2 / AUTUMN 2020

MAGAZINE

1
Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Foreword ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 03

From Ambitious Goals to First-Class Results ............................................................................................................................... 04

Path towards 6G Clarified at the Virtual 2nd 6G Wireless Summit 2020 ................................................................ 06

Key Enablers and Research Challenges for 6G .......................................................................................................................... 08

6G White Papers ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Wireless Boosts Business ........................................................................................................................................................................... 34

Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces Changing the Wireless System Design Paradigm ............................................ 36

Feasibility Tests for Future Air Mobility ............................................................................................................................................ 38

Action Plan for Sustainable 6G ............................................................................................................................................................... 40

Immersive Medical Demo Awarded .................................................................................................................................................... 41

Sustainable Energy and Zero Carbon Base Station ................................................................................................................ 42

Veteran of All the ”G’s” .................................................................................................................................................................................. 44

New Materials Enable Future Electronics ....................................................................................................................................... 46

Beyond Communications Engineering in 6G ................................................................................................................................ 47

Fast Uplink Grant for Machine Type Communications ......................................................................................................... 48

Massive IoT and Wireless Energy Transfer ..................................................................................................................................... 49

6G Flagship in Numbers ............................................................................................................................................................................... 50

Open Positions .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 52

6G Research Visions Webinar Series .................................................................................................................................................. 54

6G Waves 2, Autumn 2020

ISSN 2670-2029 (print)
ISBN 978-952-62-2763-4 (print)
ISSN 2670-2088 (online)
ISBN 978-952-62-2764-1 (online)

Hanna Saarela, Ville Wittenberg, Marja Matinmikko-Blue (editors)

6G Flagship, University of Oulu, Finland
October 2020

Photos: Janne-Pekka Manninen and Mikko Törmänen, among others

Graphic design: Sallamaari Syrjä

6G Flagship is part of the Finnish Flagship Programme

funded by the Academy of Finland.

2
 Foreword

FOREWORD
We are thrilled to welcome you to explore this second edition and recent practical learnings to create intriguing 6G-focused
of our 6G Waves magazine! program for both events.

When we published the first magazine in early March, none Our global 6G research effort necessitates highly skilled ex-
of us at the Faculty of Information Technology and Electri- perts. We are continuously looking for new innovative individ-
cal Engineering (ITEE) at the University of Oulu fully grasped uals to join us in fulfilling our ambitious goals, which we intro-
what lies ahead for us as individuals and experts, and as duce in further detail in this magazine. Industry is also getting
members of communities and the society. COVID-19 has ready towards 6G era. The first EU Horizon 6G projects led by
since then made remote work a default at our university, lim- industry are starting early next year. Next G Alliance founded by
iting international contacts and face-to-face collaboration American industry and operators, aiming to steer development
because of tight restrictions for gathering and travel, which of 6G, was founded in the US in October. Thus, now would be
are still in place. a perfect time for companies to join our expanding 6G ecosys-
tem to tackle the challenges of future systems together.
Yet, our 6G Flagship research program has managed to be
highly productive both in scientific work and in creating im- With this 6G Waves magazine, we wish you a safe and produc-
pact on multiple levels, as our results show. In just two and tive end of the year 2020!
a half years, our experts have published more than 1,100
peer-reviewed scientific articles. This magazine highlights our Jukka Riekki
latest results, collaborations, and the expertise of innovators
who are taking 6G research to where no one has gone before. Professor, Dean of Faculty of ITEE,
You can also discover how we contribute to 5G adoption and University of Oulu
beyond 5G development with our collaborators.
6G Flagship,
We are proud of the new set of 6G white papers that we pub- Strategic Research Area Leader,
lished in June. They illustrate the complementary views and Distributed Computing
visions of 250 global experts who answered our open call and
joined the thematic expert groups. The white papers intro-
duced in this magazine show the wide-scale importance of
coupling research and technology development with sustain-
ability and business, with key verticals as pathways to future
sustainable systems and services. The white papers also dis-
cuss how optimal 6G solutions will rely on various stakehold-
er groups’ early engagement to create a real societal impact
towards 2030.

We have adopted new means of collaboration during this

unusual year while we have also strengthened our expertise
in maneuvering virtual platforms and tools. Next year, these
competencies will help us organize two major international
events – 2021 Joint EuCNC & 6G Summit in June and IEEE
PIMRC 2021 in September. We will utilize our research results

