6G Vision, Value, Use Cases and Technologies from European 6G Flagship Project Hexa-X

While 5G is being deployed and the economy and society begin to reap the associated benefits, the research and development community starts to focus on the next, 6th Generation (6G) of wireless communications. Although there are papers available in the literature on visions, requirements and technical enablers for 6G from various academic perspectives, there is a lack of joint industry and academic work towards 6G. In this paper a consolidated view on vision, values, use cases and key enabling technologies from leading industry stakeholders and academia is presented. The authors represent the mobile communications ecosystem with competences spanning hardware, link layer and networking aspects, as well as standardization and regulation. The second contribution of the paper is revisiting and analyzing the key concurrent initiatives on 6G. A third contribution of the paper is the identification and justification of six key 6G research challenges: (i) “connecting”, in the sense of empowering, exploiting and governing, intelligence; (ii) realizing a network of networks, i.e., leveraging on existing networks and investments, while reinventing roles and protocols where needed; (iii) delivering extreme experiences, when/where needed; (iv) (environmental, economic, social) sustainability to address the major challenges of current societies; (v) trustworthiness as an ingrained fundamental design principle; (vi) supporting cost-effective global service coverage. A fourth contribution is a comprehensive specification of a concrete first-set of industry and academia jointly defined use cases for 6G, e.g., massive twinning, cooperative robots, immersive telepresence, and others. Finally, the anticipated evolutions in the radio, network and management/orchestration domains are discussed

Impact of antenna correlation on the performance of partial relay selection

Antenna correlation is generally viewed as an obstacle to realize the desired performance of a wireless system. In this article, we investigate the performance of partial relay selection in the presence of antenna correlation. We consider both channel state information (csi)-assisted and fixed gain amplify-and-forward (AF) relay schemes. The source and the destination are equipped with multiple antennas communicating via the best first hop signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relay. We derived the closed form expression for outage probability, average symbol error rate (SER) for both schemes. Further, an exact expression is derived for the ergodic capacity in the csi-assisted relay case and an approximated expression is considered for the fixed gain case. Moreover, we provide simple asymptotic results and show that the diversity order of the system remains unchanged with the effect of antenna correlation for both types of relay schemes

A 6G White Paper on Connectivity for Remote Areas

In many places all over the world rural and remote areas lack proper connectivity that has led to increasing digital divide. These areas might have low population density, low incomes, etc., making them less attractive places to invest and operate connectivity networks. 6G could be the first mobile radio generation truly aiming to close the digital divide. However, in order to do so, special requirements and challenges have to be considered since the beginning of the design process. The aim of this white paper is to discuss requirements and challenges and point out related, identified research topics that have to be solved in 6G. This white paper first provides a generic discussion, shows some facts and discusses targets set in international bodies related to rural and remote connectivity and digital divide. Then the paper digs into technical details, i.e., into a solutions space. Each technical section ends with a discussion and then highlights identified 6G challenges and research ideas as a list.Comment: A 6G white paper, 17 page

Advanced receivers for wideband CDMA systems

Abstract Advanced receiver structures capable of suppressing multiple-access interference in code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems operating in frequency-selective fading channels are considered in this thesis. The aim of the thesis is to develop and validate novel receiver concepts suitable for future wideband cellular CDMA systems. Data detection and synchronization both for downlink and uplink receivers are studied. The linear minimum mean squared error (LMMSE) receivers are derived and analyzed in frequency-selective fading channels. Different versions of the LMMSE receivers are shown to be suitable for different data rates. The precombining LMMSE receiver, whichis also suitable for relatively fast fading channels, is shown to improve the performance of the conventional RAKE receivers signicantly in the FRAMES wideband CDMA concept. It is observed that the performance of the conventional RAKE receivers is degraded signicantly with highest data rates due to multiple-access interference (MAI) as well as due to inter-path interference. Based on a general convergence analysis, it is observed that the postcombining LMMSE receivers are mainly suited to the high data rate indoor systems. The blind adaptive LMMSE-RAKE receiverdeveloped for relatively fast fading frequency-selective channels gives superior rate of convergence and bit error rate (BER) performance in comparison to other blind adaptive receivers based on least mean squares algorithms. The minimum variance method based delay estimation in blind adaptive receivers is shown to result in improved delay acquisition performance in comparison to the conventional matched filter and subspace based acquisition schemes. A novel delay tracking algorithm suitable to blind least squares receivers is also proposed. The analysis shows improved tracking performance in comparison to the standard delay-locked loops. Parallel interference cancellation (PIC) receivers are developed for the uplink. Data detection, channel estimation, delay acquisition, delay tracking, inter-cell interference suppression, and array processing in PIC receivers are considered. A multistage data detector with the tentative data decision and the channel estimate feedback from the last stage is developed. Adaptive channel estimation filters are used to improve the channel estimation accuracy. The PIC method is also applied to the timing synchronization of the receiver. It is shown that the PIC based delay acquisition and tracking methods can be used to improve the performance of the conventional synchronization schemes. Although the overall performance of the PIC receiver is relatively good in the single-cell case, its performance is signicantly degraded in a multi-cell environment due to unknown signal components which degrade the MAI estimates and subsequently the cancellation efficiency. The blind receiver concepts developed for the downlink are integrated into the PIC receivers for inter-cell interference suppression. The resulting LMMSE-PIC receiver is capable of suppressing residual interference and results in good BER performance in the presence of unknown signal components

5G tuo verkkoihin mikro-operaattorit

Tiivistelmä Matkapuhelindatan käyttö sisätiloissa kasvaa ja uudet sovellukset vaativat entistä pienempää vasteaikaa sekä parempaa toimintavarmuutta. Tulevien 5G-verkkojen sisätilapeiton haasteet ovat herättäneet keskustelua uusien toimintamallien kehittämiseksi

Key drivers and research challenges for 6G ubiquitous wireless intelligence

Abstract As fifth generation (5G) research is maturing towards a global standard, the research community has started to focus on the development of beyond-5G solutions and the 2030 era, i.e. 6G. In the future, our society will be increasingly digitised, hyper-connected and globally data driven. Many widely anticipated future services will be critically dependent on instant, virtually unlimited wireless connectivity. Mobile communication technologies are expected to progress far beyond anything seen so far in wireless-enabled applications, making everyday lives smoother and safer while dramatically improving the efficiency of businesses. 6G is not only about moving data around — it will become a framework of services, including communication services where all user-specific computation and intelligence may move to the edge cloud. The white paper presents key drivers, research requirements, challenges and essential research questions related to 6G. The focus is on societal and business drivers; use cases and new device forms; spectrum and key performance indicator targets; radio hardware progress and challenges; physical layer; networking; and new service enablers. Societal megatrends, United Nations’ sustainability goals, lowering carbon dioxide emissions, emerging new technical enablers as well as ever increasing productivity demands are introduced as critical drivers towards 2030 solutions. This white paper is the first in a series of 6G Research Visions based on the views that 70 invited experts shared during a special workshop at the first 6G Wireless Summit in Finnish Lapland in March 2019