6G Development Continues to Heat Up in 2022

The development of 6G networks is gathering pace, with a new Finnish consortium looking to accelerate the development of next-generation radio technologies and a Japan-U.S. alliance seeking to lead the standardization of technologies critical to unmanned applications. The development and deployment of 6G is seen as a "trillion-dollar opportunity" for the mobile industry, and technology leadership is increasingly a political priority for many governments around the world. While it is too early to predict the final form 6G standards will take and what technologies will be included, there are some reasonable assumptions about their capabilities and the challenges facing operators, manufacturers and researchers. 6G Radio Naturally, 6G networks will make great strides in speed, capacity and low latency, while they are expected to be smarter and more reliable. This will provide superior mobile broadband while also supporting advanced services such as truly immersive extended reality (XR), high-fidelity mobile holograms, and digital twins. At the heart of these applications will be the ability of 6G to compensate for current limitations - such as the limited processing power of mobile devices - and to integrate intelligence into the network. If the most ambitious goals are realized, 6G will have 100 times the capacity of 5G and will be able to support 10 million devices per square kilometer. Signals will extend 10,000 meters above the earth's surface, enabling "3D coverage" of the sky, space and underwater. All of these capabilities will allow intelligent sensing, positioning, edge computing and high-definition imaging. However, one of the biggest challenges may be the spectrum, with 6G using higher frequencies to maximize capacity gain, including 1THz and sub-THz levels. Radio technology and spectrum are the focus of a new project in Finland. The country has a long history in the development of radio access network (RAN) technology and hopes to maintain this tradition as the industry transitions from 5G to 6G. The RF Sampo project consists of nine companies and three research institutes, including Nokia, Bittium and the University of Oulu. 6G standardization "Finland has a long tradition in radio technology, which is at the heart of wireless systems," says Nokia's Saila Tammelin, who is the project's industrial director. "RF Sampo aims to strengthen Finland's competitiveness in radio technology, while moving beyond industrial 5G and towards 6G. "RF Sampo includes the development of wireless electronic systems, components and algorithms. It also addresses the development of ways of working that enable innovations to be put to use more quickly, for example, through more efficient simulation and modeling methods. Solving the challenges of increasingly complex wireless systems requires close R&D collaboration between companies and research institutes - to expand and renew Finland's knowledge base and innovation capabilities," said RF Sampo will focus on making 6G radio technology as efficient as possible, harnessing the power of new frequency bands and antenna technologies, and creating designs that reduce 6G complexity. Specifically, it will investigate new RF technologies for 5G and 6G, including antenna structures, integrated circuits, new RF architectures and algorithms. In addition, Japan and the U.S. will collaborate to commercialize chip-level atomic clock technology, which is essential for real-time control and positioning of unmanned vehicles and drones in a manner similar to GPS. It is hoped that the technology will be developed by 2025, and the effort will include a range of industries, including the automotive, mobile and clock industries. Japan and the U.S. also hope to stay ahead of the curve in terms of standardization, given that our country will have a greater influence on the development of 6G than previous generations of mobile connectivity. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)