High-level overview of the 6G architecture, where compute/storage/networking has been flattened, the transport network has been "shortcut" with a sliced local breakout to enable low latency between the networks of two operators, and an AI-Plane (A-Plane) has been introduced in addition to a user-plane (U-Plane) and control-plane (C-Plane). Furthermore, the 3GPP logical network entities, such as PCF/AMF/UPF, are being disaggregated further through cloud-centric lambda functions.

High-level overview of the 6G architecture, where compute/storage/networking has been flattened, the transport network has been "shortcut" with a sliced local breakout to enable low latency between the networks of two operators, and an AI-Plane (A-Plane) has been introduced in addition to a user-plane (U-Plane) and control-plane (C-Plane). Furthermore, the 3GPP logical network entities, such as PCF/AMF/UPF, are being disaggregated further through cloud-centric lambda functions.

Source publication
Article
Full-text available
Mobile communications have been undergoing a generational change every ten years or so. However, the time difference between the so-called "G's" is also decreasing. While fifth-generation (5G) systems are becoming a commercial reality, there is already significant interest in systems beyond 5G, which we refer to as the sixth generation (6G) of wire...

Contexts in source publication

Context 1
... considerable time analyzing the impact of the frequency bands to be used on human health and well-being, with findings well communicated. 6G will have a profound impact on the overall innovation cycle and the skills landscape of telecoms, providing a phenomenal opportunity for growth. This is illustrated through the high-level architecture in Fig. 5 with the challenges and opportunities summarized in Table ...
Context 2
... However, it is also required for the general Internet service provider (ISP) infrastructure to be "sliceable." An end-to-end orchestration approach is, thus, needed in 6G, which would enable such a deployment scenario. This orchestrator could be implemented on a distributed ledger to increase transparency between competing parties, as shown in Fig. ...

Similar publications

Article
Full-text available
To keep supporting next-generation requirements, the radio access infrastructure will increasingly densify. Cell-free (CF) network architectures are emerging, combining dense deployments with extreme flexibility in allocating resources to users. In parallel, the Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) paradigm is transforming RAN toward an open, intelli...
Article
Full-text available
Fifth-generation (5G) technology will play a vital role in future wireless networks. The breakthrough 5G technology will unleash a massive Internet of Everything (IoE), where billions of connected devices, people, and processes will be simultaneously served. The services provided by 5G include several use cases enabled by the enhanced mobile broadb...

