ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book summarizes the architectural evolution, key driving forces for network automation and intelligence, and industry ideas of communications networks and introduces the birth, general vision, level definitions, and development of Autonomous Driving Network (ADN). It outlines four key application scenarios of ADN, namely emergency assurance of integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial communications, all-wireless enterprise local area network, secure, reliable, and immersive remote office, and remote control of deterministic wide area network. The book reviews fundamental theories of ADN, including network adaptive control theory, network cognitive theory, and user and environmental model theory. It describes the reference architecture of ADN, including the design objectives and principles, and the design of the top-level architecture, hierarchical architecture and and key feature architecture. The book presents an overview of the standards (both in China and internationally) in the autonomous networks industry.
