IEEE Access Special Section: Deployment and Management of Small Heterogeneous Cells for 5G

The research of deployment and management of small heterogeneous cells toward the 5
^th
generation of mobile cellular networks has been extensively investigated in both academia and industry. With the densification of small cells, the traffic requirements within each cell will fluctuate noticeably, so the traffic distribution and user behavior need to be studied based on different deployment and management scenarios. Furthermore, it is envisioned that 5G networks will be mostly for data-centric applications rather than voice-centric applications. Rethinking the systems architecture for “5G” in various deployment and management of small heterogeneous cells, supporting ultra-reliable and low latency communications, is needed to support a variety of new services, e.g., automotive, health, energy, and manufacturing. Therefore, designing ultra-dense cellular networks using new transmission technologies is a promising and challenging field.