From 5G to 6G, 12th Ludwig Boltzmann Forum, 20 February 2020
Satoshi Nagata, NTT DOCOMO Inc., 3GPP TSG RAN Vice Chairman
Summary by Gerhard Fasol
Summary: Docomo towards 5G evolution and 6G
Satoshi Nagata gave us the first ever external talk by NTT DOCOMO about 6G. DOCOMO started 5G Services in Japan on March 25, 2020, and Satoshi Nagata started to work on services beyond 5G and 6G. For an overview of DOCOMO’s 5G services and ecosystem, read DOCOMO Board Director, Executive Vice-President and CTO Hiroshi Nakamura’s talk at the 11th Ludwig Boltzmann Forum: “NTT DOCOMO driving digital transformation in the 5G era – co-create new values with partners“
5G offers three generic services: (1) enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), (2) massive machine-type communications (mMTC), eg for IoT, (3) ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC)
6G will include eMMB, mMTC and URLLC, and will also include new extreme requirements for special use cases, such as extremely high data rates, extreme coverage including sky, sea and space, or extremely low latency and extremely high reliability as required for autonomous vehicles, remote surgery, and massive connectivity with very high densities of sensors and actuators, and very high-precision positioning.
We expect a fusion of cyberspace and our real world, Io type sensors in combination with AI create a cyber image of our real world, AI maybe central action which then creates action in our real world.
Trends for 5G/6G mobile communications
Technology evolves in 10 year phases:
- 1G (analog) 1980-1990
- car phones, portable telephones, shoulder phones, handy telephone
- 2G (digital voice) 1990-2000
- MOVA, mobile phone for everyone
- 3G (digital voice & data) 2000-2010
- i-Mode, information in hand, camera phones
- 4G (smart phones) 2010-2020
- smart phones, apps, videos, streaming
- 5G/6G 2020-2030(?)
- resolution of social issues, human centered value creation
Value creation for markets evolves in 20 year phases.
- 1980-2000 First wave
- dissemination of mobile phones
- 2000-2000 Second wave
- mobile multimedia
- 2020- Third wave
- news business value
5G use cases
- Advanced mobile broadband
- VR (virtual reality) smart glasses
- AR (augmented reality)
- free viewpoint image
- high sense of presence
- highly condensed traffic (e.g. in stadium)
- HD image broadcast (uplink)
- IoT: massive connectivity
- smart city, smart home
- smart wearable
- smart manufacturing
- ultra-high reliability and low latency
- drone control
- tactile communication
- tele-surgery
Observations from 5G real issues
5G is the first generation using mm radio waves
1G, 2G, 3G uses UHF radio bands, e.g. in the 800MHz, 2GHz ranges
4G added low SHF bands in the 3-6 GHz ranges
5G uses high SHF bands in the 6-30GHz and EHF bands above 30GHz
Key technical issues are mm-wave coverage and mobility improvement, uplink performance enhancement.
There is high interest from industry, however requirements for industrial use cases are high.
5G first focusses on downlink speed and on a best effort basis.
5G evolution is directed towards improving uplink speed, and to move from “best effort” basis to guaranteed performance.
Cyber-Physical Fusion
5G and 6G have the potential to fuse our physical world and the cyber world:
Physical world > cyber space: create a cyber replica of the physical world
- humans, objects, events are turned into information
- accumulated data are turned into a cyber replica of the real world assisted by AI
- low latency and high data transport capacity is needed
Cyber space > physical world: cyber space actuates events in the real world
- forecasting future events
- data analysis turns data into value
- actuate events in the real world
- AI influences devices, high reliability and low latency is required
5G supports three generic services: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC)
5G supports three generic services according to the 5G New Radio (NR) standard of the 3GPP:
- enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB): stable connections with very high peak data rates, and lower data rates for users further away from antennas
- massive machine-type communications (mMTC): for massive numbers of IoT devices, eg for sensing, metering and monitoring devices
- ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) required for self-driving cars, remote surgery and similar applications which rely on very fast response (low latency) and very high reliability and Quality of Service
URLLC use cases include:
- control of autonomous vehicles and traffic control
- robot control and 3D connection with drones
- remote surgery
References:
- For Docomo’s field experiments on 5G URLLC services see: Special articles on demonstration of new technologies for 5G, NTT DOCOMO Technical Journal 20(1), (July 2018)
- Masashi Iwabuchi, Anass Benjebbour, Yoshihisa Kishiyama, Yukihiko Okumura, Field Experiments on 5G Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC), NTT DOCOMO Technical Journal 20(1), 14-23 (July 2018)
Extreme targets toward “beyond 5G” > 6G
6G will include eMMB, mMTC and URLLC, and will include also new combinations of extreme requirements for special use cases.
Extreme targets include
- extremely high data rate and data capacity: peak data rates beyond 100Gbps exploiting new spectrum, 100 times capacity increase during the next 10 years
- extreme coverage: Gbps coverage everywhere, new coverage areas, e.g. sky, sea and space
- extremely low energy consumption, no charging and low cost: affordable mm wave/ THz and devices, devices that do not need batteries that require charging
- extremely low latency: faster than 1 milli-second, always low latency
- extremely high reliability: guaranteed quality of service (QoS) for a white range of use cases 7-Nines (99,99999%) reliability
- extremely massive connectivity: massive density of connected devices, e.g. 10 million/square kilometer, sensing capabilities and high-precision positioning (e.g. centimeter precision)
What is 6G?
- 1G: FDMA (Frequency division multiple access)
- 2G: TDMA (Time division multiple access)
- 3G: W-CDMA( wideband code-division multiple access)
- 4G: OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing)-based MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) turbo coding IoT
- 5G = eLTE (extended long term evolution) + NR (5G new radio standard). cm wave & mm wave mMIMO, LDPC/polar coding, URLLC/mMTC
- 6G will be a combination of new technologies and enhancements to bring “big gain”. OFDM based and/or new waveform cm wave & mm waves & THz. extreme coverage, new network topology, further enhanced mMIMO, enhanced URLLC/mMTC, and AI.
Reference:
NTT DOCOMO White Paper on 5G Evolution and 6G, January 2020
A variety of technical components for beyond 5G
- new network topology
- non-terrestrial networks
- frequency extensions and controls
- new radio access technologies
- further enhanced mMIMO
- enhanced URLLC, non public network
- AI for everywhere in the mobile network
- new areas driven by yet unknown use cases
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