Start preparing for 6g

byAFasogbon

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2 years ago

The network's primary purpose shifts with each new generation of communication technology. Voice and text-based human-to-human communication were at the forefront of the 2G and 3G eras. The advent of 4G signalled a fundamental change towards huge data consumption, whereas the 5G era has shifted its emphasis to tying up the Internet of Things (IoT) and systems for industrial automation.

The digital, physical, and human worlds will smoothly converge in the 6G era to produce extrasensory experiences. Intelligent information systems will be integrated with powerful computation capabilities to radically change how humans live, work, and care for the environment. Even though new standards for 5G-Advanced have just been released, there is still a lot of innovation in 5G.

According to Harish Viswanathan, Head of Radio Systems Research at Nokia Bell Labs, "The role of next-generation networks is the unification of our experience across the physical, digital, and human worlds."

How will we gain from the 6G era?

With 6G, every network connectivity enhancement that 5G will give users will be further refined. Whether it's robotics, smart factories, farms, or cities, 6G will advance these technologies. A substantial portion of that will be made possible by 5G-Advanced, the upcoming standard 5G improvement. It offers increased productivity, more capabilities, and a better user experience.

Due to the extensive use of sensors, artificial intelligence, machine learning (AI/ML), digital twin models, and real-time synchronous updates, we will be able to connect the physical world to our own human world. Because they enable us to analyse what's happening in the physical world, model potential outcomes, foresee needs, and then take useful actions back into the real world, these digital twin models are essential.

With 5G, digital twin models are already in use. These technologies should be able to function on a larger scale with 6G. In addition to industries, wide area networks of cities will also have digital twins.
With 5G, digital twin models are already in use with 6G.
We may anticipate a larger scale of operation for these technologies. There will be digital twins in more places than just factories, including wide area networks in cities and even human digital twins, which will have a significant impact on the network design.

In the 6G era, smartphones will still be essential devices, but new man-machine interfaces will make it easier to access and manage information. Gesture and voice control will gradually take over the role of touchscreens. The technology will be woven into clothing and even change into skin patches. Healthcare will benefit from wearable technology's ability to monitor vital signs around the clock.

Wireless cameras will become all-purpose sensors as AI and machine vision develop and gain the ability to recognise people and objects. Information about the surroundings will be gathered through radio and other sensing modalities like acoustics. Digital money and keys might become commonplace. We might even begin using brain sensors to control machinery.
Additionally, 6G will support sustainability in several ways. It would make it possible for communication to be faster and less expensive per bit, supporting data collection and closed-loop control of a lot of equipment. Utilising innovative techniques, the data may be analysed to boost industrial energy efficiency. By introducing multi-modal mixed reality telepresence and remote collaboration, the sophisticated multi-sensory telepresence that is developed with extremely high data rates would lessen the need for travel.

The energy-saving features of 6G will let it scale back capacity and turn off parts when demand is low. Along with other measures like capacity, peak data rate, latency, and reliability, energy efficiency will be a key design factor in 6G.

The 6G Network

6G will call for a change in the way communication networks are designed. Multiple key requirements must be reconciled: serve the massively growing traffic and the exploding numbers of devices and markets while also accomplishing the highest possible standards regarding performance, energy efficiency, and strong security, enabling sustainable growth in a trustworthy way. “We’ve identified research vectors that will cause disruption for 6G, but each one of these areas will already have early precursors in 5G-Advanced, and there will be important evolutions that we can ride on in terms of network waves,” says Peter Vetter, President of Bell Labs Core Research, Nokia.

For some of the features we intend to enable in 6G on a larger scale, 5G-Advanced is a crucial first step. Over the next five years, it will continue to develop 5G to the utmost extent possible. To handle the increase in traffic, networks in the 5G-Advanced era will need to be architected, planned, and deployed with a new degree of intelligence that can be controlled across a disaggregated network, powered by AI, and closed-loop automation. Additionally, for the transition to 5G-Advanced, industry-grade private wireless networks or communication service providers (CSPs) must provide the best support for vital network applications.

