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What should 6G be?

Nature Electronics volume 3, pages 20–29 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The standardization of fifth generation (5G) communications has been completed, and the 5G network should be commercially launched in 2020. As a result, the visioning and planning of 6G communications has begun, with an aim to provide communication services for the future demands of the 2030s. Here, we provide a vision for 6G that could serve as a research guide in the post-5G era. We suggest that human-centric mobile communications will still be the most important application of 6G and the 6G network should be human centric. Thus, high security, secrecy and privacy should be key features of 6G and should be given particular attention by the wireless research community. To support this vision, we provide a systematic framework in which potential application scenarios of 6G are anticipated and subdivided. We subsequently define key potential features of 6G and discuss the required communication technologies. We also explore the issues beyond communication technologies that could hamper research and deployment of 6G.

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Fig. 1: A user’s perception of the different communications networks, from 1G to the hypothetical 6G.

Ivan Gromicho, KAUST

Fig. 2: Five application scenarios supported by 6G communications.

Ivan Gromicho, KAUST

Fig. 3: Qualitative comparison between 5G and 6G communications.

Ivan Gromicho, KAUST

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  1. Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Shuping Dang, Osama Amin, Basem Shihada & Mohamed-Slim Alouini

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  1. Shuping Dang
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  2. Osama Amin
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M.-S.A. and B.S. conceived the work and suggested the outline of the paper. S.D. and O.A. carried out investigations and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Shuping Dang.

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Dang, S., Amin, O., Shihada, B. et al. What should 6G be?. Nat Electron 3, 20–29 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-019-0355-6

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