Three Technologies 6G Will Make Possible 

In the article ‘6G: Merging the Digital and Physical Worlds‘, we explained how it’s time to start talking about 6G. We also envisage what that world will look like with the sixth generation of cellular networks: connected, sustainable, digitised and programmable.

In this article, we’ll focus on three technologies that until a few years ago might have seemed like the brainchild of a science-fiction writer or screenwriter. Three technological advances that will be possible with 6G:

 

Immersive holographic telepresence with extended reality

Although holographic presence has been possible for more than a decade, the experience is not complete without this immersive extended reality capability. That moment in the Star Wars saga when Princess Leia appears in the form of a holographic projection emanating from R2-D2 to ask Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker for help would be a somewhat less sophisticated antecedent to the breakthrough we are talking about. This future service will consist of a virtual representation of the person in a given location when he or she is physically in another place. It will allow the person to experience actually being in the remote location. For example, you might appear to be in the office at a meeting when you are actually at home, on the metro or on the bus.

This technology can be of most immediate use in the workplace (e.g. for remote meetings) and for social interaction. This is a major breakthrough with respect to virtual reality and extended reality. While both technologies support an enriched user experience of the environment, they do not have this telepresence capability.

 

What will it take to make this technology possible?

To make such services possible, wearable devices such as smart glasses or contact lenses and others embedded in clothing will be needed. Bio-implants capable of collecting environmental and contextual information may also be needed. To make telepresence interaction more intuitive and efficient, current keyboard and mouse interfaces should be replaced by gestures, voice or eye movements.

In terms of the technical challenges to making this type of service commercially viable, there are two major challenges. On the one hand, network transmission capacity will have to increase by possibly two orders of magnitude compared to 5G, from rates of tens of gigabytes per second to terabytes per second. In addition, communication delay must be near zero and constant for telepresence to be real-time and not cause asynchronies. This problem would be very uncomfortable, for example, in a meeting with several participants.

Once these challenges are overcome, ensuring 6G communication security must become a priority. This is precisely the focus of the 6GEnablers project. Within this project, Gradiant is working on various security mechanisms. On one hand, they are developing a proof of concept for PKG (Physical-layer Key Generation), an innovative mechanism for generating secure keys based on information from the communication channel. On the other hand, Gradiant is also working in 6GEnablers on the development of intelligent applications called xApps. These are used to detect, classify, and mitigate network security anomalies such as interferences. These applications can be installed by network operators on an intelligent network controller, called RIC, in a manner similar to how we download and install apps on a mobile phone.

 

Situational awareness

Knowledge of the environment is essential for effective wireless communication. Situational awareness, also known as environmental awareness, aims to provide as much information as possible on the surrounding environment to the equipment involved in communications (typically transmitter and receiver).

The basic purpose of situational awareness is to deal with possible unwanted interactions with the environment in an efficient manner. Other factors that can affect communications include obstacles that can block or reflect signals (from buildings to humans), the interference and radio channel behaviour. However, this approach is more suited to 5G systems. Situational awareness with 6G would be able to achieve a much more complete characterisation of the environment. For example, it would include sensory perceptions to enable services such as advanced localisation systems or immersive telepresence. These functionalities require network capacity that 5G does not have, as well as 3D communications channel models over a wide range of frequencies, up to terahertz (THz).

Another challenge in making this possible is advanced sensing systems that can render the environment in real time and provide not only image and audio but also object positioning. These sensing systems are envisaged to be based on THz technologies and the integration of sensing and communications (ICAS). Its development is currently in its infancy.

 

High-precision 3D positioning, localisation and tracking

Adapting to our living environment requires high precision. Actions such as turning a doorknob, picking a specific book from a shelf or choosing the right tool are tasks that require pinpoint accuracy. High-precision 3D localisation and improved tracking capabilities down to centimetres or less, particularly in indoor spaces, will open up many new opportunities. The factories of the future, warehouses, hospitals and smart libraries could achieve full automation. Future autonomous moving robots with integrated high-precision 3D positioning, localisation and tracking technology could match the capabilities of human beings in certain jobs.

 

What might the libraries of the future look like?

If this technology is integrated into these spaces, books could be identified with very small wireless modules and would not need to be sorted: their positions would be automatically compiled in a database or even a 3D digital twin. A robotic librarian could locate a book for a user using this positioning information.

This type of high-precision localisation is also highly expected for autonomous systems (drones, cars), especially in smart factory environments when two or more robots operate in collaboration. A drone may also need to land on a moving transport vehicle for loading or a delivery robot may need to fill a smart container (container/tank) with a certain liquid or solid substance. In such proximity use cases, centimetre-level relative location accuracy is required to perform the task.

Current positioning systems do not allow for these levels of accuracy. Also, full integration of positioning mechanisms with the 6G network is needed, which is not the case in 5G. This will require the development of THz technologies and very narrow beams (the thickness of a pencil) to achieve very high pointing accuracy and the development of the sensing and communications integration technology discussed above.

6G specifications and designs are already in the works

These are some of the technologies that the development of 6G could enable, and as Joaquín Escudero explained in his article, it is possible that this sixth generation will not be available until the early 2030s. In the meantime, work is beginning on the specifications and design of 6G through projects that develop the technologies needed to make the above-mentioned services and applications available, such as the 6GOPENVERSO-NET project in which Gradiant is developing a prototype link in the sub-THz band with sensing capabilities.

 

 

 

Financiado por el Ministerio para la Transformación Digital y de la Función Pública y la Unión Europea-NextGenerationEU en el marco del Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia del Gobierno de España.