Citations

... Utilizing the THz band presents significant challenges for transceiver hardware design [3]. Operating at such high frequencies imposes stringent requirements on semiconductor technology. ...
... 6G should be technologically adaptable to address societal needs or ''Black Swan'' events effectively and efficiently. This concept is further explained in [70], discussing the societal and lifestyle changes that 6G and beyond communications can bring. In REASON, we aim to tackle all the above challenges and provide solutions for sustainable network deployments that are energy efficient while providing enhanced coverage and throughput across a multitude of use cases and deployment scenarios. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
    The development of the sixth generation of communication networks (6G) has been gaining momentum over the past years, with a target of being introduced by 2030. Several initiatives worldwide are developing innovative solutions and setting the direction for the key features of these networks. Some common emerging themes are the tight integration of AI, the convergence of multiple access technologies and sustainable operation, aiming to meet stringent performance and societal requirements. To that end, we are introducing REASON - Realising Enabling Architectures and Solutions for Open Networks. The REASON project aims to address technical challenges in future network deployments, such as E2E service orchestration, sustainability, security and trust management, and policy management, utilising AI-native principles, considering multiple access technologies and cloud-native solutions. This paper presents REASON's architecture and the identified requirements for future networks. The architecture is meticulously designed for modularity, interoperability, scalability, simplified troubleshooting, flexibility, and enhanced security, taking into consideration current and future standardisation efforts, and the ease of implementation and training. It is structured into four horizontal layers: Physical Infrastructure, Network Service, Knowledge, and End-User Application, complemented by two vertical layers: Management and Orchestration, and E2E Security. This layered approach ensures a robust, adaptable framework to support the diverse and evolving requirements of 6G networks, fostering innovation and facilitating seamless integration of advanced technologies.
    ... On the one hand, the number of wireless devices and their quality of service requirements in terms of data rate, reliability and latency are growing. On the other hand, the capabilities of network nodes in terms of computing power and storage are also improving [1]. While there is some balance between demand and capability, one important resource that is not increasing is spectrum and available bandwidth. ...
    ... For users 1, · · · , K/2, we use Θ r and for users K/2 + 1, · · · , K we apply Θ t . The RIS constraints for the reflect and transmit 1 side, are modeled as standard diagonal elements diag(θ 1 , · · · , θ M ), 1 We use transmit space and refraction space alternately. ...
    Preprint
    The challenges in dense ultra-reliable low-latency communication networks to deliver the required service to multiple devices are addressed by three main technologies: multiple antennas at the base station (MISO), rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) with private and common message encoding, and simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (STAR-RIS). Careful resource allocation, encompassing beamforming and RIS optimization, is required to exploit the synergy between the three. We propose an alternating optimization-based algorithm, relying on minorization-maximization. Numerical results show that the achievable second-order max-min rates of the proposed scheme outperform the baselines significantly. MISO, RSMA, and STAR-RIS all contribute to enabling ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC).
    ... IOT technology has continued to develop and innovate, profoundly changing traditional industrial models and people's lifestyles, such as smart agriculture, smart healthcare, smart homes, and self-driving cars [4]. And healthcare is rapidly evolving, driven by an aging population, consumer demand for better services in more affordable prices, and a growing global focus on preventative health [5,6]. In recent years, IoMT has been recognized as one of the most important technologies in healthcare, which is used for systematic monitoring of patient status, enabling doctors to provide timely and appropriate treatment [7]. ...
    Article
    Full-text available
    Authentication is considered one of the most critical technologies for the next generation of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) due to its ability to significantly improve the security of sensors. However, higher frequency cyber-attacks and more intrusion methods significantly increase the security risks of IoMT sensor devices, resulting in more and more patients’ privacy being threatened. Different from traditional IoT devices, sensors are generally considered to be based on low-cost hardware designs with limited storage resources; thus, authentication techniques for IoMT scenarios might not be applicable anymore. In this paper, we propose an efficient three-factor cluster-based user authentication protocol (3ECAP). Specifically, we establish the security association between the user and the sensor cluster through fine-grained access control based on Merkle, which perfectly achieves the segmentation of permission. We then demonstrate that 3ECAP can address the privilege escalation attack caused by permission segmentation. Moreover, we further analyze the security performance and communication cost using formal and non-formal security analysis, Proverif, and NS3. Simulation results demonstrated the robustness of 3ECAP against various cyber-attacks and its applicability in an IoMT environment with limited storage resources.
    ... Within this context, the emergence of non-terrestrial networks (Geraci et al., 2022;Azari et al., 2022) becomes notably significant. These networks, relying on aerial communication technologies, are proving to be catalysts in shaping the future of telecommunications (Javaid et al., 2023;Akyildiz et al., 2020;Tataria et al., 2021). Moving beyond conventional limitations, these networks offer ingenious solutions to some of the most pressing global sustainability challenges. ...
    Article
    Full-text available
    Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, show great potential in advancing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 worldwide targets outlined by the United Nations (UN) to tackle diverse social, economic, and environmental issues and foster sustainable development by 2030. As per the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), UAVs can significantly improve areas of sustainability like wildlife and wildfire monitoring, precision agriculture, as well as healthcare. Furthermore, drones with communication capabilities are seen as key elements of non-terrestrial networks, and as enabling technologies for future 6G communication networks. This systematic literature review focuses on the role of UAV-enabled communications to achieve the SDGs. Our study is based on a thorough selection and analysis of scientific articles. Initially, we performed a broad search across three major databases: IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, and Scopus, yielding a set of 10,499 papers. Following a strict selection methodology (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PRISMA), we narrowed this set down to 28 key journal articles. Our analysis highlights six global targets that greatly benefit from UAV-enabled aerial communication. In order of impact, these are: “Sustainable Cities and Communities,” where UAVs improve security and disaster management; “Life on Land,” where drones help with wildlife monitoring and reforestation; “Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure,” where UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) aid in infrastructure inspection; “No Hunger,” where drones improve agricultural practices; “‘Good Health and Wellbeing,” where UAVs assist with disease prediction and monitoring; and “Clean water and sanitation,”where drones play a crucial role in efficiently monitoring water quality and distribution. In summary, this paper offers a detailed look at the applications of UAVs in achieving the SDGs through aerial communications. By identifying areas of major impact and spotting gaps and weaknesses in current research, this review article aims to guide future research and policy-making in sustainable drone applications.
    ... In future high-mobility use cases, a novel Two-Dimensional (2D) modulation scheme, Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS), has emerged as a key enabler. Unlike OFDM, which uses the Time-Frequency (TF) domain for information modulation, OTFS uses the delay-Doppler (DD) domain to offer advantages such as Doppler and delay resilience, reduced signaling latency, a lower Peakto-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) and reduced complexity implementation [3,4]. In upcoming 6G networks, Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA), which is one of the most promising code-domain Nonorthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) techniques, has been emphasized as an enabling factor to support high data rates, system capacity, and spectral efficiency [5]. ...
    Article
    Full-text available
    In this paper, we present an mmWave multiantenna configured transceiver for Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA) schemes implemented in an Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) system. Our proposed system introduces a 6-D hyperchaotic mapping system-aided encryption algorithm to enhance physical layer security (PLS). Additionally, Turbo, Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) and repeat and accumulate (RA) channel coding, modified form of Delay-Doppler (DD)-domain SCMA codeword allocation, Log-domain Message Passing Algorithm (Log-MPA)-based SCMA decoding, Cholesky Decomposition-Based ZF (CD-ZF) and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) signal detection schemes are introduced for achieving improved Bit Error Rate (BER). The numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system in terms of PLS enhancement with low correlation coefficients (15.54%, 16.00%, 26.11%, 22.39%, 19.45%, and 18.68% for Users 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively) on synthetically generated binary data transmission. Our system achieves a Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function (CCDF) of Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of 6.61 dB at its 0.1% probability level. The six users achieve a BER of at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of 6.5 dB, 15 dB, 8.5 dB, 6.5 dB, 9.5 dB, and 8.5 dB underutilization of turbo channel coding and MMSE signal detection schemes. In the case of turbo channel coding and CD-ZF signal detection schemes, the BER performance for all six users approaches zero for SNR values ranging from 0 dB to 20 dB.
    ... Despite the enormous potential of the fifth generation (5G) technology as a key enabler for the internet-of-everything (IoE), it is anticipated that the rapid emergence of fully intelligent and automated systems such as tactile internet, industrial automation, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), virtual reality (VR), telemedicine, haptics, flying vehicles, braincomputer interfaces, and connected autonomous systems, will overburden the capacity and limit the performance of 5G mobile networks in supporting the stringent requirements of next-generation networks such as extremely high-spectrumand energy-efficiency, ultra-low latency, ultra-massive, and ubiquitous wireless connectivity, full dimensional network coverage, as well as connected intelligence [1]- [3]. As a result, there have been intensive research efforts from both industry and academia devoted to the sixth generation (6G) technology to meet such technical requirements and demands as it is expected to provide much improved key performance indicators (KPIs) [4], [5]. ...
    ... Movable antenna (MA) is a novel antenna architecture (see [359] and the references therein) that enables the performance improvement of wireless communication systems by fully leveraging the dynamic transmit/receive antenna placement at positions with more favorable channel conditions, in a confined region 3 . This architecture can be integrated into the RIS technology to ensure the dynamic nature of the latter with a non-uniform activity across all its elements, and thus facilitate more real-time adjustments to wireless communications properties than the fixed position antenna (FPA)-RIS setup. ...
    Preprint
    Full-text available
    Security and latency are crucial aspects in the design of future wireless networks. Physical layer security (PLS) has received a growing interest from the research community in recent years for its ability to safeguard data confidentiality without relying on key distribution or encryption/decryption, and for its latency advantage over bit-level cryptographic techniques. However, the evolution towards the fifth generation (5G) technology and beyond poses new security challenges that must be addressed in order to fulfill the unprecedented performance requirements of future wireless communication networks. Among the potential key-enabling technologies, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has attracted extensive attention due to its ability to proactively and intelligently reconfigure the wireless propagation environment to combat dynamic wireless channel impairments. Consequently, the RIS technology can be adopted to improve the information-theoretic security of both radio frequency (RF) and optical wireless communications (OWC) systems. It is worth noting that the configuration of RIS in RF communications is