Sonia Heemstra de Groot, Center for Wireless Technology Eindhoven

SEMICON EUROPA - Technology for Communication 12 November 2019

Wireless Research Beyond 5G

5G• Single platform for enabling a variety of verticals

• Diverse set of KPI’s

• Softwarization and virtualization of network functions, and proper orchestrating resources via network slicing

• At the physical layer introduction of mmwave, Massive MIMO and ultra-dense deployment of access points.

2Source: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. February 2016

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5G evolution

Release15

Release16

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6G

2018

(5G phase 1)

June 2020

(5G phase 2)

September 2021

2030

6G initiatives have started

• 6G Flagship University of Ouolu

• 6G Wireless Summit (Levi, Finland, March 2019)

• 6G Research Vision V1 September 2019

• Some recent publications:

• 6G Flagship, white paper “Key Drivers and Research Challenges for 6G Ubiquitous Wireless Intelligence”, 6G Research Visions 1 September 2019.

• T.S. Rappaport et al., “Wireless Communications and Applications Above 100 GHz: Opportunities and Challenges for 6G and Beyond”, IEEE Access, June 2019.

• Rhode & Schwarz white paper “5G Evolution: On the Path to 6G”, 2019.

• K. David and H. Bernt, “6G Vision and Requirements”, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, September 2018.

• E. Calvanese Strinati et al., “6G: The Next Frontier”, under revision IEEE Vehicular Technologies Magazine

• …

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What is the motivation for 6G?

• 5G has just started to be deployed and researchers are developing new ideas to increase the performance of current systems

• New mobile communication generation every 10 years

• Technological with new groundbreaking technologies

• Societal trends that motivate new services

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Motivations from the societal perspective

Improvement of quality of life• Smart environments, smart cities, smart transportation, smart factories,

• Personalization of health care and education

• Improve human interaction mechanisms

New use cases and new applications:• Holographic communication, extended reality, autonomous vehicles, real-time

networked control, etc..)

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Haptic holography

Holographic watch

Fully autonomous vehicles

Tele-presence Extended realityInternet of everything

Smart factoriesIn-body networks

Many of these services require performance figures not supported by 5G

6G Requirements

Perception of “Infinite” capacity

• Ultra-high data rates (Tbps per user)

• Massive scalability to millions of devices

Coverage

• Ubiquitous consistent user experience in time and location

Convenience

• Extreme low latency (interactive services, tactile internet, remote surgery)

• Trustworthiness and resilience

• High energy efficiency/ long battery life/ ultra-low energy consumption/ battery-free communications

Source: 6G Flagship, 6G research Visions 1, Sept. 2019

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Technologies for Beyond 5G

Evolution of 5G technologies

New technologies ...

2020 2025 2030

Evolutionary techniques

• Increase spectral and energy efficiency

• Advanced radio coordination techniques, e.g., distributed massive MIMOHigher energy efficiency and spectral performance than centralized

• Efficient antenna designs, e.g. focal plane arrays, Antenna-on-Chip, etc.

• Etc.

Qing Wang, I.Niemegeers, S.M. Heemstra de Groot massive MIMO vs SCN in indoor environment

Q. Liu et al., “Overcoming the 50-Ohm Limitation: Antenna-on-Chip and Low-Noise Amplifier Co-design,” submitted to AWPL (invited)

Photograph by Bart van Overbeeke

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New technologies

• Use of higher spectral bands

▪ (Sub-)THz systems for sensing and communications

▪ Optical wireless communication

• Pervasive artificial intelligence

• In-network intelligence for massive IoT

• Ultra-low power communications, battery less solutions, energy harvesting, backscatter communication

• Wireless power transfer

• Effective use of reflections

• …

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Ultra-high data rates

Source: T. Nakemura, Towards 5G Deployment in 2020 and Beyond

1Tbps average in 2030!

