Increasing incidents of cyber attacks and evolution of quantum computing poses challenges to secure existing information and communication technologies infrastructure. In recent years, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being extensively researched, and is widely accepted as a promising technology to realize secure networks. Optical fiber networks carry a huge amount of information, and are widely deployed around the world in the backbone terrestrial, submarine, metro, and access networks. Thus, instead of using separate dark fibers for quantum communication, integration of QKD with the existing classical optical networks has been proposed as a cost-efficient solution, however, this integration introduces new research challenges. In this paper, we do a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art QKD secured optical networks, which is going to shape communication networks in the coming decades. We elucidate the methods and protocols used in QKD secured optical networks, and describe the process of key establishment. Various methods proposed in the literature to address the networking challenges in QKD secured optical networks, specifically, routing, wavelength and time-slot allocation (RWTA), resiliency, trusted repeater node (TRN) placement, QKD for multicast service, and quantum key recycling are described and compared in detail. This survey begins with the introduction to QKD and its advantages over conventional encryption methods. Thereafter, an overview of QKD is given including quantum bits, basic QKD system, QKD schemes and protocol families along with the detailed description of QKD process based on the Bennett and Brassard-84 (BB84) protocol as it is the most widely used QKD protocol in the literature. QKD system are also prone to some specific types of attacks, hence, we describe the types of quantum hacking attacks on the QKD system along with the methods used to prevent them. Subsequently, the process of point-to-point mechanism of QKD over an optical fiber link is described in detail using the BB84 protocol. Different architectures of QKD secured optical networks are described next. Finally, major findings from this comprehensive survey are summarized with highlighting open issues and challenges in QKD secured optical networks.

Communication system's performance is sensitive to bandwidth, power, cost etc. There have been various solutions to improve the performance, out of them, one of the fundamental solutions over the years is design of optimum modulation schemes. As the research on beyond 5G heats up, we survey and explore power and bandwidth efficient modulation schemes for the next generation communication systems in details. In the existing literature, initially square quadrature amplitude modulation (SQAM) was considered. However, only square constellations are not sufficient for varying channel conditions and rate requirements, thus, efficient odd power of 2 constellations were introduced. For odd power of 2 constellations, rectangular QAM (RQAM) is most commonly used. However, RQAM is not a good choice and modified cross QAM (XQAM) constellation is preferred which provides improved power efficiency over RQAM due to its energy efficient two dimensional (2D) structure. The increasing demand for high data-rates has further encouraged research towards more compact 2D constellations which leads to hexagonal lattice structure based hexagonal QAM (HQAM) constellations. In this work, various QAM constellations are discussed and detailed study of star QAM, XQAM, and HQAM is presented. Generation, peak and average energies, peak-to-average-power ratio, symbol-error-rate, decision boundaries, bit mapping, Gray code penalty, and bit-error-rate of star QAM, XQAM, and HQAM constellations for different constellation orders are presented. Finally, a comparative study of various QAM constellations is presented which justifies the supremacy of HQAM over other QAM constellations for various wireless communication systems and a potential modulation scheme for future standards.

With the advent of 5G and the need for energy-efficient massively connected wireless networks, in this work, we consider an energy harvesting (EH) based multi-relay downlink cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system with practical constraints. The base station serves NOMA users with the help of decode-and-forward based multiple EH relays, where relays harvest the energy from the base stations radio frequency. A relay is selected from the multiple K-relay by using a partial relay selection protocol. The system is considered to operate in half-duplex mode over a generalized independent and identical Nakagami-m fading channel. The closed-form expression of outage probability and ergodic rate are derived for users, under the assumption of imperfect channel state information (CSI) and imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receiver node. Expression of outage probability and ergodic rate for both users under the assumption of perfect CSI and perfect SIC are also presented. Further, the asymptotic expression for the outage probability is also shown. The derived analytical expressions are verified through Monte-Carlo simulations.

Visible light communication (VLC) is one of the main technologies driving the future 5G communication systems due to its ability to support high data rates with low power consumption, thereby facilitating high speed green communications. To further increase the capacity of VLC systems, a technique called non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been suggested to cater to increasing demand for bandwidth, whereby users' signals are superimposed prior to transmission and detected at each user equipment using successive interference cancellation. Some recent results on NOMA exist which greatly enhance the achievable capacity as compared with the orthogonal multiple access techniques. However, one of the performance-limiting factors affecting VLC systems is the nonlinear characteristics of a light emitting diode (LED). This paper considers the nonlinear LED characteristics in the design of pre-distorter for cognitive radio inspired NOMA in VLC, and proposes singular value decomposition-based Chebyshev precoding to improve performance of nonlinear multiple-input multiple-output NOMA-VLC. A novel and generalized power allocation strategy is also derived in this paper, which is valid even in scenarios when users experience similar channels. Additionally, in this paper, analytical upper bounds for the bit error rate of the proposed detector are derived for square M-quadrature amplitude modulation.

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is considered as a potential multiple access technique for supporting massive number of devices with high spectral efficiency for the 5 G and beyond networks. Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is considered as an efficient solution for fully autonomous and sustainable communication networks. In this paper, application of SWIPT in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) employing cooperative NOMA (CNOMA) is investigated. The HetNets consists of macro-base stations (MBS) under-laid by small-base stations (SBS). The distribution of MBSs follow Poisson point process model, while the SBS tier supports NOMA and carrier sensing for its transmission. Carrier sensing helps in reducing interference by blocking the base stations within a specific range from transmitting. In this work, the analysis at SBS tier is carried out in two phases. In the direct phase transmission, the SBS transmits the superimposed signal to a user pair, comprising of a cell-centre user (CCU) and a cell-edge user (CEU), using NOMA principle. The CCU acts as a cooperative relay to forward information to the CEU in the cooperative phase. Unlike existing literature, instead of using only the superimposed signal for energy harvesting (EH), in this work, the cooperating user (i.e. CCU) employs EH using interference from the adjacent base stations along with the EH from the superimposed signal. Expressions for outage probability and throughput are derived at the user pair served using NOMA. Comparison of the proposed EH system with existing solutions are highlighted and useful insights are drawn. Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to validate the analytical results.