different from the one in optical systems at many levels (e.g., RIS maraqao@mcmaster.ca, ngatchet@mcmaster.ca}). Jules M. Moualeu is with the School of Electrical and Information Engineering , University of the Witwatersrand,). This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible. materials, signal characteristics, and functionalities). This survey paper provides a comprehensive overview of the information-theoretic security of RIS-based RF and optical systems. The article first discusses the fundamental concepts of PLS and RIS technologies, followed by their combination in both RF and OWC systems. Subsequently, some optimization techniques are presented in the context of the underlying system model, followed by an assessment of the impact of RIS-assisted PLS through a comprehensive performance analysis. Given that the computational complexity of future communication systems that adopt RIS-assisted PLS is likely to increase rapidly as the number of interactions between the users and infrastructure grows, machine learning (ML) is seen as a promising approach to address this complexity issue while sustaining or improving the network performance. A discussion of recent research studies on RIS-assisted PLS-based systems embedded with ML is presented. Furthermore , some important open research challenges are proposed and discussed to provide insightful future research directions, with the aim of moving a step closer towards the development and implementation of the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) wireless technology.
    ... Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is envisioned to play an indispensable role in the sixth generation (6G) wireless networks, supporting immersive communications and pervasive sensing, and facilitating paradigm shifts towards the metaverse [4,8,11,14]. Benefiting from the terahertz frequency bands and large antenna arrays, ISAC systems can provide sensing and communication functionalities simultaneously through multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) beamforming, where the sensing and communication modules share the same infrastructure and spectrum resources. ...
    ... ] ∈ C T . Then, each receive AP forwards the echo signal (11) to the CPU. The concatenated echo signal obtained from all the receive APs is given by ...
    Preprint
    Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is one of the usage scenarios for the sixth generation (6G) wireless networks. In this paper, we study cooperative ISAC in cell-free multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, where multiple MIMO access points (APs) collaboratively provide communication services and perform multi-static sensing. We formulate an optimization problem for the ISAC beamforming design, which maximizes the achievable sum-rate while guaranteeing the sensing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement and total power constraint. Learning-based techniques are regarded as a promising approach for addressing such a nonconvex optimization problem. By taking the topology of cell-free MIMO systems into consideration, we propose a heterogeneous graph neural network (GNN), namely SACGNN, for ISAC beamforming design. The proposed SACGNN framework models the cell-free MIMO system for cooperative ISAC as a heterogeneous graph and employs a transformer-based heterogeneous message passing scheme to capture the important information of sensing and communication channels and propagate the information through the graph network. Simulation results demonstrate the performance gain of the proposed SACGNN framework over a conventional null-space projection based scheme and a deep neural network (DNN)-based baseline scheme.
    ... It is due to the fact that increasing demand of high data rates, low latency, and large bandwidth can be fulfilled by future generations of wireless communication i.e., B5G and 6G. New applications in massive machine-type communications (mMTCs) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (uRLLCs), made possible by enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), have propelled the development of international mobile telecommunications 2020 (IMT-2020), also known as the fifth-generation (5G) of wireless systems [1]- [3]. In the coming decade, mission-critical applications for linking everything, highfidelity holograms, immersive reality, tactile/haptic communications, and highly rich multimedia applications will all be considered [3], [4]. ...
    Preprint
    Full-text available
    The massive MIMO communication technology has been widely deployed in existing 5G communication, providing increased capacity, improved spectral efficiency, better signal quality, etc. Channel estimation is a complex task and most channel estimation techniques consider a channel as a white channel but practically channels are correlated. The MMSE estimation for massive MIMO channels has been developed for white channels and its performance degrades if the channels are correlated. In this paper, two techniques are proposed to overcome this problem. In the first technique, the regularization term is introduced in the standard MMSE technique to mitigate the problem. Whereas, in the second technique pre-whitening-based MMSE solution is proposed. More specifically, the knowledge of the channel correlation matrix is employed to pre-whiten the received data before applying the MMSE weight matrix. Simulation results show that both proposed algorithm performance is better than the existing MMSE technique but the pre-whitening MMSE solution is superior as compared to other algorithms.
    ... Environment-aware radio map construction [1] has emerged as one of the most promising channel modeling techniques for next-generation wireless communication systems, which reflects the actual behaviors of wireless signals in specific propagation conditions [2]. A radio map typically refers to a graphical representation of a communication environment, capturing superposition effects of the environment-dependent wireless channel quality given fixed transmitters and communication frequency, e.g., the average received signal power [3]. ...
    Preprint
    Radio map construction based on extensive measurements is accurate but expensive and time-consuming, while environment-aware radio map estimation reduces the costs at the expense of low accuracy. Considering accuracy and costs, a first-predict-then-correct (FPTC) method is proposed by leveraging generative adversarial networks (GANs). A primary radio map is first predicted by a radio map prediction GAN (RMP-GAN) taking environmental information as input. Then, the prediction result is corrected by a radio map correction GAN (RMC-GAN) with sparse measurements as guidelines. Specifically, the self-attention mechanism and residual-connection blocks are introduced to RMP-GAN and RMC-GAN to improve the accuracy, respectively. Experimental results validate that the proposed FPTC-GANs method achieves the best radio map construction performance, compared with the state-of-the-art methods.