6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems

6G and beyond will fulfill the requirements of a fully connected world and provide ubiquitous wireless connectivity for all. Transformative solutions are expected to drive the surge for accommodating a rapidly growing number of intelligent devices and services. Major technological breakthroughs to a...

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Main Authors: Ian F. Akyildiz, Ahan Kak, Shuai Nie
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2020-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
6G
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9145564/
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spelling doaj-04d9398be0d34a84b7767880a6bd81562021-03-30T04:41:03ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362020-01-01813399513403010.1109/ACCESS.2020.301089691455646G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications SystemsIan F. Akyildiz0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8099-3529Ahan Kak1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5142-7715Shuai Nie2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1038-4146Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USABroadband Wireless Networking Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USABroadband Wireless Networking Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA6G and beyond will fulfill the requirements of a fully connected world and provide ubiquitous wireless connectivity for all. Transformative solutions are expected to drive the surge for accommodating a rapidly growing number of intelligent devices and services. Major technological breakthroughs to achieve connectivity goals within 6G include: (i) a network operating at the THz band with much wider spectrum resources, (ii) intelligent communication environments that enable a wireless propagation environment with active signal transmission and reception, (iii) pervasive artificial intelligence, (iv) large-scale network automation, (v) an all-spectrum reconfigurable front-end for dynamic spectrum access, (vi) ambient backscatter communications for energy savings, (vii) the Internet of Space Things enabled by CubeSats and UAVs, and (viii) cell-free massive MIMO communication networks. In this roadmap paper, use cases for these enabling techniques as well as recent advancements on related topics are highlighted, and open problems with possible solutions are discussed, followed by a development timeline outlining the worldwide efforts in the realization of 6G. Going beyond 6G, promising early-stage technologies such as the Internet of NanoThings, the Internet of BioNanoThings, and quantum communications, which are expected to have a far-reaching impact on wireless communications, have also been discussed at length in this paper.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9145564/6Gwireless communicationsterahertz bandintelligent communication environmentspervasive artificial intelligencenetwork automation
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Ian F. Akyildiz
Ahan Kak
Shuai Nie
spellingShingle Ian F. Akyildiz
Ahan Kak
Shuai Nie
6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
IEEE Access
6G
wireless communications
terahertz band
intelligent communication environments
pervasive artificial intelligence
network automation
author_facet Ian F. Akyildiz
Ahan Kak
Shuai Nie
author_sort Ian F. Akyildiz
title 6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
title_short 6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
title_full 6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
title_fullStr 6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
title_full_unstemmed 6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems
title_sort 6g and beyond: the future of wireless communications systems
publisher IEEE
series IEEE Access
issn 2169-3536
publishDate 2020-01-01
description 6G and beyond will fulfill the requirements of a fully connected world and provide ubiquitous wireless connectivity for all. Transformative solutions are expected to drive the surge for accommodating a rapidly growing number of intelligent devices and services. Major technological breakthroughs to achieve connectivity goals within 6G include: (i) a network operating at the THz band with much wider spectrum resources, (ii) intelligent communication environments that enable a wireless propagation environment with active signal transmission and reception, (iii) pervasive artificial intelligence, (iv) large-scale network automation, (v) an all-spectrum reconfigurable front-end for dynamic spectrum access, (vi) ambient backscatter communications for energy savings, (vii) the Internet of Space Things enabled by CubeSats and UAVs, and (viii) cell-free massive MIMO communication networks. In this roadmap paper, use cases for these enabling techniques as well as recent advancements on related topics are highlighted, and open problems with possible solutions are discussed, followed by a development timeline outlining the worldwide efforts in the realization of 6G. Going beyond 6G, promising early-stage technologies such as the Internet of NanoThings, the Internet of BioNanoThings, and quantum communications, which are expected to have a far-reaching impact on wireless communications, have also been discussed at length in this paper.
topic 6G
wireless communications
terahertz band
intelligent communication environments
pervasive artificial intelligence
network automation
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9145564/
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