3
6G Flagship Highlights

FROM AMBITIOUS GOALS TO

FIRST-CLASS RESULTS
The Finnish 6G Flagship is the world’s first 6G research and ship responds to major societal challenges such as connect-
co-creation program led by the University of Oulu and ap- ing the unconnected. Local entities in increasing numbers
pointed for 2018-2026 by the Academy of Finland, a govern- are able to establish and operate their own 5G networks,
mental funding agency for high-quality scientific research. thanks to 6G Flagship researchers’ long-term endeavors.
6G Flagship envisions a future society towards 2030, which The program creates wide societal and economic impact
is data-driven and enabled by near instant, unlimited wireless with stakeholders through targeted actions which include
connectivity. The 6G experts in Finland seek major scientific e.g. collaborative research project development, cross-sec-
breakthroughs in four interrelated strategic research areas: toral researcher mobility, open research and development
wireless connectivity, device and circuit technologies, dis- environments, expert services and expert groups for white
tributed intelligent computing, and novel vertical applications paper writing. In addition to major international conferences,
and services. During the first two and a half years, the experts including world’s first 6G event “6G Wireless Summit”, 6G
have shared key results and initial solutions in more than 1,100 Flagship organizes research to business events, co-creation
peer-reviewed articles demonstrating the scientific impact of workshops, open innovation events and hackathons, among
the 300-person research effort. others, which aim at boosting digitalization and creating in-
novations especially in verticals through 5G and 6G enabled
6G Flagship’s experts foresee the main future uses of 6G in applications and services.
specific verticals, including health, industry 4.0, automotive
and energy, which are already present in the ongoing 5G Already, 6G Flagship has produced very promising outcomes
rollout. Together with stakeholders in industry, academia, towards its three main goals: 1) to support industry in finaliza-
governmental organizations, and regulatory bodies, 6G Flag- tion of the 5G standard; 2) to develop the essential technology

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 6G Flagship Highlights

components needed for 6G; and 3) to speed up the digitaliza- (RFIC) probe station measurement capability and the antenna
tion of society via targeted application areas. near-field measurement system have been upgraded to sup-
port 330 GHz measurements with frequency extenders. Addi-
Under the first goal, the 6G Flagship initiative has supported tionally, the RF research team has developed a 3-dimensional
5G-enabled economic growth in industry through co-cre- (3D) over-the-air (OTA) measurement system to measure phys-
ation with more than 300 companies in projects, through ical objects such as lens antennas supporting measurements
shared human resources, joint standardization and regula- up to 330 GHz. As a next step, a channel measurement system
tion efforts, and the commercialization of research results is under development with a 330 GHz frequency support.
has given the companies a competitive edge by opening new
business and digitalization opportunities. The open 5G Test Under the third goal, the 6G Flagship initiative has successful-
Network (5GTN), upgraded with 5G new radio and sensors, ly applied 5G in selected verticals; gained regulatory accept-
has attracted more than 150 companies to test 5G prototype ance for disruptive local 5G operator models; promoted 6G
devices, and to explore higher frequency bands, cognitive for European and global research agendas; and strengthened
management functionalities, and system testing tools for new global support for using UN SDGs as a basis for 6G develop-
solutions. 5GTN has also boosted trials in numerous externally ment. 6G Flagship has refined its full-stack model which links
funded projects. In addition, major international conferences connectivity, services, content, end-user community and de-
and workshops organized by the 6G Flagship have speeded vices and developed novel solutions atop 5GTN for example in
up 5G-enabled digitalization in industry through shared re- automotive, health, transport and energy applications through
search and validation results. collaboration between industry, academic and public sectors.
The program has supported regulation and legislation based
Under the second goal, 6G Flagship has embraced its glob- on the requirements rising from research especially in the ar-
al leadership role in launching large-scale 6G research, built eas of ownership and use of radio spectrum, communications
a vigorous 6G ecosystem and constructed novel discussion infrastructure, and data. Already now, the Flagship program’s
forums to critically analyze the limitations of 5G evolution and results are visible in decision making at national, European and
to explore most promising enablers for 6G with its global net- international levels. Furthermore, researchers have adopted
work of more than 1,000 collaborators. 6G vision-building has a strong expert role in steering society towards the 6G era
greatly benefitted from the new open forums created by the 6G through active communication, high-quality content for vari-
Flagship initiative: the annual IEEE 6G Wireless Summit (2019 ous audiences, open discussion in media and targeted events.
– 300 participants, 2020 – 600 participants) and 6G White Pa-
per expert groups (2019 – one generic white paper, 2020 – 12 6G definition work continues with a focus on the most
thematic 6G white papers). At the University of Oulu, the Flag- promising enabling technologies, the identification of key
ship has defined an ambitious 6G research architecture to or- performance and value indicators, as well as the investiga-
ganize the research efforts within the four strategic research tion of new business opportunities and related regulatory
areas. Testing capabilities towards 6G were greatly improved challenges. For latest news and collaboration opportunities,
with upgrades in 5GTN including THz radios and virtualized please visit 6gflagship.com and 6gchannel.com, and follow
network. Most recently, the radio-frequency integrated circuit @6gflagship in Twitter and LinkedIn.

