TENSYMP2022 1570797449

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Sixth Generation (6G) Wireless
3  
4   Technology: An Overview, Vision,
5  
6  
7  
Challenges and Use Cases
8  
9   Jasneet Kaur, M. Arif Khan (Member IEEE)
10   School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering
11   Charles Sturt University, Australia
12   Email: {jkaur@csu.edu.au, mkhan@csu.edu.au}
13  
14  
Abstract—Sixth Generation (6G) research has al- these upcoming demands for future wireless com-
15   ready begun in academia and industry since 2019 munication system, our article has focused on
16   which is considered as ‘year zero’ for 6G research. understanding 6G and its future vision with other
17   The technology is expected to be available for com-
technologies: machine learning (ML), artificial
18   mercial deployment from 2030, following the pattern
intelligence (AI), smart cities (SC) and future
19   that every decade a new generation of wireless
20   technology is introduced. Currently, i.e. from 2020, potential use cases in post pandemic world.
telecom operators around the world has started de- If we look further deeper, [4] mentioned com-
21   ploying 5G technology in their networks. There are
22   a number of conceptual papers on 6G and its related
munication and delivery speed for 6G will be
23   technologies available with some research groups more than a thousand times faster than 5G. The
24   working actively on this new wireless communication table I below compares the technical difficulties
2022 IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP) | 978-1-6654-6658-5/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/TENSYMP54529.2022.9864388

25   generation. It is yet to be seen that what benefits of 5G and how 6G will overcome them. It is also
6G will bring for society, however, one thing is sure
26   that Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in
analysed from table I that both the technologies
27   smart cities will play key roles in 6G technology.
are enablers for the internet of things. 5G can be
28   Therefore the innovative applications raise the qual- referred to as the internet of things, and 6G will
29   ity of life (QoL) for the citizen by monitoring, analyz- focus on speeding up the Internet of Things using
30   ing, planning, and executing with the integration of AI/VR/XR.
31   various components . We further anticipate that the
Figure 1 represents the future emerging smart
sixth generation (6G) of the wireless network should
32   be fully autonomic to deliver the quality of services applications till 2024+. The vision has been based
33   (QoS) and network performance. In this paper, we on yearly development for this technology and is
34   review what is the current state-of-the-art in 6G. not restricted to these applications.
35   Our aim is to provide readers a starting point in 6G
36   research and to provide an overview of how 6G will
be used to build the applications using cutting-edge
37   technologies- SC, AI and ML. We also conceptualise
38   and identify the role of 6G technology with its vision
39   and future challenges. In addition, we have discussed
40   the availability of 6G at the network and user side,
41   along with various future potential use cases for 6G.
42   Index Terms—Sixth Generation (6G); Artificial
Intelligence (AI); Machine Learning (ML); Smart
43   Cities (SC); Internet of Things (IoT).
44  
45   I. I NTRODUCTION
46   Fig. 1. 6G Vision with some future applications.
The COVID-19 pandemic has enormously
47  
changed the digital world. The industries are
48   Considering these applications as a part of scal-
endeavoring to have more flexible technologies
49   able borderless workplaces and the future post-
and agile workplaces, referred to as scalable bor-
50   pandemic world has urged the need to recognize
51   derless workplaces. The IT-based organisations:
TCS, Infosys, etc., have envisioned that this will the constraints of 5G and how 6G can overcome
52   them. Moreover, it has become vital to understand
53   increase the demand for high internet connec-
tivity, more rigid networks, and more responsive the integration between 6G-ML-AI. Motivated by
54   this, we have reviewed the relevant research in
55   user applications [1]. The [2], [3], mentioned the
tremendous demand for digital inclusion, sustain- emerging 6G and other technologies (SC, ML
56   and AI in this work) and discussed the concept
57   able applications and assure of privacy is biggest
challenge in post-pandemic world. Considering of 6G flip, which focuses on understanding how
60   this integration will look from user and network
61   978-1-6654-6658-5/22/31.00 ©2022 IEEE perspective followed by potential 6G use cases.
