Editor’s choice T
he LTE standard (4G) meets the needs of most mobile network users. Download speeds of up to several hundred megabits per second make it easy to stream high-resolution video content or download large files within seconds. 5G is available in much of the world but mostly piggybacking on LTE (NSA). Pure 5G standalone (SA) rollout will happen over the next years, yet research into the next generation of mobile communications has already started; 6G is expected to be rolled out by 2030. But are any needs left unsatisfied by the technically advanced 5G system, which is subject to ongoing development and extension? A pair of authors posed this very question back in September 2018. What started as a discussion among experts has since gained serious momentum. Political and industrial interest in 6G has triggered a global technological race with billions flowing into research and development.
WHAT NEEDS CAN 6G MEET? “6G will satisfy the expectations that 5G has created,” was how Dr. Ivan Ndip from the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM) pithily described the situation in an interview in spring 2021. Although 5G has yet to reach its full potential, applications are emerging that require 6G for large-scale implementation. Autonomous driving is one example.
At autonomy level 5, which is still a long way
off, vehicles will not be as autonomous as the name suggests. After all, vehicles share roads, traffic lights and other infrastructure with countless other road users. For everything to run smoothly, autonomous vehicles must be
connected in three ways: with each other, with roadside facilities and with a traffic control centre. Since many situations are safety-critical, such as emergency braking, high transmission speeds and reliable signal transfer are vital. Vehicles require extremely high data rates to exchange sensor data and download detailed traffic plans. 5G is clearly a big step forward, but with a maximum data rate of 20 gigabits per second and signal latency of a millisecond, it is probably not good enough for true autonomous driving. Completely autonomous vehicles will only be possible with 6G, which is to reduce signal latency by a factor of ten and increase data throughput by a factor of fifty (Table 1). Autonomous driving is a key cutting-edge application that is pushing 6G research. Other important applications are extended reality (XR) and industrial automation. These sectors hinge on the ultra-low latency promised by 6G for instantaneous decision-making and seamless user experiences.
Fig. 1: 5G aims to cover three application groups. Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) allows classic mobile applications but with much better performance than LTE. Massive machine type communications (mMTC) support energy efficient low-performance applications such as sensor networks. Ultra-reliable, low latency communications (URLLC) focus on real-time applications that require ensured signal transit times and availability
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FOCUS SHIFTS TO MACHINES In 6G, functions and services for efficient machine-to-machine communications (M2M) will play a vital role. URLLC and mMTC (see Fig. 1) are two of three key 5G focal points in this area. In addition to
February 2024 Instrumentation Monthly
EVERYTHING WILL BE
Even though 5G networks are expected to grow and develop for years to come, technology strategists are already offering up visions that look far beyond 5G. If their 6G scenarios become reality, we can expect a wonderland of communications in the 2030s.
By Alexander Pabst, Vice President Market Segment Wireless Communications at Rohde & Schwarz
CONNECTED
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