Device-to-device (D2D) communication is one of the most promising technologies in wireless cellular networks that can be employed to improve spectral and energy efficiency, increase data rates, and reduce links latency. This paper investigates fifth generation and beyond (5GB) networks, the basics of D2D communication, applications, and classification. Herein, D2D in in-band (IBD) and out-band (OBD) modes are discussed. This paper also presents the integration of D2D communication with other prominent technologies and demonstrates the importance of integration with possible solutions in improving network performance. We further investigate the challenges of D2D communication, opportunities, and future research directions of D2D in 5GB networks. In addition, D2D communication in 6G network challenges and open research areas are introduced.

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are among the most beneficial and emerging technologies, with a wide range of applications that can support the sustainability concerns of smart cities and ultimately improve citizens’ quality of life. The goals of this systematic review were to explore the involvement of surveillance drones in smart cities in terms of application status, application areas, proposed models, and characteristics of drones. We conducted this systematic review based on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyzes (PRISMA) guidelines. We systematically searched the Web of Science and Scopus for journal articles and conference papers written in English and published up to August 2021. Of the 323 records identified, 43 met the inclusion criteria. Findings showed that surveillance drones were used in seven distinct research fields (transportation, environment, infrastructure, object or people detection, disaster management, data collection, and other applications). Air pollution and traffic monitoring were the dominant application areas. The majority of reviewed models were based on the application of rotary-wing single-drones with the camera as the aerial sensor. Reviewed models showed that the adoption of a single or multiple UAVs, either as a stand-alone technology or integrated with other technologies (e.g., internet of things, wireless sensor networks, convolutional neural networks, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, cloud computing, web applications), can offer efficient and sustainable solutions compared to conventional surveillance methods. This review can benefit academic researchers and practitioners.

5G communications require a multi Gb/s data transmission in its small cells. For this purpose millimeter wave (mm-wave) RF signals are the best solutions to be utilized for high speed data transmission. Generation of these high frequency RF signals is challenging in electrical domain therefore photonic generation of these signals is more studied. In this work, a photonic based simple and robust method for generating millimeter waves applicable in 5G access fronthaul is presented. Besides generating of the mm-wave signal in the 60 GHz frequency band the radio over fiber (RoF) system for transmission of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with 5 GHz bandwidth is presented. For the purpose of wireless transmission for 5G application the required antenna is designed and developed. The total system performance in one small cell was studied and the error vector magnitude (EVM) of the system was evaluated.

The 2 x 2 MMI-MZI polymer thermo-optic switch in a high refractive index contrast (0.102) with a new structure design is realized. The fabrication was done using standard fabrication techniques such as coating, photolithography, and dry etching. A crosstalk level of dB has been achieved. Meanwhile, the extinction ratio of 28.6 dB has been achieved in this device. The polarization-dependent loss of 0.3 dB was measured at 1550 nm wavelength. In terms of wavelength dependency, the device shows a good performance within C-band wavelength with vacillation of the insertion loss value around 0.88 dB. The power consumption of 1.85 mW was measured to change the state of the switch from the cross to bar state. The measured switching time was 0.7 ms.

A system comprises of a W-band (75-110 GHz) optical millimeter (mm)-wave generation using microring resonators (MRRs) and radio-over-fiber (RoF) link architectures is presented for multigigabit data rates demand. The MRRs are used to generate optical mm-wave soliton pulses for W-band applications. To achieve faster transmission speed wirelessly, higher spectral efficiency (SE) and better transmission performance, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is used. The results show that the MRRs support W-band optical soliton pulses, which can be used in an OFDM transmission/receiver system. Localized narrow bandwidth soliton pulses within frequencies of 92.2-93.2 GHz can be seen in the throughput port of the Panda system with respect to the full width at half maximum and free spectrum range of 3.5 and 184 MHz, respectively. The error vector magnitude of the system was measured and the viability of the solitonic OFDM-based system for RoF link over 25-Km fiber link and 2-m wireless link was confirmed. The data rate of the system with 16-quadrature amplitude modulation is measured as 43.6 Gb/s and with 10 GHz of bandwidth, the SE is obtained as 4.36 bit/s/Hz.