Vision and research directions of 6G technologies and applications

Abstract

Fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication technology is now widely available in several countries, with millions of 5G customers. Therefore, it's time for academia and business to focus on the next generation. This paper will overview the sixth-generation (6G) mobile network, including motivations, use case scenarios, requirements, supported research projects, and technologies. We discuss the Beyond 5G (B5G) evolution and advanced 5G features to predict the critical 6G requirements and highlight the 6G capabilities. We also introduce the 6G scenarios, requirements, and technological components compared to 5G.Moreover, the current status of 6G research is discussed, and a rough roadmap for specification and regulation is explored. Then we describe a few prospective applications, their benefits, concepts, and research directions. We explore the business direction for 6G by introducing the most recently 6G projects in the vertical markets. We also propose a network architectural vision and the evolution of hardware-software designs to satisfy the higher requirements of 6G applications. This paper also presents a comprehensive survey of existing 6G trends, technologies, applications, industrial markets, and network structures for the most promising 6G applications.

Keywords

• Cellular communication
• 6G drivers
• Standardization
• 6G requirements
• Research activities
• E-health