Is 6G still far away?

At the Frontier Achievements Exhibition of the Global 6G Technology Conference, the audience is visiting the achievements of 6G distributed network, 6G network architecture, and 6G satellite communication access networking technology.

6G is approaching. Recently, at the 2024 Global 6G Technology Conference hosted by the Future Mobile Communications Forum and Purple Mountain Laboratory, the three co-chairs of the 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Program), a global mobile communications standards development organization, shared 3GPP Timeline of 6G standards: In September 2024, the 6G business requirements study will be launched, in June 2025, the 6G technology pre-research will be launched, in the first half of 2027, the 6G standard will be formulated, and in 2029, the basic version of the 6G standard, that is, the Rel-21 version of the standard, will be completed.

2024 is a critical window for 6G technology selection, and the 6G standard will be launched this year. According to the development rhythm of the mobile communication industry of "using the generation, building the generation, and developing the generation", the 6G technology route and scenario requirements are becoming increasingly clear in the discussions of all parties.

Deep integration and collaborative innovation of multiple technologies

As a new generation of digital information infrastructure, 6G will become a bridge between the physical and digital worlds, helping to realize the leap from the Internet of Everything to the Intelligent Connection of Everything. Yi Zhiling, chief scientist of China Mobile Research Institute, said that compared with 5G, 6G networks are expected to significantly improve transmission rate and latency: the peak rate will reach 100Gbps, which is 10 times higher than that of 5G, and the delay will be reduced to 0.1 milliseconds, which is only one-tenth of that of 5G. In addition, the user experience of 6G will also be greatly improved compared to 5G.

At present, the world's major economies are accelerating the promotion of 6G research and development, and governments and enterprises have invested heavily in 6G technology research. At present, 6G research is in the stage of defining requirements and key technologies in the early stage of standardization.

Yi Zhiling emphasized that the evolution of mobile communication technology is not only the transformation of wireless air interface technology, but also the deep integration and collaborative innovation of communication technology, information technology, data technology and other technologies. In her view, 6G is a new generation of mobile information network with deep integration of synaesthesia, computing and intelligence, and integrated air, space and ground coverage.

Specifically, to realize the integrated wireless network of synaesthesia and intelligent computing, it is necessary to increase the capabilities of perception, intelligence, computing power, and data processing, and to realize the integrated air-space-ground coverage, it is necessary to focus on low-orbit satellites and consider their better matching with terrestrial cellular mobile communication networks at the service, network, or air interface levels.

She also admitted that in the process of starting to large-scale deployment of any new technology, problems such as high cost and high energy consumption are unavoidable, and this is also the case in the process of 6G deployment.

In addition, on the consumer side, although the spectral efficiency and energy efficiency per unit of 5G are far better than those of 4G, it is difficult for ordinary users to perceive this advantage, and the exponential increase in user traffic is not reflected in the average revenue per user (ARPU) value of operators. Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that the 5G dividend obtained by operators is less than expected.

Drawing on the experience of 5G, 6G needs to be more diversified and personalized to meet the differentiated preferences of different application scenarios for terminals, network speed, spectrum, intelligence, security, and latency.

The landing needs to take into account the requirements of green and performance

With the clarification of the 3GPP 6G standard timetable, the industry's attention to 6G has reached an unprecedented height.

Wu Hequan believes that the 6G air interface can adopt a multi-architecture model according to actual needs, design the base station more complex, and simplify the requirements for terminals accordingly. At the same time, AI technology can be introduced to replace modulation, coding and RF front-end processing with computing, and use computing to assist communication and reduce the complexity of terminal chip design.

"AI is essential in 6G networks. You Xiaohu, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, director of the Purple Mountain Laboratory, vice chairman and secretary general of the Future Mobile Communications Forum, said bluntly that among the key indicators of 6G, there are contradictions between AI native and green, performance assurance, etc., and it is necessary to find a solution that can take into account these requirements and truly realize the 6G vision.

"AI requires big data and extremely high computing power in 6G networks. This means that if not properly solved, very high energy consumption will be generated. You Xiaohu said. High energy consumption means more carbon emissions, which is contrary to the goal of greening the network. Therefore, in his view, the first key challenge in embedding AI into 6G networks is environmental concern. According to the International Telecommunication Union, 6G network capacity needs to be increased by at least an order of magnitude while maintaining the same energy consumption. This means that the energy consumption per bit should be reduced by at least an order of magnitude. For 6G, this is a very big challenge.

In addition, You Xiaohu believes that the uncertainty and unpredictability faced by AI in the use of 6G networks will also become a major challenge in the future. He explained that AI is unexplainable and unpredictable, and if AI is deployed directly in the Internet of Things network, it may lead to unstable network performance.

Therefore, it is necessary to find a suitable way to maintain the stability of the network. In You Xiaohu's view, the green requirements of 6G networks can be met through native AI based on data knowledge graphs, and the uncertainty of network AI performance can be solved by further developing feature data-driven network digital twins.

"6G is not only an accelerator for the digital transformation of all industries, but also creates more innovation and business opportunities for platforms, IoT and terminal enterprises than 5G. Wu Hequan believes that in the development of 6G, more emphasis should be placed on the application ecology and the upstream and downstream coordination of the industrial chain should be strengthened.

link

The low-altitude economy is expected to become a typical scenario for 6G applications

The development of 6G should not only focus on related technologies, but also pay attention to its potential applications. The low-altitude economy is considered to be a typical application scenario of 6G. "As an emerging application scenario of 6G, the low-altitude economy has become a general consensus at this conference. Wu Jianjun, Chairman of the Program Committee of the 2024 Global 6G Technology Conference and Deputy Secretary-General of the Future Mobile Communications Forum, said.

"For now, the integration of 6G and sensing technology seems to be the biggest revenue opportunity for operators, with the biggest source of revenue likely to be drone services. Biqi, chief expert of China Telecom and Fellow of Bell Labs, emphasized that drones will play a role in scenarios such as express delivery, agriculture, smart cities, and low-altitude inspections.

Around this blue ocean of emerging industries, operators have begun to deploy and try. According to Biqi, China Telecom has carried out multi-faceted exploration around low-altitude cellular system coverage, and has carried out test verification in 8 cities. In his view, the low-altitude economy is not only expected to become the main application scenario of 6G, but also the area where operators are most likely to expand their revenues. "The number of base stations covering low-altitude airspace accounts for 1%-2% of the number of ground base stations, but it can bring double-digit revenue growth. He said.

"6G and the low-altitude economy go hand in hand, and the combination of the two also has many issues that need to be discussed. Wu Jianjun said. He revealed that the Future Mobile Communications Forum plans to create a working group dedicated to studying technical issues in the field of low-altitude economy and promoting its standardization and industrial scale. At the same time, the working group will gather experts from different industries to promote the development of the low-altitude economy into a mature large-scale industry with the support of 6G technology.

(Source: Science and Technology Daily)