In the past three decades, global data traffic has been experiencing endless growth, or even an endless trend. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) once predicted that according to current trends, the annual growth rate of global mobile data traffic will reach 55% until 2030. This number may not seem intuitive. Let’s do a simple translation: around 2025, global mobile data traffic may reach 607 EB, and in 2030 it will reach 5016 EB (1EB=106TB); from this year to 2030, global mobile data traffic will It will increase 100 times, which is not a small number.
This is also the realistic basis on which we believe that 6G may be born around 2030-since ancient times, humans have always had an unstoppable data thirst. I call it "data/information hunger." This is naturally the driving force behind the generational changes in mobile communication systems:
The improvement of users' demand for communication is the primary goal to be met by each generation of mobile communication systems, and new communication technology is the technological power that drives the transformation of each generation of mobile communication systems. Both are indispensable .
2030 is a milestone recognized by academia and industry (of course we can only predict).
So many scholars and companies are trying to discuss 6G this year, and the layout of 6G. Vivo Communication Research Institute released the "Digital Life 2030+" white paper this year, which analyzed 11 aspects and presented 29 scenarios in full. Among them, a large number of brain holes and cases are used to try to use future life predictions to infer future mobile system indicators. This is a good attempt.
Although the industry and the general public are more inclined to imagine the future life, the unfettered imagination will bring many application scenarios that may appear in the next ten years, which will also bring certain inspiration to the research trend of communication technology, such as "physical appearance" "Twin fitting mirrors" and virtual fittings-----fast virtual fitting mirrors are very likely to be realized in the next ten years, but these "killers" are likely to be ignored by communication researchers.
But as I said before, the evolution of each generation of mobile communication systems is determined by user needs and technological development. User needs alone cannot completely determine the evolution trend of next-generation mobile communication systems. More importantly,
From a technical point of view, what can the current technological development of communications support us in 6G ?
This is a question that vivo’s white paper ignores and I am trying to answer in this article.
1. Ubiquitous Intelligence and Collective AI
Many people have told me that the communication they expect is invisible to users, that is to say, whenever and wherever they go, they can transmit information as they please . This is one of the big visions of the entire communication industry. In communication". But this communication vision is not linked to the real experience. From the perspective of personal needs, everyone actually expects their living environment to be smarter. This is also the origin of the current concept of smart cities, smart homes, and smart communities.
In the next ten years, the communications industry generally believes that human life will present the widespread deployment of smart devices that can make optimal decisions with minimal human intervention. Everything around us will be very intelligent, and may even be able to intelligently manipulate the codec, signal processing, and perceptual communication structure . It is also based on this judgment that in almost all current 6G papers, it is believed that AI will become an indispensable part of 6G, thus forming "ubiquitous intelligence" .
On the other hand, with the widespread deployment of intelligent terminal equipment and more powerful computing capabilities, AI model of training and reasoning will likely decentralized micro base station or network edge node (such as fog networking fog-RAN), distribution AI training and reasoning may become mainstream in the future . This is contrary to the current 5G network that does not consider AI training too much. In 6G, "collective AI" is likely to be realized . Each terminal is expected to train part of the model, and the model will be integrated after the network transmission belt data center.
In this way, low-latency, high-bandwidth communication technology is used to combine the original single device intelligence to form a smart device group, and group decision-making is used to achieve more reliable and efficient "ubiquitous intelligence."
2. Endogenous network security
It is estimated that many students are not clear. The security of the current communication system mainly comes from the security protocols at different levels of the network , such as the common encryption protocol. The application layer mainly uses the HTTPS protocol, and the transport layer may use the SSH protocol. It is a kind of " plug-in" and "patch-style" thinking,
The "plug-in" security configuration is not bad, but because the basic network itself is not designed with security standards in mind, the current mobile communication system temporarily faces many challenges and threats in terms of identity authentication and access control. In fact, this threat is one of the important reasons why physical SIM cards have not been replaced by eSIM cards.
Therefore, practitioners in the communications industry expect that 6G networks will no longer rely on traditional, packaged and patched security solutions, and hope that 6G networks can have endogenous security support. At the beginning of the network protocol design, the whole can be constructed from users, base stations, and edge sides. Security system. Of course, there are many specific implementation methods, so I won't repeat them here.
3. Integration of communication and perception based on radar context
From the perspective of the two major applications of the entire electronic engineering industry, radar and communications itself, there is an integration trend.