62  
63  
64  
65  

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 TABLE I built on top of the current 5G technology with AI
T ECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES IN 5G AND ROLE OF 6G and ML capabilities to be brought in the network
Technical difficulty Role of 6G
in SC. This will bring automation and intelligence
to the outer layers of network such as at the edge
Lower speed 6G will offer data rate upto and fog layers of the network. Our vision of 6G
1Tbps with a simple conceptual model is shown in figure
Difficulty in indoor cov- 6G will use femtocells or
erage Distributed Antenna Systems
2.
(DASs).
Need for high speed short 6G uses THz frequencies that
range wireless communi- offers narrow beam and better
cations directivity.
Dedicated hardware im- 6G focuses on virtualisation
plementations which will reduce cost of net-
working equipment.
Limited mobile connec- 6G aims to support 10X102
tions with increasing de- per Km2 .
mand
Time buffer issues 6G aims to provide real-time
services, which does not re-
quire time buffer.
Integration of AI / XR 5G offers partial integration,
applications however the 6G aims to fully
integration the applications in
post pandemic world.

Fig. 2. A conceptual 6G diagram.

Main Contributions: In particular, this work
has the following original contributions:
• Exploration of 6G wireless communication
for growing user demands in the future world
to offer personalised user experience and
personalised services.
• Highlight the growing need of scalable bor-
derless workplaces in the context of the 6G,
SC, ML, and AI-enabled technologies in the
overall design framework of smart applica-
tions to improve quality of life .
• Discuss the growing potential of upcoming
innovative use cases based on different fu-
turistic scenarios, applications, and devices
with 6G-ML-AI integration in SC.
• Identifying future challenges and opportuni-
ties in 6G-ML-AI integration in SC.
Paper Structure: The remainder of the paper is
organized as follows. Section II describes the 6G
with its proposed architecture. Section III presents
the 6G with other technologies followed by sec-
tion IV, discuss the 6G flip - user and network
prospective. Section V, elaborates the potential
use case scenarios with example for this potential
integration. In Section VI, we present the design
challenges and future research opportunities. Fi-
nally, Section VII provides the conclusions and
future work.
II. S IXTH G ENERATION (6G)
Sixth Generation (6G) is a new wireless com-
munication technology that is getting attention
from academia and other researchers. Currently,
6G technology is at the conception phase and
researchers are laying the ground work for this
technology. The vision of 6G is that it will be
6G will have great effect on the business of
telecom operators. In current and near future 5G
technologies, operators mostly need to optimise
the sections of networks by either providing more
resources or removing redundant resources. How-
ever, in 6G era, given AI and ML will be critical
part of networks, automation will be the key bene-
fits. 6G based networks will be able to monitor and
evaluate the needs of customers and infrastructure
locally. This will enable the networks to make
decision on optimal use of wireless resources.
It is not clear at this stage that what physical
layer technology will be the best candidate for 6G.
There are massive MIMO and mmWave technolo-
gies which will be key physical layer components
of any 5G implementation, but at the stage of
writing this article there is no strong or innovative
physical layer technology to be considered such
counterpart for 6G. mmWave is the frequency
spectrum from 30 GHz up to 300 GHz [5] and
is considered as main frequency spectrum band
for 5G technology [6]. Frequency spectrum above
300 GHz is known as Tera Hertz frequency and is
being mentioned in a number of articles for 6G.
To see the future interest of 6G, we have
run google trend analysis for 6G and its future
prediction where figure 3 shows the trend of 6G
publications in IEEE Xplore. Most of the publi-
cations (57%) are published in journals, whereas
many publications are also available through IEEE
journals such as IEEE Access, IEEE Network, etc.
Figure 4 shows the trend of the Google keyword
search data of term 6G for the last two years. It
is clear from this figure that there has been quite
a significant interest among 6G search worldwide,
and this trend will keep growing.

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 Also, we have put together some key concepts
and technologies that we believe will play a key
role in 6G and are frequently mentioned in 6G
literature in figure 5.
