Everyone is aware about 5G technology that made countless controversial headlines. But what about 6G? That’s a technology currently under development. A few days ago Samsung published “Samsung 6G vision” (PDF available in their website for download). In this article we will take a look into future.

Bring the next hyper-connected experience to every corner of life

The Vision of 6G by Samsung

The next generation of the communication system will satisfy needs of future generation. According to Samsung 6G vision the earliest commercialization of 6G technology could occur in 2028 and massive commercialization expected by 2030.

Wireless communication became an important part of social infrastructure and day-to-day life. Fast development of artificial intelligence, automation and robotics uncover new ways how wireless network could work. All new developments require fast connectivity and 6G it’s exactly what’s needed. Here’s a few main megatrends:

1. Connected machines (vehicles, drones, robots, factory machines, home appliances, smart sensors, etc). By 2030 the number of connected devices will reach 500 billion (60 times more than expected global population).
2. Artificial intelligence (finance industry, healthcare, manufacturing, public transportation, etc). AI could improve performance, reduce capital expenditure, reduce service time, reduce network energy consumption. 6G will give more opportunities in AI.
3. Openness of mobile communications.
4. Social need in fast connection. United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in the Agenda 2030 in order to reduce greenhouse gas, improve education, reduce hanger, improve life quality, provide access to the information, etc.

6G will enable truly immersive extended reality (XR), high-fidelity mobile hologram and digital replicas.

Truly immersive XR combine virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality. Mostly used in entertainment education, science, medicine, etc. Current mobile phone hardware not providing sufficient standalone computing capacity and sufficient battery life for XR.

High-Fidelity Mobile Hologram (3D hologram display) is a next-generation media technology. 6G will be first step in making big size holograms as it require high real-time data rate transmission.

Digital Replica technology will be used to replicate physical entities in a virtual world. The main technical challenge that it’s required enormous connection speed.

6G will enable new advanced services such as real-time data processing, hyper-fast data, holograms, etc. 5G peak data rate is 20Gbps, 6G peak data rate is 1,000Gbps and user experienced data rate is 1Gbsp.

For 6G latency-related technology must be improved for delay-sensitive real-time applications (automation, remote surgery, autonomous vehicles, etc). Data security will be in priority too.

6G technology not yet developed but already available a few candidate technologies:

1. Terahertz Technology. In 2019 the Federal Communications Commission opened tge spectrum 95 GHz – 3,000 CHz for experimental use and development of 6G. In future mobile communications will utilise the teraherts bands would enable accurate ranging between transmitter and receiver. The main challenges for THz band: atmospheric absorption, transporting signal with minimum loss, design of proper waveform, high energy consumption.
2. Novel Antenna Technologies. In 5G used MIMO technology to support millimeter wave (mmWave). 6G connection will require more antennas than used in mmWave. Metamaterial based Antenna and RF Front-End is constructed by arranging multiple tunable elements in repeating pattern. Orbital Angular Momentum technology could be used in the environment where traditional MIMO technology couldn’t provide desired outcome.
3. Duplex Technology. Uplink and downlink transmission happen in a mutually exclusive manner. In 5G it’s possible to adjust the ratio between uplink and downlink slots depending on demand. For 6G needed to find out way to remove the restriction that uplink and downlink must use mutually exclusive principle.
4. Network Topology. For 6G expected enhanced mobility support for different speed of transportation and use of non-terrestrial network components (satellite and HAPS) for remote locations.
5. Spectrum Sharing technology enables the use of spectrum by multiple entities. The main challenge in spectrum sharing technology is avoiding collision of spectrum usage among different entities. AI could provide the solution to avoid collision of spectrum usage by predicting spectrum usage.
6. Comprehensive AI will be used to optimize the overall system performance and predict anomalies in the network. Previously this was impossible due to lack of algorithms.
7. Split Computing. Technology of the future will allow to overcome the limits of the computing power of mobile phones. Computing resources will be used over the network.
8. High-Precision Network key features: multi-pathing (usage of multiple alternate network paths), multi-homing (capability of the end device to connect via multiple interfaces at the same time), and dynamic mobility.

Wireless network evolved from 2G to 5G. Next step is 6G that’s gonna be developed in next 8 years and commercialized by 2030. Currently a lot of misinformation available on 5G that make people question the environmental impact of new network speed. Same situation will be with 6G because people will not understand the technology and will believe in baseless speculations.

Full PDF available in Samsung.com

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