Artificial Intelligence for 5G and Beyond 5G: Implementations, Algorithms, and Optimizations

The communication industry is rapidly advancing towards 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) wireless technologies in order to fulfill the ever-growing needs for higher data rates and improved quality-of-service (QoS). Emerging applications require wireless connectivity with tremendously increased data rates, substantially reduced latency, and growing support for a large number of devices. These requirements pose new challenges that can no longer be efficiently addressed by conventional approaches. Artificial intelligence (AI) is considered as one of the most promising solutions to improve the performance and robustness of 5G and B5G systems, fueled by the massive amount of data generated in 5G and B5G networks and the availability of powerful data processing fabrics. As a consequence, a plethora of research on AI-based communication technologies has emerged recently, promising higher data rates and improved QoS with affordable implementation overhead. In this overview paper, we summarize the state-of-the-art of AI-based 5G and B5G techniques on the algorithm, implementation, and optimization levels. We shed light on the advantages and limitations of AI-based solutions, and we provide a summary of emerging techniques and open research problems.