© 6G Flagship

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6G Flagship Highlights

PATH TOWARDS 6G
CLARIFIED AT THE VIRTUAL 2ND

6G WIRELESS
SUMMIT 2020
As the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 showed how much progress has been made around the globe.
a pandemic and the world began to go into lockdown, the “Industry actors have clearly formed their own 6G visions
organisers of the 2nd 6G Wireless Summit 2020 decided to which was a major advancement from last year,” Latva-aho
transform the leading global 6G event to a virtual one – in less said. “In the Summit, industry representatives expressed their
than five days. views on the timing of 6G development in relation to upcom-
ing World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC). In the
The virtual event was launched in the morning of 17 March course of next years, 6G community will focus on the research
2020, as originally planned for the physical event. “It was made of enabling technologies and 6G requirement specifications
possible by a seven-member team including students, techni- as an integral part of the International Telecommunication Un-
cal staff and myself as technical programme committee chair,” ion (ITU) process.”
said Nandana Rajatheva. “We worked nearly around the clock
in a highly time-constrained scenario as we also wanted to en- Patrons of the 2nd 6G Wireless Summit were Ericsson,
sure a high-quality outcome.” Huawei, ZTE, Keysight Technologies, Nokia Bell Labs, Ro-
hde&Schwarz, Virginia Diodes, InterDigital and Wipro. All pa-
By March, very few major events organised with technical sup- trons were very active in different programme roles, contrib-
port by IEEE - world’s largest technical professional organisa- uting to keynotes, invited talks as well as Q&A sessions. The
tion - had taken place online. “We have received positive feed- patrons also extended their thanks to organising the event
back from different parts of the world stating that this was successfully. However, one disadvantage with the virtual
truly a landmark achievement leading the world towards other event realisation were the live exhibitions, which unfortunate-
similar events realised virtually,” Rajatheva said. ly had to be cancelled. “Exhibition materials in high quantities
already arrived in Levi, but we sadly had to return them all back
The turnout left no questions about the timeliness of the dis- to their origins,” said Tuomo Hänninen who was in charge of
cussed topics as 610 experts from 42 countries explored the organising the exhibitions.
online material. An absolute highlight at the event were the live
Q&As by all seven keynote speakers in the discussion forum The technical programme of 6G Wireless Summit was both
which defied the restrictions of time zones. The live Q&A ses- versatile and thought provoking. The organisers were pleased
sions attracted a lot of attention and provided the virtual summit to see that experts were starting to speak out about possible
attendees an opportunity to directly interact with the leading ex- 6G indicators and responding to societal challenges with a
perts. The website tool and browsers caused some challenges, more optimistic and daring tone which was a major leap from
for sure, but the statistics demonstrate a strong participation. their more cautious approach in the first 6G Wireless Summit
held in Levi, Finland in March 2019.
Academy professor Matti Latva-aho, general chair of the 2nd
6G Wireless Summit 2020 and director of 6G Flagship pro- The suggested indicators not only measure the performance
gramme, concluded that the virtual event was a success and it of future 6G systems, but assess novel societal and value-re-

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 6G Flagship Highlights

lated aspects such as trust, open collaboration, flexibility and video presentations provided more insights than mere slides
underserved areas while a strong emphasis was also put on and papers in Proceedings ever could. Last, but not least,
value creation through new business models and private net- the online forum gave even the more silent attendees a voice
works, among others. by providing equal opportunities for in-depth conversation
while also producing more elaborated exchange of ideas than
The role of imaging and sensing, as integrated functions in 6G speedy Q&As in regular conference sessions.
networks, was also highlighted in numerous presentations.
Experts shared somewhat aligned visions of integrated com- Read more:
munication, imaging and sensing in 6G systems towards 2030 www.eucnc.eu
where the Internet of Senses will reshape human-machine www.6gsummit.com/story-of-virtual-6g-summit
interaction and where interconnected digital twins for both
physical beings and environments will be a norm.

Major investments for 6G research and development were

also discussed. The European Commission has taken initiative
proposing carbon neutrality by 2050. “It’s huge task and we
will be expected, when we develop our 6G technology, what-
ever domain is, 6G or other any type of domain, to contribute
to this carbon neutrality objective,” said Bernard Barani, Dep-
uty Head of Future Connectivity Systems Unit at the European • 6G Summit will be co-organized with European
Commission, in his invited talk. He also stressed that there is Conference on Networks and Communications
a very strong political momentum behind 6G developments in (EuCNC) in Porto, Portugal, on 8-11 June 2021.
Europe. Under the next Horizon Europe programme for 2021-
2027, the Commission has proposed more than 2.5 billion € • The event celebrates the inauguration year for Horizon
of EU investment matched with at least 7.5 billion € of private Europe research programme with a target volume of
investments to prepare for 6G. € 100 billion for 2021 – 2027.

Clarifying both 6G research visions and a wide array of views • 6G standard will be largely developed during the
on most intriguing 6G development challenges and paths, the programme time frame, and thus, bringing 6G Summit
event achieved its goal. Although the virtual space at 6gsum- and EuCNC together is a natural move to join forces.
mit.com/virtual-event could hardly compete with the winter Flagship Director, Professor Latva-aho is Steering
wonderland in Levi, Lapland, it came with other benefits. Par- Committee Vice-Chair for the event.
ticipation was flexible and attendees could focus more inten-
sively on their specific topics of interest. The pre-recorded