III. 6G AND OTHER T ECHNOLOGIES
The smartphone and data networks from 5G
were key features of 5G from 2019-2021. How-
ever, the increase in demand for networks has
urged an intelligent 6G network that focuses on
using terahertz. The critical question that needs
to consider for future smart cities is How will
6G architecture look like in the future?, What can
be envisioned from 6G in the future?. Looking at
a broader perspective, the marriage between 6G-
ML-AI in smart cities is the key to success. The
figure 6 demonstrates the integration between 6G-
ML-AI with future benefits.
Fig. 3. 6G publications status on IEEE Xplore as of 8th
October 2021.
A. 6G for Smart Cities (SC)
The idea of smart cities is not a dream any more
or something from future, rather it is currently
being made reality in one or another way in many
cities and municipalities around the world, e.g.
[7]–[9]. As mentioned in [10]–[12], a smart city
is actually a broad conceptual framework where
a number of new emerging technologies such as
Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Cloud Computing,
Fog / Edge Computing and many more, along
with modern technology-driven physical infras-
tructure, work together to provide high quality
services to the citizens to improve their quality
of life. An example of such a project is SideWalk
Labs’s Toronto project (Google’s sister company)
where it is promised to build a city of future
with promises of sustainability, economic growth,
less greenhouse gases, affordable living and many
more advantages [8]. There are some key and
basic requirements for a city to be considered
as a smart city such as seamless, fast and reli-
able wireless connectivity; availability of real-time
computational capabilities at both user side as well
as at the city infrastructure side and secure-trusted
wireless technology for data sharing [13]. Apart
from these three requirements, the use cases and
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service / application scenarios for smart cities are
endless - the only limit is on whatever one can
imagine.
B. 6G and Machine Learning
Machine Learning (ML) is not a new concept,
but it has gained much attention due to new ap-
plications. It is envisioned that ML will be one of
the key technologies for 6G as far as applications
are concerned. The interesting question to ask is
that how ML can be used on the user sides and
in the edge networks in 6G architecture. It is
also interesting to ask how ML-based solutions
and applications will increase users’ confidence in
privacy and security. Since many users are already
concerned about their privacy when using ML in
various applications. The users feel that their data
has been stored, and their private information may
be leaked or stolen from the data repositories.
This gives the future direction of using AI with
ML. Furthermore, considering 6G as the bridge
Fig. 4. 6G Google search trend as of 8th October 2021.
for future wireless communication system, one of
the main load bearing pillars of 6G is ML. The
integration of ML with 6G will add functionality
and enhance its capabilities. Many existing appli-
cations built using ML(specifically Deep Learn-
ing) are used in resource management, processing
of signals, wireless channel estimation, network
management, and many more. However, the grow-
ing demand of scalable borderless workplaces
and post-pandemic world has urged the need for
6G and its integration into ML to build more
responsive and reliable future-ready applications.
Figure 6, presents the integration of ML-6G where
it highlights the future trends for this integration.
This integration is observed to shift the wireless
world into an intelligent digital world.
C. 6G and Artificial Intelligence
AI is the cherry on top of ML-6G and is
the second pillar of 6G with ML. It plays a
massive role in competing for the future where
the primary goals are to have ease of developing
more future-ready products and how efficiently
the services can be provided to humans. The
[14] indicated that coming 6G will dramatically
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 change the integration of these services with AI.
Moreover, [14] indicated that the integration of
6G with AI will change the way how the system
will learn and interact. This overall integration
will benefit humans. The [15] also discussed that
AI-6G would play a vital role in the user-side,
where the users can themselves download the ML-
AI-based algorithms on their own devices levels.
This will lead to enhancing the personalised user
experience. A simple example with this integration
can be autonomous vehicles where AI can use
the location of objects to optimal communication
with humans. Authors in [16] designed a model
Fig. 5. Some key concepts and technologies related to 6G.
for 6G networks-based AI techniques. The AI
techniques are employed effectively and efficiently
to optimize network performance, including han-
dover management and intelligent mobility. The
author has employed AI techniques to efficiently
and effectively optimize network performance, in-
cluding intelligent mobility and handover manage-
ment, innovative spectrum management, and AI-
empowered mobile edge computing.
