Device-to-device (D2D) communication is one of the most promising technologies in wireless cellular networks that can be employed to improve spectral and energy efficiency, increase data rates, and reduce links latency. This paper investigates fifth generation and beyond (5GB) networks, the basics of D2D communication, applications, and classification. Herein, D2D in in-band (IBD) and out-band (OBD) modes are discussed. This paper also presents the integration of D2D communication with other prominent technologies and demonstrates the importance of integration with possible solutions in improving network performance. We further investigate the challenges of D2D communication, opportunities, and future research directions of D2D in 5GB networks. In addition, D2D communication in 6G network challenges and open research areas are introduced.INDEX TERMS 5G, 5GB, 6G, D2D communication, millimeter wave (mm-Wave), visible light communication (VLC), ultra-dense network (UDN), and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

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Summary Visible light communication (VLC) is an alternative technology to the radio frequency (RF) for different applications in the indoor and outdoor environments, it could be utilized for illumination and communication simultaneously, and it offers several advantages over contemporary RF technologies such as low power consumption, free license, large bandwidth, and being friendly to the environment. In this paper, an indoor VLC system uniformity improvement in terms of high received power, signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR), and bit rate, with RMS delay spread reduction, is proposed. It features a novel model that utilizes a 13‐optical attocells configuration on the ceiling. Moreover, proposed model was evaluated at different semi‐angle at half power. The average received power and SNR were improved to 2.85 dBm and 75.5 dB, while achieved received power and SNR levels at the center of the room were 4.92 dBm and 79.5 dB, respectively. A minimum average RMS delay spread of 0.4749 nanoseconds is obtained, while the highest average bit rate calculated is 211 Mb/s. The proposed model provides a better communication quality and meets illumination standards requirements.

Visible light communication (VLC) is a promising candidate that is expected to revolutionize indoor environment communications performance and fulfill fifth generation and beyond (5GB) technologies requirements. It offers high and free bandwidth, electromagnetic interference immunity, low-cost front end and low power consumption. Also, VLC has dual functions that could be utilized in both illumination and communication concurrently. The number of optical attocells (OAs) and their deployment in the room represent the main issue that should be taken into consideration in designing an optimal VLC system. In this paper, we have introduced a new model of five OAs in the typical room. In addition to an investigation of various optical attocells (OAs) deployment models, in which a multi-variable evaluation was performed in terms of received power, illumination, SNR and RMS delay spread in order to determine the optimal OAs model. Also, various modulation schemes performances were investigated which included NRZ-OOK, BPSK, and QPSK in order to improve the BER performance. Results indicated that BPSK modulation had superior BER performance when compared with all OAs models. Further, a comprehensive results analysis and comparison of all proposed models was conducted over various parameters, in which our new proposed OAs model achieved an optimal performance in comparison with the other models.

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