7
6G White Papers

KEY ENABLERS
AND RESEARCH
CHALLENGES FOR 6G
The set of 6G white papers prepared by 250 global experts something totally new and goes beyond the approach in the
presents a comprehensive analysis of technological advance- prior generations of networks,” Matinmikko-Blue notes.
ments and societal challenges that we see today as key ena-
blers and drivers for 6G ten years from now. The use of new The business environment will undergo a drastic change
higher frequency bands requires giant technological leaps but when digitalization is gradually introduced to all aspects of
the laws of physics will not change. Ten years is a short time in society. “Looking at different continuums, for instance hu-
fundamental technology development. mans-machines, the needs of the different types of users
must be addressed, with the goal of sustainability at all levels,”
Overall, it was an intensive spring for the experts who stepped Matinmikko-Blue says. “Technology-centric versus business
onboard the white paper writing process in January and focused continuum, on the other hand, is a good reminder for
cheered the publication of the final versions of 11 white papers us telecom experts. The potential we see for wireless in ver-
in June, with one still in production. “When ticals is only realized when the vertical
we saw the high number of experts reg- businesses can harness the benefits.”
istered to the twelve groups through
our open call, we realized that the wid- The key enablers and research challeng-
er community was ready for es envisaged for 6G in the white papers
this type of activity and high- are based on the knowledge we have
ly motivated to deepen the today. “The young people of today
6G vision in the select- will be the developers
ed themes,” says and users of the new
Dr. Marja Matin- 6G systems in the next
mikko-Blue who decade and we must in-
coordinated the vest in offering them a
writing process solid knowledge base
of the white pa- with tools to achieve
pers. “The groups worked the best possible out-
very actively and the effec- comes that trans-
tive white paper content form societies.”
creation was done in around
three months, partially under The white papers offer a
COVID-19 lock-down. Some comprehensive set of re-
expert groups took a more scientif- search challenges covering
ic approach in the white paper process technology, sustainability
through action research and scenario and business themes and
planning, while other groups focused on serve as a good starting
the compiling of new technology inputs point for future innova-
collected from telecom experts.” tions while guiding the
research on 6G. “It was
Technology, sustainability and business are recurring themes also a great learning
in the white papers. Many topics fall under all three - yet the experience to facilitate these stakeholder interactions,” Mat-
emphasis is different. “The telecommunication community inmikko-Blue concludes and thanks each of the 250 experts
is usually good at technology development, but the inclusion from numerous fields of science and business who contribut-
of sustainability at the level discussed in the white papers is ed to the creation of the white papers!

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 6G White Papers

MEET THE EXPERT GROUP LEADERS

Marja Matinmikko-Blue Seppo Yrjölä

Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue wishes Dr. Seppo Yrjölä is passionate

to transform spectrum manage- about digitalizing the 70% of the
ment for mobile communications GDP that has not yet been digi-
via multidisciplinary research from talized in order to drive massive
business, regulation and technology productivity growth and new
views - with two doctoral degrees. business.

Ari Pouttu Harri Saarnisaari

Prof. Ari Pouttu looks for optimal Adj. Prof. Harri Saarnisaari paves
solutions for dependable wireless the way for solutions to provide af-
systems applied in various busi- fordable and sufficient connectiv-
ness verticals including health, ity for the unconnected, including
connected mobility, industry 4.0. technical, regulatory and collabo-
critical infrastructures and energy. ration aspects.

Tarik Taleb Samad Ali

Prof. Tarik Taleb develops archi- Dr. Samad Ali investigates the role
tectural enhancements to mobile of machine learning in design and
networks with a focus on network zero-touch optimization of the
softwarization, network function future wireless communication
virtualization, and software-de- systems.
fined networking.

Ella Peltonen Mika Ylianttila

Dr. Ella Peltonen focuses on sens- Prof. Mika Ylianttila leads NSOFT
ing data analytics and edge com- (Network security and softwariza-
puting to build intelligent solutions tion) research group which studies
for the future of the pervasive and develops secure, scalable and
computing. resource-efficient techniques for
5G and beyond 5G and IoT systems.

Nandana Rajatheva Nurul Huda Mahmood

Prof. Nandana Rajatheva focuses Dr. Nurul Huda Mahmood is pas-

on physical and MAC layer ena- sionate about designing effective
hancements in wireless together and efficient yet simple algorithms
with related developments in for wireless communications, with
applications such as autonomous current focus on enablers for criti-
driving via ML / AI. cal machine type communications.

Carlos Lima Aarno Pärssinen

Dr. Carlos Lima focuses on intelli- Prof. Aarno Pärssinen explores

gent environment-aware solutions opportunities in RF and HW design
exploiting localization and sensing at mmW frequencies up to 300GHz
information to optimize the de- and looks for hardware-aware com-
ployment and operation of future munications concepts towards 6G
wireless communication networks. with physical boundaries in mind.