2030

100Gbps

1 Tbps

Ultra-high data rate communications

Strategies to increase the volume data rate (bits/sec/m3):

- Dense deployment of radio access points

- Increase spectral efficiency (Massive MIMO, orbital angular momentum (OAM), full-duplex

- Multi RAT and 3D multi-link connectivity

- Increase BW by using higher spectral regions

• (Sub-)THz systems for sensing and communications

• Optical wireless communication

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(Sub-)THz Communications

• THz Band 0.1THz – 10 THz

• THz for ultra-high data rate communication:

▪ Not enough bandwidth availability for supporting Tbps data rates at lower frequencies

▪ THz Band offers bandwidth, ranging from tens of GHz up to several THz

▪ The required technology is rapidly advancing, higher frequency devices are becoming more power efficient

▪ THz communication will be become economically feasible

▪ IEEE 802.15.3d High Data Rate Wireless for extremely high access rates of up to 100 Gbit/s

• THz Band is not yet regulated

• Positioning will be possible with large angular precision.

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Optical Wireless Communications

Source: V. Jungnickel et al., A European View on the Next Generation Optical Wireless Communication Standard,2015 IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking

• Advantages:

• Optical spectrum is unregulated• Short distances requiring low power levels• High data rates are possible• No EMI

• Visible light communication (VLC) (390–750 nm)

• Infra red (IR) (750–1600 nm)

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Beam steered infrared communications

Ultra-high capacity wireless communication by means of infrared optical beams*

• 2D beams steering• 128 beams• 112 Gbps/beams

15*Ton Koonen et al., Eindhoven University of Technology, IEEE Future Networks Tech Focus, Volume 3, Issue 2, September 2019

Indoor communication network using steered narrow optical beams

Pervasive artificial intelligence

• AI/cognition spread across all levels in the radio access network, the core network and applications. Improving reliability and lowering maintenance and operational costs.

• AI and machine learning to learn about the static and dynamic components of the radio environment.

• AI and machine learning to improve the time-varying performance of the air interface

Cognitive RF Cognitive DSPCognitive network

managementCognitive core

networkCognitive

application

Source: Rhode & Schwarz 5G Evolution: On the Path to 6G16

High density networks

Source: http://www.tsensorssummit.org

The largest network ever !

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In-network intelligence

• To deal with high density networks

• Bio-inspired modes

▪ copying the synchronization and coordination mechanismsof swarms

• Use of AI methods (learning, prediction) in building networks

• Simple ways to get network connectivity and reducing interference

• Isolation of cyber attacks

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Other enablers

• Device miniaturization

• Extreme low power/ battery-less

• Wireless power transfer

• New design principles for energy harvesting devices

▪ Energy-dependent communication

• Wearable electronics, flexible electronics, implantable electronics

• Intelligence/sensing/communication embedded in the body and in the environment

• Effective use of reflections: reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, wavefront shaping with spatial light modulation

CWTe –Premiss sensor (Dr. Hao Gao) -60GHz energy harvesting temperature sensor

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Beam steered infrared communications for NLoS

Reconfigurable beam system for non-line-of-sight free-space optical communication*

• Wavefront shaping with spatial light modulation (SLM)• 30Gbps have been achieved

20*Zizheng Cao et al., Eindhoven University of Technology, Light: Science & Applications. 2019 Jul 24;8(1):69

Experimental setup

Basic principles of wavefront shaping

Indoor use case

More wireless research for 6G

• Close interworking wireless/optical communication

• Communication and sensing

• Integration of sensing, imaging and highly accurate positioning

• Personalized network slices, massive edge computing

• Infrastructures based in satellite and UAVs

• Embedded distributed security and privacy

• …

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Conclusions

• 5G operational in 2020 offering impressive performance figures

• Many 6G activities started

• Key technology enablers to support the vison

• 6G operational in 2030 with “perfect” mobile communications

▪ Perception of infinite capacity and zero delay

▪ Ultra reliable

▪ Ubiquitous

▪ Zero energy

• Opening many new opportunities!

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Centre for Wireless Technology, Eindhoven

Thank you!