Call for Sessions

Special Session 2: Short-Packet Communications for Future Networks: Theory, Technologies, and Applications

Many services envisioned for 6G and beyond carry small payloads but impose strict requirements on reliability, latency, energy efficiency, and resilience to mobility. Examples include closed-loop industrial automation, cooperative robots, connected vehicles, low-altitude platforms, non-terrestrial networks, and massive sensing. With short codewords, finite-blocklength penalties govern performance. Pilots, synchronization, control information, guard intervals, channel acquisition, retransmissions, and decoding may require resources comparable to those used for the payload. Models and air interfaces designed for long packets are therefore inadequate for this operating regime.
This Special Session covers theoretical work, system design, and experimental validation in short-packet communications. Its physical-layer scope includes finite-blocklength information theory; short channel codes and low-latency decoding; modulation and coded modulation; OFDM, DFT-s-OFDM, single-carrier, OTFS, and other emerging waveforms, including delay-Doppler processing for high-mobility channels. The scope also includes low-overhead synchronization and channel estimation, grant-free and unsourced random access, multi-antenna and cooperative transmission, learning-assisted transceivers, and lightweight security.
At the system level, the session examines end-to-end joint design of blocklength, pilots, bandwidth, power, retransmissions, scheduling, computing, and mobility management under coupled constraints on reliability, latency, energy, and complexity. We also invite work on deterministic networking, standards-relevant design, reproducible evaluation, FPGA/ASIC/SDR prototypes, testbeds, and application demonstrations. Each contribution should explicitly address at least one of the following: finite-blocklength effects, small-payload or short-frame operation, signaling overhead, processing latency, or the system-level tradeoffs among these factors. Analytical bounds, implementable algorithms, protocol integration, and experimental evidence are all within scope when evaluated under explicit short-packet assumptions.

Related Topics for this Session （but not limited to）:

1. Finite-blocklength information theory and performance limits: Non-asymptotic achievability and converse bounds, including the normal approximation and channel dispersion; tradeoffs among reliability, latency, goodput, and energy in fading, noncoherent, multiuser, and feedback channels; and secrecy constraints at finite blocklength.
2. Short-blocklength channel coding and low-latency decoding: Construction and rate matching for Polar, LDPC, PAC, BCH, convolutional, rateless, and other short codes; CRC-aided decoding and undetected-error performance; and list, sequential, iterative, and hardware-aware decoding.
3. Modulation and coded modulation for short packets: Constellation and bit-labeling design; bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) and joint coding and modulation design; geometric and probabilistic shaping; index, sparse, and adaptive modulation; and differential or noncoherent signaling.
4. Waveforms, numerologies, and frame structures: Short-frame design based on CP-OFDM, DFT-s-OFDM, single-carrier, filtered multicarrier, orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS), and other emerging waveforms; pulse shaping and mini-slot design; integrated pilot, control, and payload design; delay-Doppler-domain pilot design, channel estimation, equalization, and detection for OTFS; coded OTFS and MIMO-OTFS; PAPR, out-of-band emissions, guard-interval and signaling overhead, and implementation complexity; and fair comparisons among different waveforms in high-mobility, doubly selective channels.
5. Low-overhead synchronization, channel acquisition, and joint reception: Synchronization and pilot design; joint detection of control information and payloads; joint estimation of user activity, channels, and data; robust reception under imperfect CSI or short coherence times; and mitigation of hardware impairments.
6. Grant-free massive access and spatial or cooperative transmission: Configured-grant and grant-free access, unsourced random access, NOMA, sparse activity detection, collision resolution and interference cancellation; massive MIMO, cell-free networks, multiple transmission and reception points (multi-TRP), relaying, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and low-overhead beam management.
7. Cross-layer design, deterministic networking, and mobility support: Joint allocation of blocklength, power, bandwidth, pilots, and computing resources; scheduling, link adaptation, HARQ, repetition, and packet duplication; queueing delay, age of information, and deterministic latency; handover or multi-connectivity; and co-design across the physical (PHY), MAC, and network layers.
8. Learning, security, and resource-efficient implementation: Learning methods that optimize coding, modulation, detection, waveforms, and resource allocation using short-packet performance metrics; lightweight authentication, physical-layer security, and privacy; and low-power, low-complexity, hardware-aware transceiver design.
9. Applications of short-packet communications: Industrial control and automation, cooperative robotics, V2X and cooperative driving, UAV and low-altitude networks, high-speed rail, satellite and non-terrestrial networks, massive machine-type communications and massive sensing, integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), smart grids, remote healthcare, public safety, and emergency communications; and application-driven designs addressing reliability, latency, energy efficiency, mobility, and connection density.

Short Biography of Organizers

Qianfan Wang (王千帆) holds a Ph.D. in engineering and is a Postdoctoral Fellow at City University of Hong Kong. His research covers classical information theory and coding as well as quantum error correction. He has published more than 50 papers as first or corresponding author in IEEE JSAC, IEEE TIT, IEEE TCOM, IEEE JSTSP, Acta Electronica Sinica, IEEE ICASSP, IEEE ISIT, IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE ICC, and IEEE WCNC. He received Best Paper Awards at the 2024 IEEE/CIC ICCC and the 33rd Annual Conference on Information Theory of the Chinese Institute of Electronics in 2026, as well as support from the 2025 Hong Kong and Macao Young Science and Technology Talent Support Program. He has filed 13 Chinese invention patent applications and one U.S. patent application; seven invention patents have been granted. As Guest Editor, he organized special issues of Entropy and the Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. He serves on the Young Editorial Board of ENGINEERING Information Technology & Electronic Engineering and the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Communications.

Yiwen Wang (王义文) received the B.S. degree from Xidian University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, in 2021 and the Ph.D. degree from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, in 2026. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include information theory, channel coding, short-blocklength coding and decoding, and reliable wireless communications.

Junyuan Gao (高俊园) received the B.S. degree in communication engineering from Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, in 2018 and the Ph.D. degree in information and communication engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 2023. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include massive random access, massive MIMO, finite-blocklength information theory, and integrated sensing and communications. She has published more than 20 research papers in international journals, including IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and IEEE Transactions on Communications, as well as in major international conferences such as IEEE ISIT, IEEE ICC, and IEEE GLOBECOM.

Yiming Xu (许一鸣) received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, in 2026 and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at City University of Hong Kong. Current research interests include integrated sensing and communications, flexible antenna systems, near-field communications, and applications of artificial intelligence to signal processing and communication systems.

Submit Method:
1, submit it via the link: http://confsys.iconf.org/submission/icssip2026 (after entering the link, click on the corresponding topic)
2, send your manuscript to icssip_conf@vip.163.com with subject "Submit+Special Session-2+Paper Title". (请通过邮件发送稿件，邮件题目：Submit+Special Session-2+Paper Title)