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6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON
6G DRIVERS AND
THE UN SDGS
The White Paper on 6G Drivers and the UN SDGs builds on the ity calls for a significant increase in energy efficiency for 6G.
current relation between mobile communications and the UN The minimum technical performance requirement indicators
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and creates a strong developed for the prior generations of networks at the ITU-R
linking between the upcoming 6G systems and the UN SDGs continue to form the starting point for 6G and the actual tar-
– both targeting year 2030. The multidisciplinary expert group get values keep getting more and more stringent, as we have
led by Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue defines a three-fold role for observed. Among the existing indicators, energy efficiency
6G as 1) provider of services to help reaching the UN SDGs, 2) becomes increasingly important and the whole shift towards
enabler of measuring tools for data collection to help with the sustainability must become a priority in the development of
reporting of indicators, and 3) reinforcer of a new ecosystem to new indicators. “Other indicators beyond minimum technical
be developed in line with the UN SDGs. performance need to be considered to capture burning soci-
etal aspects,” Matinmikko-Blue states. “This white paper has
The group identified global megatrends, which will drive 6G re- opened the discussion and gives preliminary ideas but it is too
search and shape the world in the coming decades. The group early to propose complete 6G indicators yet.”
also discovered that future 6G systems can offer a massive
array of services which will change our perception of time and The new ecosystem, on the other hand, will be built around
space in drastically new ways, empower the people and con- a number of new stakeholders and principles. Pure busi-
tribute to the achievement of all UN SDGs. Existing indicators ness-driven operations will be complemented with new soci-
in the UN SDG framework served as a point of departure in the etal models including community-driven networks which will
development of the novel view on the future communication emerge depending on the regulatory environment. Another
system, where various stakeholders have an active role. “For ex- big transformation will come from the vertical industries and
ample, reducing inequality and securing a better quality of life their public sector counterparts to whom the achievement of
to those in the most vulnerable position in a sustainable way by the UN SDGs will place significant economic constraints and
extending the network infrastructure is critical and requires ac- they will need to take everything the future technologies can
tions from governments and operators,” Matinmikko-Blue says. offer to improve systems and processes. This requires an ear-
ly engagement in the process of 6G development instead of
The group started from the vision of 6G systems created in the waiting for the telecommunication industry to define what 6G
first 6G White Paper in 2019, where 6G merges the communi- can bring for them.
cation service with locationing, sensing, and imaging services,
and took this vision one step further. In the new white paper, The power of group work became visible in the preparation
the expert group proposes that 6G systems could gather a va- of the white paper. The multidisciplinary multi-actor expert
riety of data to report on the achievement of the UN SDGs on a group, with representatives from engineering and social
highly local granularity level which today is a challenge that na- sciences, adopted a collaborative process to identify new,
tions face. “Examples of data include the use of networks and not yet found linkages between 6G and the UN SDGs. “When
services for the achievement of the SDGs,” Matinmikko-Blue the 32 experts continued to participate in the regular telcos
notes. “However, counter effects are also expected and there- month after month, and several said they had missed the ini-
fore it is crucial to look into what data actually should be col- tial call for experts and came on board later, I realized that the
lected and reported and how.” need for this activity was high,” Matinmikko-Blue says. “The
outcome is more than the sum of individual inputs.”
The group identified a number of opportunities and challeng-
es from political, economic, societal, technological, legal and Read more:
environmental perspectives. The predicted increase in capac- www.6gchannel.com/wp-6g-drivers-un-sdgs

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6G White Papers

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6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON
BUSINESS OF 6G
6G unlocks unprecedented opportunities of enabling and em- parallel, new societal models for future service provisioning
powering multiple new stakeholders to actively participate will emerge building on community-driven networks and pub-
in 6G ecosystem. Current network-for-connectivity business lic-private partnerships. “The decoupling of technology plat-
models will be transformed towards novel “network of servic- forms will lower the market entry barrier, allowing multiple en-
es” open ecosystemic business models enabling agile service tities to contribute to the innovations envisaged with 6G while
innovations. Developing products and services for the future decentralized platform cooperatives will become counter-
digitized 6G society requires a transdisciplinary approach and forces to winner-takes-all platform monopolies,” Yrjölä says.
a redefinition of how we create, deliver, share and consume
network resources, data and applications. Platform ecosystems will not only offer search, social media,
and ecommerce, but will provide an infrastructure in which
“We will move from owning to access - 6G sharing economy,” innovation and transaction platforms are built. At the same
says Dr. Seppo Yrjölä, who led the preparation of the White time, fine-grained modularity and open source will allow highly
Paper on Business of 6G. “To achieve an actionable 6G future specialized solutions and services from smaller players to be
in the 2030s, several types of multi-level ecosystemic interac- widely deployed. “6G enables the emergence of new digital
tion needs to be reconsidered. We must focus on collaborative exchange tools, the creation of new value, new business mod-
standards development, modularity, and the complementari- els and new ecosystemic roles as it connects data streams in
ty of technological solutions.” In addition to platform owners, real time to data lakes at the intelligent edge cloud, close to the
platform developers, integrators, managers, public, corporate user, people, the machine or us together,” Yrjölä says. This rais-
and individual users also need to be able to reach scale and es difficulties in openness and transparency as well as collab-
scope to obtain 6G benefits. oration vs. competition issues especially in the use of data and
algorithms. Access to data and data ownership are increasing-
The potential is massive as 6G services through digital auto- ly the major factors in value creation, and limiting such access
mation are estimated to grow 3 to 10 times larger than the cur- is a means of control and restricting empowerment.
rent wireless operator business. On top of that, 6G is expect-
ed to improve work productivity by up to 40% by 2035 when The exploration on societal perspective, on the other hand, ev-
combined with platform economy and artificial intelligence. idenced that power configuration may be transforming from
“No single mobile operator will own all of the resources in the a multi-polarized world to a poly-nodal world in which power
future and more localized networks will be set up leveraging will be determined in economic, technological, and cultural
virtualized shared resources from marketplace,” Yrjölä says. networks and interaction. Hybrid military, economic, techno-
logical, and cultural powers have become overlapping, exer-
The scenarios that the expert group explored reflect increas- cising threats and hybrid influence. As a result, privacy regula-
ing tensions between competitive, protective, networked and tion will be strongly linked to the rising trends of the platform
empowered worldviews. “High volatility, uncertainty, complex- data economy, sharing economy, intelligent assistants, digital
ity and ambiguity (VUCA) was visible in all scenario themes as twins’ reality, connected living in smart cities and transhu-
a “meta trend” highlighting the global concern to ensure resil- manism at length. “In this context, empowering experiential
iency and stability from every stratum of society,” Yrjölä says. citizens as knowledge producers and users will contribute to a
process of human-centered democratizing innovation stem-
From the economic perspective, the explored scenarios ming from pluralism and diversity,” Yrjölä points out.
showed that local-demand-supply-consumption models
will become prominent in an already globalized world, with a The environmental perspective led the group to identify 6G
marked emphasis on localized spatial circular economies. In as provider of services that helps to steer communities and

