Enabling Technologies towards 5G Mobile Networks

Future ,fith-generation (5G) mobile networks denote the next-generation mobile networks beyond the current 4G mobile networks. The 5G networks are provisioned by the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance to provide much higher capacity and support various types of emerging applications with stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. The objective of this special issue is to solicit the state-of-the-art research contributions that present key and emerging results on 5G-enabling technologies to optimize spectrum efficiency and provide heightened security and privacy

Transition technologies towards 6G networks

[EN] The sixth generation (6G) mobile systems will create new markets, services, and industries making possible a plethora of new opportunities and solutions. Commercially successful rollouts will involve scaling enabling technologies, such as cloud radio access networks, virtualization, and artificial intelligence. This paper addresses the principal technologies in the transition towards next generation mobile networks. The convergence of 6G key-performance indicators along with evaluation methodologies and use cases are also addressed. Free-space optics, Terahertz systems, photonic integrated circuits, softwarization, massive multiple-input multiple-output signaling, and multi-core fibers, are among the technologies identified and discussed. Finally, some of these technologies are showcased in an experimental demonstration of a mobile fronthaul system based on millimeter 5G NR OFDM signaling compliant with 3GPP Rel. 15. The signals are generated by a bespoke 5G baseband unit and transmitted through both a 10 km prototype multi-core fiber and 4 m wireless V-band link using a pair of directional 60 GHz antennas with 10 degrees beamwidth. Results shown that the 5G and beyond fronthaul system can successfully transmit signals with both wide bandwidth (up to 800 MHz) and fully centralized signal processing. As a result, this system can support large capacity and accommodate several simultaneous users as a key candidate for next generation mobile networks. Thus, these technologies will be needed for fully integrated, heterogeneous solutions to benefit from hardware commoditization and softwarization. They will ensure the ultimate user experience, while also anticipating the quality-of-service demands that future applications and services will put on 6G networks.This work was partially funded by the blueSPACE and 5G-PHOS 5G-PPP phase 2 projects, which have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreements Number 762055 and 761989. D. PerezGalacho acknowledges the funding of the Spanish Science Ministry through the Juan de la Cierva programme.Raddo, TR.; Rommel, S.; Cimoli, B.; Vagionas, C.; Pérez-Galacho, D.; Pikasis, E.; Grivas, E.... (2021). Transition technologies towards 6G networks. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. 2021(1):1-22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13638-021-01973-91222021

Fixed-Mobile Convergence in the 5G era: From Hybrid Access to Converged Core

The availability of different paths to communicate to a user or device introduces several benefits, from boosting enduser performance to improving network utilization. Hybrid access is a first step in enabling convergence of mobile and fixed networks, however, despite traffic optimization, this approach is limited as fixed and mobile are still two separate core networks inter-connected through an aggregation point. On the road to 5G networks, the design trend is moving towards an aggregated network, where different access technologies share a common anchor point in the core. This enables further network optimization in addition to hybrid access, examples are userspecific policies for aggregation and improved traffic balancing across different accesses according to user, network, and service context. This paper aims to discuss the ongoing work around hybrid access and network convergence by Broadband Forum and 3GPP. We present some testbed results on hybrid access and analyze some primary performance indicators such as achievable data rates, link utilization for aggregated traffic and session setup latency. We finally discuss the future directions for network convergence to enable future scenarios with enhanced configuration capabilities for fixed and mobile convergence.Comment: to appear in IEEE Networ

A Prospective Look: Key Enabling Technologies, Applications and Open Research Topics in 6G Networks

The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems. This is driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency, ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation (6G) networks. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control, computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. Particularly, this paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of 6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by presenting a profound study of the 6G vision and outlining five of its disruptive technologies, i.e., terahertz communications, programmable metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss their requirements, key challenges, and open research problems

A prospective look: key enabling technologies, applications and open research topics in 6G networks

The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems. This is mainly driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency, ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation (6G) networks, which are expected to bring transformative changes to this premise. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control, computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. In particular, the present paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of 6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by presenting a comprehensive study of the 6G vision and outlining seven of its disruptive technologies, i.e., mmWave communications, terahertz communications, optical wireless communications, programmable metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss the associated requirements, key challenges, and open research problems. These discussions are thereafter used to open up the horizon for future research directions

Survey on 6G Frontiers: Trends, Applications, Requirements, Technologies and Future Research

Emerging applications such as Internet of Everything, Holographic Telepresence, collaborative robots, and space and deep-sea tourism are already highlighting the limitations of existing fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. These limitations are in terms of data-rate, latency, reliability, availability, processing, connection density and global coverage, spanning over ground, underwater and space. The sixth-generation (6G) of mobile networks are expected to burgeon in the coming decade to address these limitations. The development of 6G vision, applications, technologies and standards has already become a popular research theme in academia and the industry. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the current developments towards 6G. We highlight the societal and technological trends that initiate the drive towards 6G. Emerging applications to realize the demands raised by 6G driving trends are discussed subsequently. We also elaborate the requirements that are necessary to realize the 6G applications. Then we present the key enabling technologies in detail. We also outline current research projects and activities including standardization efforts towards the development of 6G. Finally, we summarize lessons learned from state-of-the-art research and discuss technical challenges that would shed a new light on future research directions towards 6G

A Vision and An Evolutionary Framework for 6G: Scenarios, Capabilities and Enablers

With the standardization and commercialization completed at an unforeseen pace for the 5th generation (5G) wireless networks, researchers, engineers and executives from the academia and industry have turned their attention to new candidate technologies that can support the next generation wireless networks enabling more advanced capabilities in sophisticated scenarios. Explicitly, the 6th generation (6G) terrestrial wireless network aims to providing seamless connectivity not only to users but also to machine type devices for the next decade and beyond. This paper describes the progresses moving towards 6G, which is officially termed as ``international mobile telecommunications (IMT) for 2030 and beyond'' in the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). Specifically, the usage scenarios, their representative capabilities and the supporting technologies are discussed, and the future opportunities and challenges are highlighted.Comment: Submitted to an IEEE Magazin