Guest Editorial: Networks in Harsh Environments

Networks deployed in harsh environments, such as high-speed trains, subways, deserts, trenches, forests, and underground mining, should be specially constructed to withstand extreme conditions such as high or low temperatures, corrosive humidity, extreme weather or excessive dust and dirt. Such applications require specially designed wireless networks, sensor networks, fiber optic networks, or satellite networks that can perform under extreme conditions and meet the quality of service (QoS), security, and reliability requirement. Quite often, networks in harsh environments have extremely low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), high Doppler shift, and long latency, and often consumes more power and energy. Bandwidth limitation in harsh environments requires spectrum-efficient communications. The current state -of-the-art technologies such as edge computing, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), advanced modulation and channel coding, artificial intelligence, and signal processing provide different venues to explore this challenging area.