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 6G White Papers

© 6G Flagship

countries towards reaching the United Nations sustainable problems will require open ecosystem-focused value con-
development goals (UN SDGs). “6G solutions play an impor- figuration and decentralized poly-nodal power configuration,
tant role in achieving UN SDGs by connecting unconnected focusing on the long tail of specialized user requirements that
people, providing things and services more quickly and se- crosses a variety of industries,” Yrjölä says.
curely and by creating a more equitable, safer and healthier
society,” Yrjölä says. “6G will offer opportunities for moni- Technical dependencies are difficult to avoid when separate
toring and steering the circular economy and understanding companies commercialize different 6G technologies and
the big picture of the sustainable data economy.” solutions. At the same time, consumer and production com-
plementarities are required to efficiently regulate, standard-
Aiming to fulfil UN SDGs, companies will shift focus, devel- ize, and balance the supply and demand of 6G services. “We
oping products and technologies that innovate to zero, in- need technological complementarities to ensure that the
cluding zero-waste and zero-emission technologies bring- various technological innovations created complement each
ing social innovation to the forefront. In utilizing sharing and other in commercialization,” Yrjölä says. “This is particularly
circular economy trends, co-creation will employ existing important if we wish 6G to become a pervasive general-pur-
resources and processes to promote the sustainable inter- pose rather than merely an enabling technology with com-
action of mechanisms. plex technical dependencies.”

“Our findings indicate that business ecosystems that aim to Read more:
bring together stakeholders to solve systemic sustainability www.6gchannel.com/wp-business

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6G White Papers

6G WHITE PAPER ON
VALIDATION AND
TRIALS FOR VERTICALS
TOWARDS 2030’S
The research community is increasingly absorbed in explor- tential, the 16-person expert group that wrote the White Paper
ing and developing technology enablers for 6G including radio on Validation and Trials for Verticals towards 2030’s selected
components as well as network architectures of the future. It seven vertical businesses and future software-based testing
has become clear that one solution fits all is no longer feasible as areas for discussion: industry 4.0, future mobility, eHealth, en-
innovation for new business models, introduction of novel use ergy, finance and banking, public safety, and agribusiness. Early
cases and vertical specific key performance indicators (KPIs) on in the writing process, the team of experts recognized that
diversify the future wireless. Therefore, an analysis of real life the different verticals require a very different set of capabilities
systems is needed to offer concise views on most probable use from the wireless communication system stemming from the
cases, KPIs, regulatory aspects, and legislative changes as well expected use cases within the verticals. “As our KPI table indi-
as methodologies to implement them. At the same time, the UN cates, the selected verticals require a quite diverse set of KPIs,”
SDGs and how to measure the effect towards the SDGs with a says Prof. Ari Pouttu, who led the white paper work. “They may
given system design are still very much open challenges. lead to market adoption with vertical specific service providers
who have thorough understanding of the needs, dynamics and
Based on 6G drivers, megatrends as well as assessment of the the business of a vertical thus having a position of being able to
most opportunity-rich verticals with revenue expansion po- provide optimized solutions for its customers.“

