Full leverage of the huge volume of data generated on a large number of user devices for providing intelligent services in the 6G network calls for Ubiquitous Intelligence (UI). A key to developing UI lies in the involvement of the large number of network devices, which contribute their data to collaborative Machine Learning (ML) and provide their computational resources to support the learning process. Federated Learning (FL) is a new ML method that enables data owners to collaborate in model training without exposing private data, which allows user devices to contribute their data to developing UI. Edge computing deploys cloud-like capabilities at the network edge, which enables network devices to offer their computational resources for supporting FL. Therefore, a combination of FL and edge computing may greatly facilitate the development of ubiquitous intelligence in the 6G network. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey of the recent developments in technologies for combining FL and edge computing with a holistic vision across the fields of FL and edge computing. We conduct our survey from both the perspective of an FL framework deployed in an edge computing environment (FL in Edge) and the perspective of an edge computing system providing a platform for FL (Edge for FL). From the FL in Edge perspective, we first identify the main challenges to FL in edge computing and then survey the representative technical strategies for addressing the challenges. From the Edge for FL perspective, we first analyze the key requirements for edge computing to support FL and then review the recent advances in edge computing technologies that may be exploited to meet the requirements. Then we discuss open problems and identify some possible directions for future research on combining FL and edge computing, with the hope of arousing the research community’s interest in this emerging and exciting interdisciplinary field.

Anomaly detection is crucial to the reliability and safety of rail transit systems. The rapid development of Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud technologies together with recent advances in machine learning offered various cloud-based data-driven approaches to automatic anomaly detection. However, the challenges introduced by the different types of equipment in rail transit systems with highly diverse data distributions and the lack of labeled anomaly data have not been sufficiently addressed. In this article, we attempt to cope with such challenges by proposing an improved long short term memory (LSTM)-based time-series anomaly detection scheme. The key elements of the proposed scheme include an improved LSTM model that may achieve more accurate time-series prediction for various rail transit devices and a method for determining an appropriate error threshold for detecting anomalies based on the prediction errors. In order to further enhance anomaly detection performance, we also propose a pruning algorithm for reducing the number of false anomalies. Our method does not rely on scarce anomaly labels but dynamically determines a threshold of prediction errors to identify anomalies; therefore, it overcomes the challenge of the extremely uneven distribution of rail transit data. We conducted extensive experiments in a real metro operation environment for performance evaluation. The experiment results prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme and show a superior performance of the scheme compared to existing anomaly detection methods.

Federated learning (FL) and split learning (SL) are two emerging collaborative learning methods that may greatly facilitate ubiquitous intelligence in the Internet of Things (IoT). Federated learning enables machine learning (ML) models locally trained using private data to be aggregated into a global model. Split learning allows different portions of an ML model to be collaboratively trained on different workers in a learning framework. Federated learning and split learning, each have unique advantages and respective limitations, may complement each other toward ubiquitous intelligence in IoT. Therefore, the combination of federated learning and split learning recently became an active research area attracting extensive interest. In this article, we review the latest developments in federated learning and split learning and present a survey on the state-of-the-art technologies for combining these two learning methods in an edge computing-based IoT environment. We also identify some open problems and discuss possible directions for future research in this area with the hope of arousing the research community’s interest in this emerging field.

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS)-assisted uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communications have been realized as essential to space-air-group system integration in the 6 G technology landscape. Trajectory planning plays a crucial role in RIS-assisted UAV communications to face the challenges of UAV’s limited power capacities and dynamic wireless channels. Existing solutions assume complete channel state information, focus on single-rotor UAVs, and rely heavily on time-consuming training processes for machine learning; thus, they lack applicability to deal with highly dynamic real-world scenarios. To fill these research gaps, we aim to characterize RIS-assisted UAV communications and design responsive and accurate UAV trajectory planning algorithms in this paper. We first develop a communication model with incomplete information and an energy consumption model for quadrotor UAVs. We then formulate UAV trajectory planning as an optimization problem to minimize UAV’s energy consumption while maintaining communication throughput. To solve this problem, we design an acceleration framework, FedX, for reinforcement learning (RL) solvers and present two fast trajectory planning algorithms, FedSAC and FedPPO, as instantiations of the FedX framework. Our evaluation results indicate that the proposed framework is effective and efficient–more than 3 times faster with 5 agents and 7 times faster with 10 agents than standard RL algorithms, making it suitable for using RL solvers within wireless networks and mobile computing environments. We also discuss and identify the pros and cons of our proposed framework.

Federated learning (FL) offers a promising approach to efficient machine learning with privacy protection in distributed environments, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile-edge computing (MEC). The effectiveness of FL relies on a group of participant nodes that contribute their data and computing capacities to the collaborative training of a global model. Therefore, preventing malicious nodes from adversely affecting the model training while incentivizing credible nodes to contribute to the learning process plays a crucial role in enhancing FL security and performance. Seeking to contribute to the literature, we propose a blockchain-empowered secure and incentive FL (BESIFL) paradigm in this article. Specifically, BESIFL leverages blockchain to achieve a fully decentralized FL system, where effective mechanisms for malicious node detections and incentive management are fully integrated in a unified framework. The experimental results show that the proposed BESIFL is effective in improving FL performance through its protection against malicious nodes, incentive management, and selection of credible nodes.

Cloud-native network design, which leverages network virtualization and softwarization together with the service-oriented architectural principle, is transforming communication networks to a versatile platform for converged network-cloud/edge service provisioning. Intelligent and autonomous management is one of the most challenging issues in cloud-native future networks, and a wide range of machine learning (ML)-based technologies have been proposed for addressing different aspects of the management challenge. It becomes critical that the various management technologies are applied on the foundation of a consistent architectural framework with a holistic vision. This calls for standardization of new management architecture that supports seamless the integration of diverse ML-based technologies in cloud-native future networks. The goal of this paper is to provide a big picture of the recent developments of architectural frameworks for intelligent and autonomous management for future networks. The paper surveys the latest progress in the standardization of network management architectures including works by 3GPP, ETSI, and ITU-Tand analyzes how cloud-native network design may facilitate the architecture development for addressing management challenges. Open issues related to intelligent and autonomous management in cloud-native future networks are also discussed in this paper to identify some possible directions for future research and development.