According to Nokia Bell Labs, there are six technology areas that will characterise 6G.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques, especially deep learning, have rapidly advanced over the last decade, and it have already been deployed across several domains involving image classification and computer vision, ranging from social networks to security. 5G will unleash the true potential of these technologies, and with the approaches in 5G-Advanced, AI/ML will be introduced to many parts of the network at many layers and in many functions. From the optimisation of beam forming in the radio layer to scheduling at the cell site with self-optimizing networks, all using AI and ML to achieve better performance at lower complexity

By removing complexity and letting AI/ML work out the optimum method to communicate between two endpoints, Nokia Bell Labs anticipates that AI/ML will transition from an enhancement to a foundation in 6G.

Spectrum bands are a key component in enabling radio connections. Every new mobile generation needs a new pioneer spectrum that aids in maximising the advantages of an innovative technology. It will also be crucial to transition the current mobile communication spectrum from the older technology to the new one. The new pioneer spectrum blocks for 6G are anticipated to be at low bands (460–694 MHz) for extreme coverage, mid-bands (7–20 GHz) for urban outdoor cells, enabling larger capacity
While 6G will advance localization by utilising a wide spectrum and new spectral ranges all the way up to terahertz, 5G-Advanced will take 5G beyond just data communication and significantly improve positioning accuracy to centimeter-level, especially for indoor and underground facilities where satellite signals are unavailable.

A network with sense-making ability—the ability of 6G to perceive the environment, people, and objects would be its most prominent feature. By collecting signals that are reflecting off objects and identifying their type, shape, relative location, velocity, and even material qualities, the network transforms into a source of situational information. In conjunction with other sensing modalities, such a form of sensing can help build a "mirror" or digital counterpart of the physical world, extending our sensations to every point the network touches. By combining this data with AI and ML, the network will become more intelligent and offer fresh perspectives from the physical world

Extreme connectivity - To meet the needs for extreme connectivity, including sub-millisecond latency, the Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) service, which debuted with 5G, will be improved, and refined in 6G. Simultaneous transmission, several wireless hops, device-to-device connections, and AI/ML could all increase network stability. The experience of real-time video communications, holographic experiences, or even digital twin models updated in real-time through the deployment of video sensors will be improved by improved mobile broadband coupled with decreased latency and greater reliability.

We can anticipate use scenarios in the 6G era where networks have sub-networks with unique requirements, forming networks of networks with networks as an endpoint. A body area network or an automobile area network, for example, can have hundreds of sensors spread across an area less than one hundred metres in size. For the machine system to operate, these sensors must communicate within one hundred microseconds and with extremely high reliability. The elimination of the need to build extensive and cumbersome cable connections will usher in a new era for the designers of equipment like automobiles and robots, whose networks are truly
New network structures: the first system intended to function in a business or industrial setting and replace wired connectivity is 5G. Industries will need even more sophisticated designs that can allow greater flexibility and specialisation as demand and strain on the network increase.


The core of 5G will feature a services-based architecture, and cloud native deployments will be expanded to include portions of the RAN. The network will also be set up in heterogeneous cloud environments that combine private, public, and hybrid clouds. There will also be chances to cut costs by combining functions as the core of the RAN gets more decentralised and the higher layers become more centralised.

An unprecedented level of network automation that lowers operational costs will be achieved by new network and service orchestration solutions that take advantage of AI and ML advancements.


Networks of all kinds are increasingly targets of cyberattacks in terms of security and trust. Strong security methods must be implemented due to the threats' dynamic nature. The 6G networks will be made to be resistant to dangers like jamming. When developing new mixed-reality environments that include digital representations of actual and imaginary objects, privacy concerns must be considered.

References:

Nokia. (2023) ‘This is Nokia’, Nokia Blog, 26, 2023 [Blog]. Available at: 15:30 (accessed July 27 July 2023).