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

Intelligent-Reflecting-Surface-Assisted UAV Communications for 6G Networks

In 6th-Generation (6G) mobile networks, Intelligent Reflective Surfaces (IRSs) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as promising technologies to address the coverage difficulties and resource constraints faced by terrestrial networks. UAVs, with their mobility and low costs, offer diverse connectivity options for mobile users and a novel deployment paradigm for 6G networks. However, the limited battery capacity of UAVs, dynamic and unpredictable channel environments, and communication resource constraints result in poor performance of traditional UAV-based networks. IRSs can not only reconstruct the wireless environment in a unique way, but also achieve wireless network relay in a cost-effective manner. Hence, it receives significant attention as a promising solution to solve the above challenges. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive survey on IRS-assisted UAV communications for 6G networks. First, primary issues, key technologies, and application scenarios of IRS-assisted UAV communications for 6G networks are introduced. Then, we put forward specific solutions to the issues of IRS-assisted UAV communications. Finally, we discuss some open issues and future research directions to guide researchers in related fields

Towards 6G-Enabled Internet of Things with IRS-Empowered Backscatter-Assisted WPCNs

Wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) are expected to play a key role in the forthcoming 6G systems. However, they have not yet found their way to large-scale practical implementations due to their inherent shortcomings such as the low efficiency of energy transfer and information transmission. In this thesis, we aim to study the integration of WPCNs with other novel technologies of backscatter communication and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) to enhance the performance and improve the efficiency of these networks so as to prepare them for being seamlessly fitted into the 6G ecosystem. We first study the incorporation of backscatter communication into conventional WPCNs and investigate the performance of backscatter-assisted WPCNs (BS-WPCNs). We then study the inclusion of IRS into the WPCN environment, where an IRS is used for improving the performance of energy transfer and information transmission in WPCNs. After that, the simultaneous integration of backscatter communication and IRS technologies into WPCNs is investigated, where the analyses show the significant performance gains that can be achieved by this integration

Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks with RF Energy Harvesting and Transfer

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting and transfer techniques have recently become alternative methods to power the next generation of wireless networks. As this emerging technology enables proactive replenishment of wireless devices, it is advantageous in supporting applications with quality-of-service (QoS) requirement. This article focuses on the resource allocation issues in wireless networks with RF energy harvesting capability, referred to as RF energy harvesting networks (RF-EHNs). First, we present an overview of the RF-EHNs, followed by a review of a variety of issues regarding resource allocation. Then, we present a case study of designing in the receiver operation policy, which is of paramount importance in the RF-EHNs. We focus on QoS support and service differentiation, which have not been addressed by previous literatures. Furthermore, we outline some open research directions.Comment: To appear in IEEE Networ

Game theory-based resource allocation for secure WPCN multiantenna multicasting systems

This paper investigates a secure wireless-powered multiantenna multicasting system, where multiple power beacons (PBs) supply power to a transmitter in order to establish a reliable communication link with multiple legitimate users in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. The transmitter has to harvest radio frequency (RF) energy from multiple PBs due to the shortage of embedded power supply before establishing its secure com- munication. We exploit a novel and practical scenario that the PBs and the transmitter may belong to different operators and a hierarchical energy interaction between the PBs and the transmitter is considered. Specifically, the monetary incentives are required for the PBs to assist the transmitter for secure communications. This leads to the formulation of a Stackelberg game for the secure wireless-powered multiantenna multicasting system, where the transmitter and the PB are modelled as leader and follower, respectively, each maximizing their own utility function. The closed-form Stackelberg equilibrium of the formulated game is then derived where we study various scenarios of eavesdroppers and legitimate users that can have impact on the optimality of the derived solutions. Finally, numerical results are provided to validate our proposed schemes

Game theory-based resource allocation for secure WPCN multiantenna multicasting systems

This paper investigates a secure wireless-powered multiantenna multicasting system, where multiple power beacons (PBs) supply power to a transmitter in order to establish a reliable communication link with multiple legitimate users in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. The transmitter has to harvest radio frequency (RF) energy from multiple PBs due to the shortage of embedded power supply before establishing its secure com- munication. We exploit a novel and practical scenario that the PBs and the transmitter may belong to different operators and a hierarchical energy interaction between the PBs and the transmitter is considered. Specifically, the monetary incentives are required for the PBs to assist the transmitter for secure communications. This leads to the formulation of a Stackelberg game for the secure wireless-powered multiantenna multicasting system, where the transmitter and the PB are modelled as leader and follower, respectively, each maximizing their own utility function. The closed-form Stackelberg equilibrium of the formulated game is then derived where we study various scenarios of eavesdroppers and legitimate users that can have impact on the optimality of the derived solutions. Finally, numerical results are provided to validate our proposed schemes