: An Overview

This article discusses various issues on intelligent radio (IR) from a perspective of intelligent UE and intelligent BS. Unlike a traditional UE, an intelligent UE can automatically access channel resources, cooperate with other UEs, and manage interferences. To implement such an intelligent UE, innovative techniques should be used, such as smart resource sensing and grant-free transmission. The core of IR lies in the development of thinking hardware, which can collect/process vital information of the environment and manage its resources optimally to support ultra-broadband communications. In particular, an integrated radar-communication unit is one of the most critical environment sensors in an intelligent UE, which helps it to acquire accurate location and mobility information of its neighbors for cooperation and interference avoidance. The traditional physical layer designs (such as beamforming and MIMO) should be revolutionized for the development of IR. ML and other AI algorithms play an important role in both BS and UEs. The communication protocols should be re-designed as well. The IR can offer a very high spectrum efficiency and power efficiency and is one of the most important research topics for future-generation wireless communications.