B2X Networks: Joint Design of Communication and Control for Embodied Intelligence

Abstract

This article proposes the concept of \emph{brain-body-to-everything (B2X)} networks to facilitate the integration of wireless networks and embodied intelligence. In this framework, the \emph{brain} refers to the intelligence functions for reasoning, planning, and decision-making, the \emph{body} denotes the physical embodied agent that senses and acts in the real world, and \emph{X} represents the surrounding ecosystem involved in the brain-body interaction loop. Two B2X architectures with \emph{distributed} and \emph{centralized} brains are introduced to characterize different placements of intelligence across the body, base station, and core network. The uplink and downlink designs of B2X networks are then discussed under a representative base-station-side brain setting. For the uplink, communication is redesigned for B2X state acquisition under event urgency, sensing volume, and simultaneous multi-body access. For the downlink, communication is redesigned to coordinate command delivery and conventional service under shared radio resources. Based on these uplink and downlink considerations, a communication-control Pareto boundary is further used to characterize the loop-level trade-off between wireless transmission performance and control quality in B2X networks. Finally, several open research problems are discussed to guide future B2X network design.