Moving forward in section below , we have
discussed how ML and AI with 6G will look like
from user and network prospective.
IV. 6G F LIP - U SER AND N ETWORK SIDE
While we discussed the integration between
ML-6G-AI and SC, it is worth thinking about how
applications based on this integration will benefit
6G and behave at the network and user sides.
However, much research has been conducted from
a network perspective, i.e., how technology will
work on a network side or how feedback can
be sent to a network. The author in [17] men-
tioned that the critical feature of 6G will be an
individualised communication experience to users.
However, how can this experience be achievable?.
Many considerations can be taken into account
to understand the 6G Flip. Firstly, the smart world,
while promoting and encouraging scalable border-
less workplaces by using end devices, i.e., phones,
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laptops, and browsers, is becoming increasingly
more powerful. Secondly, the decrease in cost,
increase in the prevalence of GPU on laptops,
and introduction of modern web API that exposes
low-level technologies such as WebGL, WebGPU,
etc., has enabled hardware functionalities, includ-
ing graphics and computations. Thirdly, enabling
browsers are itself becoming powerful compu-
tation engines. Thus processor-intensive applica-
tions like ML are becoming smart. In addition,
massive training on servers and inference can be
done on the browser in the future world. So all
these considerations are opening up the possibility
of a whole new approach to ML that will be done
through user perspective benefiting 6G.
Considering these possibilities discussed above,
the biggest challenges of using ML on the network
side are the cost of the infrastructure associated
with its implementation and delay in networks due
to the massive number of users. Moreover, due to
the current pandemic, connectivity in the network
has become the central issue in the current wire-
less system. The figure 7, discussed the 6G flip
from user and network side.
Fig. 6. AI-ML-6G integration.
Taking an example, let us consider a smart
image reading application that will automatically
generate the caption for an image on the web
page in the browser by itself. The another example
can be having language scoring application on
the client-side that can provide automated scores
while client records their voice. These are just
some of the future predictions. However, when
ML can be used on the client-side, it can help
achieve the following benefits: less cost, connec-
tivity in milliseconds (ms), less complex model,
and tremendous data privacy.
V. 6G POTENTIAL USE CASES
6G communication system can be automated
with the help of ML and AI. ML and its various
variants such as DL, FL etc can be incorporated at
service-based communication, resource manage-
ment, signal processing, physical layer, network
instrumentation, and so on [18]. Industrial man-
ufacturing can be digitally transformed with the
industry 4.0 revolution [19]. There has been a
comprehensive, rigorous focus on dreaming the
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 smart applications with AI, ML, and 6G with
scientific research being focused on these revolu-
tionary developments. Below we have listed few
potential use cases for 6G for providing users with
personalised experience, shown in figure 8.
Fig. 7. AI-ML-6G: user and network level applications.
1) Use-Case:1 Education in 6G Era: The
future AI applications will offer support
to various smart/intelligent wireless devices.
The main focus for providing this type of
support will be devices performing intelli-
gent learning. An example of this use case
can be considered in teaching through an
automated robot with the facilitator. Let us
say students get trouble with solving case
studies for assessment questions. The au-
tomated robot will perform an automated
search and give the answers to the facilitator,
and if answers can correct, the facilitator
can direct them to the student; otherwise,
redo the answer and communicate with the
student. This automated education system
will use the concept of caching, just like
search engine optimisation.
2) Use-Case:2 Five sense information trans-
fer: For experiencing the world, five senses
are used by humans as touch, smell, taste,
sight, and hearing. The communication net-
work of 6G transfers data remotely obtained
from five senses. This technique uses the
neurological process through integration and
sensory. The sensations from the environ-
ment and the human body are detected. It
uses the body effectively within local cir-
cumstances and environments. This applica-
tion will significantly boost wireless brain-
computer interface (BCI) technology.
