Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

On June 6, my country's IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group (referred to as the "Promotion Group") released the white paper "6G Overall Vision and Potential Key Technologies" (referred to as the "White Paper"). The content covers the overall vision, eight business application scenarios, ten potential key technologies, etc., and expounds some thoughts on the development of 6G.

The white paper proposes that 6G will transition from the interconnection of all things to the intelligent connection of all things on the basis of 5G, becoming a link between the real physical world and the virtual digital world. The overall vision of 6G is defined as "all things intelligent connection, digital twin". The white paper also determined that 6G will expand to higher frequency bands and efficiently utilize low, medium and high full spectrum resources. Among them, low-frequency spectrum will still be a strategic resource for 6G development, millimeter waves will play a more important role in the 6G era, and higher frequency bands such as terahertz will focus on meeting the short-distance and large-capacity requirements of specific scenarios.

Put forward ten potential key technology directions

The white paper clarifies the overall vision of 6G and the eight major business application scenarios, and basically clarifies the potential demand points of 6G, so that communication manufacturers can invest in technology research and development in these directions.

The white paper points out that in the future, 6G services will present new development trends such as immersion, intelligence, and globalization, forming eight major areas including immersive cloud XR, holographic communication, sensory interconnection, intelligent interaction, communication perception, inclusive intelligence, digital twins, and global coverage. Business applications bring more colorful social life scenes.

Immersive business applications such as cloud-based XR, holographic communication, sensory interconnection, and smart interaction can not only provide users with a more immersive and extreme experience, and meet the interaction needs of humans at multiple sensory, emotional and conscious levels, but can also be widely used Entertainment life, medical and health, industrial production and other fields help digital transformation and upgrading of various industries. Intelligent business applications such as communication perception, inclusive intelligence, and digital twins, with the help of new capabilities such as perception and intelligence, will not only further improve the performance of 6G communication systems, but will also help complete the digitization of the physical world and promote humans to enter the virtualized digital twin world. . Full-area coverage business With the help of 6G to build a seamless global integrated air-space-ground network, there are no more blind spots for mobile communication coverage on the earth. 6G business will provide more universal service capabilities and help the sustainable development of mankind.

In order to meet the above-mentioned business applications, the white paper proposes ten potential key technology directions for 6G, including endogenous intelligent new air interface and new network architecture, enhanced wireless air interface technology, new physical dimension wireless transmission technology, new spectrum use technology, and integrated communication perception. Distributed network architecture, computing power-aware network, deterministic network, integrated satellite-to-ground networking, network endogenous security, and other new wireless technologies.

The white paper pointed out that the future 6G network will still be based on the ground cellular network, and various non-ground communications such as satellites, drones, and aerial platforms will play an important role in achieving integrated seamless coverage of space, space and ground.

Domestic telecommunications manufacturers are actively deploying

The global 6G development is still in the early stage of research. 3GPP6G technology pre-research and international standardization are expected to start after 2025. Liu Guangyi, chief expert of China Mobile Group and 6G project director, introduced that 6G technology, standards and industry competition will become more intense. At present, international organizations around the world have started 6G-related work one after another, among which the earliest is ITU-T, which is conducting related research around some potential technical directions of 6G. ITU-R has also initiated the study of 6G vision and technology trends, but there is a relatively big controversy regarding the timetable for the completion of the 6G standard. In the future, 3GPP will formulate a 6G standard timetable based on the ITU-R specific timetable, and it is expected that the 6G standard formulation work of 3GPP will start around 2026.

CCID think tank research indicated that related enterprises in my country have already started 6G exploration. For example, Huawei has established 6G R&D laboratories and R&D centers in Canada and France. ZTE has established a dedicated team to focus on 6G network structure and 6G enabling technology. At present, most enterprises and scientific research institutions rely on the Millimeter Wave Terahertz Industry Development Alliance to focus on the field of 6G Terahertz communication technology. For example, companies such as Zhijiang Laboratory, ECCOM Ark, Sichuang Electronics, Hengtong Optoelectronics, and Daheng Technology are deploying technologies and products such as terahertz wireless transmission, spectrometers, network connectors, and PCBs for base stations. However, at present, China has not yet clarified the test frequency of 6G communication in the early stage, which may cause some troubles for enterprises in the forward-looking layout of technology and product research and development.

According to China Telecom, the China Academy of Telecommunications has been deeply involved in the research work of the Promotion Group since 2019, and has taken the lead in the development of the ITU-T international standards "Interactive immersive service requirements" (H.IIS-reqts) and "6G "Network architecture and key technologies" and other national key special research work, while actively promoting the international standard work of 5G enhancement technology and its landing in 5G vertical applications, laying the foundation for 6G business and key technology research.

China Unicom also released a 6G white paper in March this year, proposing the overall development vision of 6G, which can be summarized in 8 words: intelligence, integration, green, and credibility. It believes that the future 6G network will achieve global integration and extreme connectivity, provide users with flexible and open services customized on demand, and at the same time evolve capabilities in the directions of intelligent native, digital twin, green sharing, integration of computing and network, security and trustworthiness. .

Liu Guangyi introduced China Mobile's application basic research and 6G layout. He said: "Today, 5G innovation has entered the'deep water zone', 6G research has entered the'no man's land', and the multidisciplinary frontier has entered the'convergence period'. China Mobile Research Institute will continue to promote the further implementation of the 5G concept and continue to seek breakthroughs in 6G innovation. ."

Liu Guangyi introduced that China Mobile has formulated a ten-year 6G research plan. The first stage is from 2018 to 2025. The main work of this stage is the definition of vision requirements, the research and verification of 6G potential key technologies, and the system design of 6G concepts. The second stage is from 2025 to 2030. This stage mainly focuses on 6G standard formulation, industry promotion, commercial application and application cultivation.

Liu Guangyi pointed out that 6G will no longer only provide communication functions, perception and AI will become new services and capabilities, and the integration of perception-communication-computing will be the general trend. In addition, the endogenous intelligence and the endogenous security will be important features of the future network, and network automation is the key technology to reduce the cost of the future network.

China Mobile has also established the Future Research Institute. The three main directions are future information and communication technology (including 6G, next-generation Internet/optical network/AI/security/business and other fields), interdisciplinary integration technology (including brain-like intelligence, life science, Quantum information, new materials, new energy, energy conservation and other fields), humanities (including analysis of the impact of technological progress on society, forward-looking technology laws, regulations and policy recommendations).