14
 6G White Papers

This is also evident from the NTT DoCoMo white paper, which At the same time, the reliability requirement (which is the
suggests that starting with 5G but fully flourishing with 6G, we opposite of low latency) in many industrial, automotive, or
shall have new vertical-specific markets appearing. Whereas a health applications is expected to be of the order of 1–10-9.
new cellular generation emerges every ten years and tradition- Even more challengingly, industrial devices and processes,
al value markets emerge every twenty years, the speed in the future haptic applications, and future multi-stream holo-
transformation of verticals is changing through digitalization. graphic applications require timing synchronization to set
The potential technical KPIs under 6G umbrella are currently requirements for transmission jitter of less than a microsec-
under discussion, mainly in the scientific community, with re- ond. Many verticals will also need a multitude of extremely
spect to the envisaged usage of future systems, cost implica- inexpensive sensors or actuators that are transmit-only or
tions, business cases, and technical feasibility. So, for the time receive-only devices, hence requiring the granting of free
being, no KPIs are agreed. ITU-R WP5D has initiated the devel- access, because either the uplink or downlink is missing to
opment of a report on the future technology trends towards reduce the cost.
2030 and beyond, which will later lead to agreed technical
KPIs at the global level. To address the fact that different vertical industries may also
differ considerably in their working environments, it may be
The white paper also introduces a roadmap which was con- worthwhile to define testing environments, which are indi-
ceived in conjunction with the idea of gradually transforming vidual to a certain industry type. “Thus, the goal should be to
the 5G test network (5GTN) at the University of Oulu to 6G test create a flexible and portable testing solution,” Pouttu says.
network (6GTN) as we move towards 2030’s. “The roadmap “With this, it will become possible to evaluate new testing
presents both expected technology developments needed and ranges regarding their compliance with the reference testing
the most opportunity rich verticals,” Pouttu says. “It also points system, and the compliance with given performance criteria
out the regulatory and legislative changes required as we move (KPIs) can thus be evaluated by various neutral bodies.” Only
towards the expected new business model innovations.” by taking this approach, will the industry-required certifica-
tion of 6G industrial components become possible. And, only
In the 6G era, it is expected that the peak data rates required with such a certification, will the technology be adopted in-
will begin to approach the Tbit/s regime indoors, which will side critical environments.
require huge available bandwidths. Examples of such applica-
tions could be 16K video resolution in 360° with a refresh rate Read more:
of 240 Hz for a “true immersion” experience or holographic www.6gchannel.com/wp-validation-trials
displays. This will necessitate a spectrum use beyond millime-
terwave (mmW), giving rise to (sub-) terahertz (THz) commu-
nications. However, a large portion of the verticals’ data traffic
will be measurement-based or actuation-related small data,
which in many cases, requires extreme low latency, because
many processes aspire to 1,000–2,000 Hz control loops, ne-
cessitating over-the-air latencies in the 100 μs domain to al-
low time for computation and decision making as well.
© 6G Flagship

Some Key Performance Indicators for verticals.

15
6G White Papers

6G WHITE PAPER ON
CONNECTIVITY FOR
REMOTE AREAS
Connecting the unconnected is a massive challenge as half of the beginning, not after a new broadband 6G has been de-
the world’s population remains without any or sufficient inter- fined, Saarnisaari urges. “We have to define globally what we
net connectivity. The reasons include low level of income, low mean, in the 6G era, by affordable and sufficient services that
population density in the living area or lack of infrastructure should be available for everyone,” he says. “We believe that
such as roads or power grids. These characteristics, among 6G could be the first data-driven standard where the uncon-
others, reduce network, infrastructure and service providers’ nected are taken into account since the beginning. And, this
interest to invest in these areas since expected revenues would consideration must be extended to remote and rural areas
be small. “6G will be a part of the solution needed to solve the as well.”
constantly increasing problem of the digital divide which is at
the core of our 6G white paper,” says Dr. Harri Saarnisaari, who Spectrum, when it is allocated nationwide, is not necessarily
led the white paper team consisting of 34 experts. used in an efficient manner on the local level, and rural and
remote areas suffer precisely of this mismatch. “Novel, inno-
Requirements for connecting the unconnected must be in- vative spectrum regulation should open new, feasible ways
cluded into discussions and development processes since to improve connectivity in these areas,” Saarnisaari says.

© 6G Flagship

An illustration of the playground in the remote area 6G white paper.

16
 6G White Papers

“Furthermore, if big operators are not interested to provide lo-

cal remote connectivity, then maybe local micro operators are.”

Connectivity solutions for digital oases, as the remote and ru-

ral spots are called in the white paper, require new approach-
es. “It seems that a separate rural/remote mode is needed so
that sufficient services can be provided while keeping the
solutions economically feasible,” Saarnisaari says. “Further-
more, in many places low energy consumption in local relay
and base stations is needed to support solar-panel powered
operations. Mostly autonomous installation and maintenance
functions are also an important factor.”

The white paper covers wireless technical solutions including

terrestrial, air, space, power grid, optical and so on. They must
be enhanced by sea cables and terrestrial fibre networks. “It is
important to realize that we need both local connectivity and
backhaul solutions,” Saarnisaari points out. “And we should
not forgot air and sea routes that also need connectivity in re-
mote locations.”

To tackle the multifaceted connectivity problem, collaboration

between stakeholders is required. Political decision makers
are needed to adjust and guide regulations and rules as well
as to provide the necessary financial support. Regulators, on
the other hand, play a key role in guaranteeing sensible spec-
trum usage, whereas connectivity providers can offer the nec-
essary infrastructure and services. Local inhabitants must be
tightly integrated to express their connectivity needs but also
to learn and adopt new technology. Furthermore, local govern-
ance, healthcare and appropriate education must be involved
to provide the much-needed digital services in future systems
thus increasing the value of improved connectivity.