3) Use-Case:3 Digital Agriculture: The future
potential application for this interaction in
a sustainable world can be considered sus-
tainable decision-based digital agriculture
applications where the farmer can see the
future vision of growing crops. This type of
application can assist the farmers in taking
a deeper picture of the crop’s roots and
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predicting the growth factor associated with
that crop. This application will help farmers
cut down the damaged crops initially rather
than wait to grow through the season.
4) Use-Case:4 Seamless coverage anywhere
using AR/VR: The [20] presented the con-
cept of AI.VR real-time tourism application
will provide the tourist with VR glasses
that will provide the entire virtual tour of
the entire site. Another example can be
considered an intelligent AR/VR application
to track the Covid19 spread in this use case.
The application can automatically have the
chips install in user phones, and where ever
users will travel, the tracking can be done.
5) Use-Case:5 Future mobility patterns
predication: The use of machine learning
at the user level will promote AI-based
caching, and content predication [20]. This
type of implementation at the application
level will be the future of the intelligent
world. Moreover, this approach is another
example of satellite links for global net-
works. An example of this use case can be
enabling communication in various remote
regions with low latency. Moreover, the ML
will focus on determining the user’s de-
mands for content using various intelligent
techniques such as neural networks or radio
access networking. This will help to make
the future prediction of content and mobility
patterns.
Fig. 8. Potential use cases in 6G - ML - AI integrated world.
VI. C HALLENGES AND O PPORTUNITIES
Although research has begun on 6G, there are
still fundamental questions, such as what phys-
ical layer technology will be used for 6G, are
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 unanswered for 6G. There has been some thoughts
from academics and industry researchers on how
they envision 6G currently which are summarised
below.
TeraHertz frequencies, from 300 GHz up to
3THz, are being considered as one of the candi-
dates for 6G technology. Compared to milli-meter
waves, Terahertz waves have shorter wavelength
and can carry more data more quickly compared to
milli-meter waves as suggested by [21]. Terahertz
can prove a promising technology for communi-
cation systems where a large amount of data is
to be transferred over a short distance but with
very quick speed. Consider for example, a factory
where large number of robots are working and
they need to communicate with each other as well
as with some centralised server. Also, consider an
AR application where a large number of users are
concentrated in a small area with large streaming
data requirement. This all is beyond 5G service
areas where 5G will not be able to support such
services. Another important feature of 6G will be
individualised communication experience to users.
If Terahertz frequency spectrum is used in 6G,
then there will be huge spectrum available for
telecom operators to use as bandwidth for their
system. They can provide individualised service to
each customer by allocating a specific frequency
band to each user.
VII. C ONCLUSION
Since 1990s, wireless communication genera-
tions (1G to current 5G) have come-up with many
exciting features and developments that keep bene-
fiting the modern society and citizens. In 2021, 5G
communication technology was launched world-
wide for implementation that has numerous fea-
tures compared to previous wireless generations.
Smart applications are designed to provide a qual-
ity of life (QoL) to the citizen through advanced
technologies. However, 5G has its limitations
when it comes to meet stringent requirements of
the real mission of growing smart applications.
Therefore, there is a demand for 6G research on
the various aspect, in which one crucial aspect is
the integration of smart applications seamlessly at
the user as well as at the network level. This can
be potentially achieved when ML and AI tech-
niques are made part of wireless networks. In this
conceptual paper, we discussed how to enhance
the present state-of-the-art for 6G communication
when ML and AI will become integral part of
wireless networks. Our article aimed to demon-
strate the future need to develop an integration
framework for various applications of smart cities
using ML, AI, and 6G wireless communication.
Further, we envisioned that the training data re-
duction method could be deployed at the physical
layer to reduce the burden for upper layers in
Authorized licensed use limited to: Siksha O Anusandhan University. Downloaded
the 6G communication network. Machine learning
and deep learning features will be used to develop
a fully autonomous system.
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