The integration I mentioned here does not just refer to the integration of electronic equipment or electromagnetic wave launching platforms. In fact, with the rapid development of millimeter wave radars, more and more millimeter wave radars are showing a trend of miniaturization and civilian use. It is also small enough to be embedded in user equipment.
For example, Google’s Project Soli—Google made millimeter-wave radar into a chip and embedded it in a mobile phone terminal, so that gestures can be recognized and the mobile phone can be operated in the air.
On the other hand, 5G communication itself is exploring the commercial feasibility of millimeter wave frequency bands. It is believed that as the entire millimeter wave industry chain becomes more and more mature, the cost of millimeter wave communication equipment is expected to be greatly reduced within ten years. In this way, in 6G, communication and radar radio frequencies are expected to appear at the same user terminal at the same time, and thanks to the strong directivity and low diffraction ability of electromagnetic waves in the millimeter wave band, the signal processing of the entire communication is becoming more and more close to the radar signal processing ----- This is the basis of the trend of integration of communication and perception .
Transmitting a waveform to complete the communication and perception functions at the same time, which can not only meet the requirements of future IoT devices for the perception of the body environment, but also meet the basic needs of future IoT device communication, and at the same time can reduce costs, which can be said to be three birds with one stone.
If we think more deeply, when radar and communication equipment exist on the same terminal at the same time, radar can provide basic information for communication. For example, users can identify and locate potential communication objects through observation of radar equipment, which is more convenient Communication algorithms such as beamforming are completed, or more physical layer security policies can be invoked to protect communication from interference.
4. Programmable radio environment based on smart metamaterials (yes, the current very popular smart reflective surface RIS is one of them)
In fact, antennas and radio frequency devices on metamaterials have been studied for more than 20 years, but they have not had much impact on the communication itself. In the final analysis, this is because the current laboratory and industrial chain are not mature. But in recent years, more and more antennas based on metamaterials have appeared on the market, such as flexible antennas and fluid antennas.
Ericsson has completed the commercial production of bendable flexible antennas. I believe everyone will see the corresponding products at home in the near future. Liquid antennas can not only bend, but also change into various shapes without applying pressure. It can even repair itself after being cut, which will bring great gains to antenna design in confined spaces.
Another promising metamaterial is to design a large intelligent reflective surface (RIS) to realize a programmable wireless environment. I need to explain a little bit here. The smart reflective surface is a surface material that can be switched on and off by current, thereby affecting the phase of electromagnetic wave reflection. In other words, the smart reflective surface can change the electromagnetic characteristics of electromagnetic waves, thereby affecting the surrounding propagation environment. .
For example, when laying RIS on the roof, you can configure the radio black box through programming, or strengthen the reflection gain of the roof signal in a certain direction, thus playing the role of relay. In fact, RIS changes more than just the propagation characteristics. Many people think that it is expected to change the current wireless transceiver architecture of the communications industry, so that it can effectively complete radio signal modulation without the need for mixing or local oscillators in traditional RF links. -----This greatly reduces the communication cost.
5. Large-capacity battery + low-power terminal solution
This item is actually not just communication technology. In view of the strongest perception of the mobile phone (terminal) side in the entire communication industry, I will take this item out separately.
We believe in each generation of communication that the capabilities of user equipment define each generation of communication equipment, and this is still the case for 6G. In this article, we thought from the beginning that 6G is likely to be deeply integrated with AI. This puts forward higher computing and power requirements for user equipment, and user equipment tends to consume more power than before. Traditional transceiver components are mainly based on semiconductor materials, such as silicon and gallium arsenide (GaAs). These materials generate a lot of heat, but CMOS amplifiers with lower power consumption are often difficult to increase by more than 300GHz, which means they It is difficult to support the large bandwidth and computationally intensive applications of 6G.
In fact, from the perspective of another technical route, large-capacity batteries may not really come true, but at least fast charging and charging are in full swing. This is another ecology. Perhaps if one day, our mobile phones can be quickly charged anywhere, a large-capacity battery might really not be needed.
Vivo has designed a detachable lens system that won the Red Dot Design Award this year. This modular implementation may also provide some ideas for low-power terminals-removing some useless modules may also reduce user functionality. Consumption.
Ending
We can't actually predict how each generation of communications will develop, but today, 10 years ago, we were able to participate in the academic and industry discussions on the implementation of 6G and contribute our views. No one is a prophet. I believe that everyone will always have omissions, but this also does not affect our pursuit of future technology. The truth should always be more and more clear. I believe that if one day, everyone will reach a consensus on the implementation of 6G. Time, perhaps when we start 6G standardization, then is the real beginning.