Periklis Chatzimisios

This Special Issue brings together extended versions of selected papers among more than 130 submissions to the IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking (CSCN 2024), addressing key challenges and emerging directions in the standardization of beyond-5G and 6G systems. As communication networks evolve toward highly distributed, intelligent, and service-driven architectures, standardization plays a critical role in ensuring interoperability, scalability, security, and sustainability across heterogeneous environments. Standards are what allow innovation to move beyond isolated prototypes and become interoperable, scalable, secure, and deployable in practice. The contributions collected in this issue reflect this broader transition. They address topics such as standardized QoS/ QoE evaluation, integrated sensing and communication, sustainability-oriented network design, advanced transport mechanisms, AI-driven edge intelligence, nomadic non-public networks, next-generation Wi-Fi coordination, and AI-enabled healthcare. Although these topics span different layers and use cases, they are connected by a common concern: how future communication systems can be designed in a way that is not only technically advanced, but also robust, trustworthy, and aligned with ongoing standardization efforts. We hope this Special Issue offers both a useful technical reference and a timely perspective on the standards-related challenges and opportunities that will define the next generation of communication systems.

This editorial introduces the Special Issue on the Future Mobile Core. In the transition towards beyond-5G and 6G systems, the mobile core network becomes a central architectural enabler whose importance has traditionally been underemphasized relative to the radio access network. This editorial introduces the selected papers for this Special Issue, highlighting how softwarization, intelligence and cloud-native design, together with standardized data analytics and exposure functions, position the core as the natural locus for closed-loop automation and AI-assisted operation, while also introducing new challenges related to determinism, state management, security, and operational governance. By framing the core as both a programmable platform and a trustworthy control system, the editorial positions the contributions in the Special Issue, which collectively explore architectural redesign, protocol evolution, orchestration, Al integration, trust, and migration strategies as key research directions for realizing future mobile networks.

The convergence of AI, robotics, and 6G networks is reshaping healthcare through real-time This paper applies a structured regulatory–technical analysis to examine how the EU AI Act, GDPR, NIS2 Directive, and Medical Device Regulation apply within AI-native 6G healthcare environments. A review of recent studies identifies limited integration of legal requirements into system design. Three analytically constructed scenarios—remote robotic surgery, real-time monitoring, and emergency telemedicine—serve as normative stress-tests to assess risks related to consent, accountability, cybersecurity, safety, and equity. The paper identifies key compliance considerations and highlights future research directions for integrating regulatory requirements into advanced healthcare systems.

The convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and 6G technologies is redefining autonomous systems across domains such as healthcare, manufacturing, and public safety. This paper explores the ethical and privacy challenges arising from this integration, particularly focusing on robotic systems that perform tasks using AI-based systems and communicate within environments enabled by 6G wireless technology, e.g., AI-driven robotic systems in 6G environments. We analyze key regulatory frameworks, including the EU AI Act, GDPR, and IEEE 7000 series, and present a structured ethical assessment of healthcare robotics. Emphasis is placed on safeguarding human rights, dignity, and autonomy, while addressing risks related to data privacy, bias, accountability, and transparency. The paper advocates for responsible innovation, proposing comprehensive frameworks that ensure trustworthy and ethically aligned robotic systems in future 6G-connected ecosystems.

The convergence of robotics and next-generation communication is a critical driver of technological advancement. As the world transitions from 5G to 6G, the foundational capabilities of wireless networks are evolving to support increasingly complex and autonomous robotic systems. This paper examines the transformative impact of 6G on enhancing key robotics functionalities. It provides a systematic mapping of IMT-2030 key performance indicators to robotic functional blocks including sensing, perception, cognition, actuation and self-learning. Building upon this mapping, we propose a high-level architectural framework integrating robotic, intelligent, and network service planes, underscoring the need for a holistic approach. As an example use case, we present a real-time, dynamic safety framework enabled by IMT-2030 capabilities for safe and efficient human-robot collaboration in shared spaces.

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in various domains is continuously increasing. The benefits offered by UAVs enable the facilitation of functions or execution of tasks, such as search and rescue, which would otherwise be challenging or financially restrictive. Furthermore, UAVs are important for the military domain being considered as efficient weapons. Therefore, many countries and retail companies are investing in the massive production of UAVs for market as well as government purposes. Nevertheless, most UAVs in all domains, lack even basic cybersecurity mechanisms, thus, posing cybersecurity threats that significantly affect cybersecurity aspects or result in physical damage and even loss of human life. Many cybersecurity solutions have been proposed in the literature, encompassing both reactive and proactive measures, with the latter being preferable. Added to this, threat modeling emerges as an effective proactive measure with minimal cost and complexity. The current work conducts extensive and comprehensive research concerning the domain of UAVs. Initially, the article outlines the historical development of UAVs and the different taxonomies in which they are classified according to different characteristics (e.g., number of rotors). The next sections detail a comprehensive description of the Internet of Drones (IoD) environment and the various relevant cybersecurity issues. Subsequently, the article examines a wide range of diverse threat modeling approaches found in the literature, while it categorizes relevant articles based on whether they describe solutions that integrate threat modeling or propose novel approaches for threat modeling.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 6G wireless technology is transforming the future of healthcare services, allowing for realtime diagnostics, remote procedures, intelligent patient monitoring, and ultra-fast data processing. In light of this potential, this article explores creating a sophisticated e-health system by combining neuro-symbolic AI with 6G wireless networks. Firstly, 6G neuro-symbolic AI, an advanced AI tool that is the fusion of a 6G wireless network, a neural network, and symbolic AI, improves cognitive modeling and decision-making, and communication speed in e-healthcare is presented. Next, an integrated architecture of a 6G-neuro-symbolic AI healthcare system is proposed, which is a combination of various aspects of AI-assisted computing and 6G transmission capabilities. Moreover, we evaluated the performance of the proposed architecture by analyzing (a) false alarm rate, (b) detection accuracy, (c) computational cost, (d) latency, and (e) energy efficiency. The evaluation results prove that 6G neuro-Symbolic AI provides better results compared to the only federated learning (FL) method. Lastly, we explore practical potential challenges in AI and 6G-driven e-healthcare systems, considering infrastructure readiness, interoperability issues, and ethical and legal issues.