1.
Liu, Yuanwei; Xu, Jiaqi; Wang, Zhaolin; Mu, Xidong; Hanzo, Lajos
Near-field Communications: What Will Be Different? Journal Article
In: IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 262–270, 2025, ISSN: 1558-0687.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Antennas, Array signal processing, Channel models, Green's function methods, Next generation networking, Performance analysis, Physical layer security, Sensors
@article{liu_near-field_2025,
title = {Near-field Communications: What Will Be Different?},
author = {Yuanwei Liu and Jiaqi Xu and Zhaolin Wang and Xidong Mu and Lajos Hanzo},
url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10944643},
doi = {10.1109/MWC.001.2300588},
issn = {1558-0687},
year = {2025},
date = {2025-04-01},
urldate = {2025-10-08},
journal = {IEEE Wireless Communications},
volume = {32},
number = {2},
pages = {262–270},
abstract = {The design dilemma of “What will be different between near-field communications (NFC) and far-field communications (FFC)?” is addressed from four perspectives. First, from the channel modelling perspective, the differences between near-field and far-field channel models are discussed. A novel Green's function-based channel model is proposed for continuous-aperture antennas, which is contrasted to conventional channel models tailored for spatially-discrete antennas. Second, from the performance analysis per-spective, analytical results for characterizing the degrees of freedom and the power scaling laws in the near-field region are provided for both spatially-discrete and continuous-aperture antennas. Third, from the beamforming perspective, far-field beamforming is analogous to a “flashlight” that enables beamsteering, while near-field beamforming can be likened to a “spotlight” that facilitates beamfocusing. As a further advance, a couple of new beamforming structures are proposed for exploiting the new characteristics of NFC. Fourth, from the application perspective, new designs are discussed in the context of promising next-generation technologies in NFC, where our preliminary numerical results demonstrate that distance-aware target sensing and enhanced physical layer security can be realized in NFC. Finally, several future research directions of NFC are discussed.},
keywords = {Antennas, Array signal processing, Channel models, Green's function methods, Next generation networking, Performance analysis, Physical layer security, Sensors},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
The design dilemma of “What will be different between near-field communications (NFC) and far-field communications (FFC)?” is addressed from four perspectives. First, from the channel modelling perspective, the differences between near-field and far-field channel models are discussed. A novel Green's function-based channel model is proposed for continuous-aperture antennas, which is contrasted to conventional channel models tailored for spatially-discrete antennas. Second, from the performance analysis per-spective, analytical results for characterizing the degrees of freedom and the power scaling laws in the near-field region are provided for both spatially-discrete and continuous-aperture antennas. Third, from the beamforming perspective, far-field beamforming is analogous to a “flashlight” that enables beamsteering, while near-field beamforming can be likened to a “spotlight” that facilitates beamfocusing. As a further advance, a couple of new beamforming structures are proposed for exploiting the new characteristics of NFC. Fourth, from the application perspective, new designs are discussed in the context of promising next-generation technologies in NFC, where our preliminary numerical results demonstrate that distance-aware target sensing and enhanced physical layer security can be realized in NFC. Finally, several future research directions of NFC are discussed.