4 | KEY DRIVERS AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR 6G UBIQUITOUS WIRELESS INTELLIGENCE
INTRODUCTION
e arrival of the 5G mobile communications technology is already showing signs of becoming a major
factor in driving productivity and is expected to be the key enabler for long-envisaged, highly integrated and
autonomous applications in many sectors. is new wave of technology will accelerate the digitalisation of
economies and society. Historically, a new mobile “generation” appears approximately every ten years, with
6G expected to emerge around 2030. e first release of 5G New Radio (NR) – 3GPP Release 15 – was
ready in 2018, and global commercialization of 5G is currently taking off. 5G performance and use cases will
continue to evolve in the coming releases. 6G will take onboard new technologies and satisfy communication
demands going beyond the 5G evolution. Now is the perfect time to identify future communication needs,
performance requirements, system and radio challenges, and major technical options for 6G to establish
the research goals towards the 2030s.
e first 6G Wireless Summit
1
was organized in Levi, Finland, in March 2019 with almost 300 participants from
29 countries, including major infrastructure manufacturers, operators, regulators as well as academia. e
event was organised by the Finnish 6G Flagship Programme
2
. e 6G vision statement captures the essence
of many of the key messages from the event: Ubiquitous Wireless Intelligence; Ubiquitous – services follow
users everywhere seamlessly; Wireless – wireless connectivity is part of critical infrastructure; Intelligence –
context-aware smart services and applications for human and non-human users.
Following the summit, a workshop was organized with 70 selected participants to commence the draing
of the first 6G white paper. Each year, the white paper will be updated following the annual 6G Wireless
Summit. e goal for this first edition was to identify the key drivers, research requirements, challenges
and essential research questions related to 6G. e format of the white paper is deliberately short avoiding
lengthy background and justifications; it is targeted primarily at technical experts working in the field. At
the highest level, the workshop identified major drivers for 6G (Figure 1): sustainability, society, productivity
and technology.
Is it naïve to say “From 5G Engineering to 6G Humanity”
or is it imperative?
In 2016, the UN released 17 Sustainable Development Goals
3
(SDGs) for the 2030 Agenda. ese goals
were developed against a backdrop of a growing and ageing global population, increasing urbanization
and a world in which the climate is changing. If adhered to, the UN SDGs are expected to drive policy and
influence government spending in many economies, creating global demand. It is estimated that the world’s
population in 2019 is 7.6 billion people, and that this will grow to 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050
and 11.2 billion by the end of the current century. As of 2018, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban
areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050
4
. By 2030, the world is projected to have
43 megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants, most of them in developing regions. However, some
of the fastest-growing urban agglomerations are cities with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, many of them
located in Asia and Africa.
1
www.6gsummit.com
2
www.6gflagship.com
See hps://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.
4
Source UN Department of Economic Affairs 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects.
Available online hps://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.
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