I delivered an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tour (DLT) in the UK in June. I presented my views and my team’s results on 6G, Autonomous Networks, Industry 5.0, AI/ML, and Complex Systems. The lectures occurred at Imperial College London, the University of Essex, and the University of Cambridge. They led to fantastic discussions with amazing audiences of talented researchers and experts that inspired me greatly for the research journey ahead of me. It also allowed me to plan further engagement and collaborations between my home Institution — Trinity College Dublin — and some of the most renowned universities in the UK and worldwide.

In this DLT, I delivered three talks, scheduled as follows:

• Talk one at Imperial College London, hosted by Dr. Sundar Aditya and Prof. Bruno Clerckx, on 17 June 2024

• Talk two at the University of Essex, hosted by Prof. Leila Musavian, on 19 June 2024

• Talk three at the University of Cambridge, hosted by Prof. Iman Tavakkolnia, on 20 June 2024

In the first talk, I discussed how the growing complexity of wireless networks has sparked an upsurge in the use of AI within the telecommunication industry in recent years. I remarked that AI has been associated — in the communication engineering community and beyond — mainly with machine learning but more often with deep learning, a subset of machine learning. Based on that, I advocated that the breadth and possibilities offered by the AI field are such that many other aspects, tools, and theories from this rich area can bear fruit in the analysis and design of future networks.

In the second talk, I emphasized that the prevailing manual and predetermined optimization and configuration are no longer appropriate for future networks. Furthermore, we are increasingly dealing with new kinds of networks—like drone networks, the Internet of Everything, and intelligent transportation systems—which bring several new challenges related to network responsiveness and scalability. I presented research to resolve such issues using theories and tools inspired by complex systems science, focusing on information representation and transfer, network robustness, and self-synchronization capabilities.

In the third talk, I discussed how communication engineering and AI in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT) for Industry 5.0 create a new structure of awareness — a cybernetic one — upon physical processes. I presented research done by my team on technologies and techniques for future industrial automation, including aspects related to millimeter Wave and relative blockage events prediction using machine learning, how generative adversarial networks can help cope with missing sensing data, and how semantic communications and system-level analysis centered on Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) both contribute to shed light on the functionality and reliability aspects that are key to future networks serving Industry 5.0.

At the beginning of each talk, I promoted IEEE ComSoc to the audience, highlighting the many benefits of being a member, such as being on top of technology breakthroughs, being part of an extensive network of communication technology professionals, and benefiting from world-class education and training (of which the DLTs are a perfect example).

Each talk attracted numerous attendees, including academic staff members, research students, and industry professionals. In detail, there were 15 attendees for Talk 1, 60 for Talk 2 (40 in person and 20 online), and 15 for Talk 3.

During each talk, I had very fruitful discussions with the audience; for example, (i) at Imperial College, we discussed the promise of Explainable AI in the context of network intrusion detection; (ii) at the University of Essex, we discussed the importance and challenges in experimentally validating distributed resource allocation algorithms in large scale networks, and (iii) at the University of Cambridge we discussed the limitations of AI in the context of future networks when it comes to dataset availability from operational networks. The above are just some examples of very engaging and thought-provoking lectures, both on the audience’s side and mine. Overall, my presentations and research ideas were very well received and sparked brainstorms in all three venues, which will help me refine the research problems I will tackle in my lab next. I hope I will inspire the attendees to find promising research directions for their teams.

Besides my lectures, I enjoyed visiting the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Science Museum, which are located near the Imperial College Main campus. A whole section of the Science Museum is dedicated to the history and breakthroughs of communication engineering, which I find very fitting given the purpose of my visit! I also had the chance to walk by the beautiful campus in Essex and visit Colchester’s historical city center. Finally, it was my pleasure to visit the fantastic campus of the University of Cambridge by boat with a unique vantage point from the river Cam, plus I had some time to see the famous Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree and where Charles Darwin and Alan Turing stayed!

I would like to encourage all considering becoming an IEEE ComSoc DL to apply for it, as it was one of the most rewarding professional experiences in my career to date. The program allows you to revisit your research and vision and present them in front of qualified audiences. This allows discussing with top professionals attending your talks and brainstorming where our field is going and perhaps where it should go. Your lectures can inspire research students and young professionals to continue pursuing their dreams of excelling in their technical work and becoming rising stars. Ultimately, I believe the IEEE ComSoc DL program is a great tool to share knowledge and move together as a scientific and technical community toward uncharted territories of knowledge and expertise, contributing together (distinguished lecturers and audience alike) to shaping the future of communication technology.