Towards 6G wireless communication networks: vision, enabling technologies, and new paradigm shifts

By X. You, Cheng-Xiang Wang, Jie Huang, Xiqi Gao, Zaichen Zhang, Mao Wang, Yongming Huang, Chuan Zhang, Yanxiang Jiang, Jiaheng Wang and 40 more. Science China Information Sciences, 2020

1,839 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The fifth generation (5G) wireless communication networks are being deployed worldwide from 2020 and more capabilities are in the process of being standardized, such as mass connectivity, ultra-reliability, and guaranteed low latency. However, 5G will not meet all requirements of the future in 2030 and beyond, and sixth generation (6G) wireless communication networks are expected to provide global coverage, enhanced spectral/energy/cost efficiency, better intelligence level and security, etc. To meet these requirements, 6G networks will rely on new enabling technologies, i.e., air interface and transmission technologies and novel network architecture, such as waveform design, multiple access, channel coding schemes, multi-antenna technologies, network slicing, cell-free architecture, and cloud/fog/edge computing. Our vision on 6G is that it will have four new paradigm shifts. First, to satisfy the requirement of global coverage, 6G will not be limited to terrestrial communication networks, which will need to be complemented with non-terrestrial networks such as satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication networks, thus achieving a space-air-ground-sea integrated communication network. Second, all spectra will be fully explored to further increase data rates and connection density, including the sub-6 GHz, millimeter wave (mmWave), terahertz (THz), and optical frequency bands. Third, facing the big datasets generated by the use of extremely heterogeneous networks, diverse communication scenarios, large numbers of antennas, wide bandwidths, and new service requirements, 6G networks will enable a new range of smart applications with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies. Fourth, network security will have to be strengthened when developing 6G networks. This article provides a comprehensive survey of recent advances and future trends in these four aspects. Clearly, 6G with additional technical requirements beyond those of 5G will enable faster and further communications to the extent that the boundary between physical and cyber worlds disappears.

Subfields: Aerospace Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d5fd1dc358316904069275d3b6cbff3141e021e0

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Citations in the corpus

AI-Native Network Slicing for 6G Networks (2021, background): “The concept of network slicing can be traced back to the late 1980s [6].”
A Tutorial on Environment-Aware Communications via Channel Knowledge Map for 6G (2023, background): “Though the standard for 6G is yet to be developed, there is more or less a consensus on its key performance indicators (KPIs), such as a connection density of at least 10 million devices per km(2) [2]–[6], a peak data rate of Tera bits per second (Tbps) [1,2,5,7,8], latency of less than 1 ms [1,2,4]”
Cellular, Wide-Area, and Non-Terrestrial IoT: A Survey on 5G Advances and the Road Toward 6G (2021, background): “2) Vision: 6G is envisioned to bring new paradigm shifts to wireless access networks in terms of coverage, spectrum, applications, and security [17].”
A Full Dive Into Realizing the Edge-Enabled Metaverse: Visions, Enabling Technologies, and Challenges (2022, background): “For example, beyond 5G/6G (B5G/6G) communication systems promise eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband) and URLLC (Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication) [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], both of which enable AR/VR and haptic technologies [13] that will enable users to be visually and physically immersed in ”
Edge Artificial Intelligence for 6G: Vision, Enabling Technologies, and Applications (2021, background): “…haptic internet, high-ﬁdelity holographic society, extended reality (XR) and metaverse [9], e-health, etc. Researchers in industry and academia have published many visionary 6G proposals [10], [11], [12] to provide a better understanding, sensing, controlling, and interacting for a physical world.”
Flexible-Antenna Systems: A Pinching-Antenna Perspective (2024, neutral): “Many recently developed communication techniques can be motivated by using the Shannon capacity formula [2].”
A Survey on Fundamental Limits of Integrated Sensing and Communication (2021, background): “For example, 6G communication systems are expected to achieve a positioning accuracy at the subcentimeter level [104].”
Holistic Network Virtualization and Pervasive Network Intelligence for 6G (2023, background): “a growing number of research teams worldwide are investigating AI-driven networks, and high expectation is placed on AI for empowering 6G [1], [22].”
A Tutorial on Near-Field XL-MIMO Communications Toward 6G (2023, neutral): “Besides, deploying an extremely large number of antennas results in large array aperture, thus enhancing the array spatial resolution unprecedentedly, which is beneﬁcial to mMTC+, as well as the high-accuracy localization and sensing [4], [15], [23].”
A Survey on the Metaverse: The State-of-the-Art, Technologies, Applications, and Challenges (2023, background): “Compared with a 5G network, a 6G network has more advantages in performance [20].”
The Roadmap to 6G Security and Privacy (2021, background): “Networking and communication scientific community envis-age that 6G wireless networks will be driven by entirely intelligent network orchestration and management [2], [3].”
Communicating With Extremely Large-Scale Array/Surface: Unified Modeling and Performance Analysis (2021, neutral): “) of beyond 5G (B5G) or sixth-generation (6G) communication networks [2]–[5].”
Enabling Massive IoT Toward 6G: A Comprehensive Survey (2021, background): “In [25], the authors discussed the visions and enabling technologies of 6G thoroughly, which provided an insightful picture of 6G. Focusing on breakthrough technologies for IoT, the authors of [16] discussed the current issues in ultra-dense cellular IoT networks and machine learning-assisted…”
6G for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communications: Enabling Technologies, Challenges, and Opportunities (2020, background): “…autonomous vehicles ranging from 3D displays that offer more depth and more natural viewing experience and free-ﬂoating, to holographic control display systems, to immersive entertainment, to improved in-car infotainment, will bring forth new communication challenges to the V2X network [14]–[18].”
A Tutorial on Extremely Large-Scale MIMO for 6G: Fundamentals, Signal Processing, and Applications (2023, background): “The anticipated sixth generation (6G) of wireless networks, expected to serve communication needs beyond 2030, have sparked significant research interest due to the advent of novel requirements following the rapid evolution of wireless applications [6]–[12].”
Quantum technology for military applications (2021, background): “Note that QKD and QSDC are considered to be a native part of 6G wireless communication networks and discussed accordingly in [194].”