chitecture for the robotic surgery applications are as follows. High peak data rate translating to a higher user-experienced data rate, low latency, of the order of less than 1 ms, 5G in Healthcare mmWave Backend Macro BS Small BS Small BS D2D LINK FIGURE 1.4 The 5G core network architecture for healthcare applications. (Adapted from [7, 8].) high reliability, namely, minimum packet loss, and high availability, which fur- ther implies, minimum connection downtime, higher battery life to support longer time lengths for operations, and highly secure network for safe transmission of patient's personal data. Figure 1.4 depicts the suggested core network architecture of 5G for applications in healthcare. There can be various body area networks (BANs) connected to the BSs which can be small BSs serving a pico-cell or macro BSs. Further, the communica- tion links between the BANs can be D2D [9-11] links and the communication links between the BSs can be millimeter wave based links at the back end. The 5G and beyond networks are essentially heterogeneous networks that are amalgamations of different communication networks requiring compatible communication protocols, accessibility of radio resources, interoperability of the various telecommunication operators, and compatibility between various hardware devices operating at different frequencies and power levels. To ensure quality of service and quality of experience for the end user these challenges need to be overcome for seamless connectivity across different technolo- gies and real user experience for critical applications in healthcare and other fields. D2D communication is one such promising technology envisaged to be an important part of the future wireless networks as it provides advantages such as offloading the traffic from the network by proposing a direct communication between the devices in proximity, bypassing the network infrastructure. The mobile healthcare architecture is depicted in Figure 1.5, where possible interactions between various networks are desc