It is also important to understand local culture and to ensure

that the community is involved and trusts those who offer con-
nectivity services in the future society. This is particularly true
in the developing world. Along with the technology key per-
formance indicators (KPIs) such as bandwidth, latency, jitter,
security, and resilience, new KPIs reflecting the increase in
economic growth, education, health, gender equality, digi-
tal literacy, happiness index, and others in unserved/under-
served remote and rural regions should therefore be consid-
ered in 6G network design.

“In 6G, connectivity and quality of service is truly measured by

the degree in which is reaches individuals - whether in cities or
in the furthest corners of the world,” Saarnisaari says. “No-one
should be left out.”

Read more:
www.6gchannel.com/wp-remote-areas

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6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON
6G NETWORKING
In 6G networking, we are looking for a unified end-to-end net- The white paper introduces an end-to-end service-based ar-
work solution, which can meet the very strict and challenging chitecture, which is truly cloud native, supported by analytics
requirements of 6G services. In 6G, the networking problem from all different segments involved in the end-to-end com-
shall not be regarded per one individual segment in the com- munications. 6G services, such as emerging immersive ser-
munication chain, but rather as an end-to-end problem. There- vices (Virtual Reality – VR, Augmented Reality – AR, and ho-
fore, there is need for solutions that would support tight and lography), are expected to have much stricter requirements in
efficient integration between the different segments from ra- terms of latency and bandwidth. In parallel, there is a general
dio access network (RAN) to backhaul and core network pass- agreement that the current IP network architecture has many
ing by transport networks. limitations that would hinder the wide deployment of such 6G
services. With 6G networking, we do expect a new IP network
Covering most relevant topics and converging multiple views architecture, or a drastically modified one, that shall support
caused some challenges for the white paper expert group that high precision networking services.
wrote the White Paper on 6G Networking. “However, with the
help, understanding and contributions of all 31 experts, we Effectively, the current IP transport network falls short when
could get to the version of the white paper we submitted,” it comes to the support of extremely interactive, extremely
says Prof. Tarik Taleb who led the expert group. bandwidth-intensive, extremely latency-sensitive services,

© 6G Flagship

Connectivity view in mandate-driven end-to-end architecture.

18
 6G White Papers

such as immersive services. In this vein, the new IP architec- entire ecosystem is also one line of development, ultimately
ture is an alternative solution to the current IP network. Its main leading us to speak of network software versioning instead of
features could be summed into the adoption of new quality of network generations (6G, 7G, etc)!”
service (QoS), the support of qualitative communications, and
the contract-based delivery of packets. Full support of immersive services with great perceived qual-
ity of experience is certainly something to look forward to.
Moving towards 6G service and infrastructure, we can ex- “With the ongoing COVID-19 threat being an ongoing con-
pect true cloud nativeness of the end-to-end communication cern, it is time to invest in novel technologies that will make
system and tight integration between the mobile network communications more immersive and at the same time less
and the underlying transport network to ensure extremely demanding, putting less strain in the existing infrastructure
strict end-to-end latency. At the same time, the expert group and hence, less concerns that the solutions will not work when
perceives an extensive application of artificial intelligence “Black Swan” events occur,” Taleb says. “Such technologies
(AI) to achieve the vision of zero-touch network and service must enable immersive communication applications, such as
management. “The 6G service based architecture envisaged VR, AR, or holography, to become largely available, reliable,
can also be optimized for energy efficiency by optimizing the and commercially sustainable.”
embedding of services and their interconnections in a way
that makes best use of the remaining processing capabili- Read more:
ties in nodes and at the same time makes use of locality in www.6gchannel.com/wp-networking
communication links,” Taleb says. “Perhaps softwarizing the

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6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON MACHINE

LEARNING IN 6G WIRELESS
COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
The immense complexity of 6G wireless networks affects nication systems,” says Dr. Samad Ali, who led the 28-person
the performance of future systems due to the abundancy of expert group that wrote the white paper.
elements. The research community is currently rethinking
the design of blocks of wireless communication systems, One promising approach is the use of autoencoders, which
which are traditionally designed and optimized separately. are expected to greatly simplify practical implementation of
The White Paper on Machine Learning in 6G Wireless Com- wireless systems in 6G. In this approach, an autoencoder is
munication Networks explores how to replace these blocks comprised of two neural networks – one in the transmitter and
with trained machine learning models - an approach prom- another in the receiver. The transmitter and the receiver are
ising major improvements especially in terms of energy con- trained as an autoencoder, which receives the signal as the in-
sumption and implementation complexity. The recent surge put and produces an output that can be decoded by another
of interest in the design of communication systems using neural network after going through the channel. The first neu-
machine learning methods is a result of advancements in ral network receives the input signal and produces an output
machine learning research, which has led to the develop- by encoding the data, which usually has smaller dimensions in
ment of advanced neural network architectures. Such solu- comparison with the input data. The output is then given to the
tions are becoming possible due to the availability of large second neural network after which the output of the second
datasets and existence of high computational power to train neural network is compared with the input of the first neural
large neural networks that are capable of modeling such network. “The entire system goes through a single training pro-
complex systems. cess as we provide the same input and output for the network,”
Ali says. “The modelling of the whole transmitter-receiver block
Training neural networks for communications engineering as an end-to-end communication system creates simple pow-
problems necessitates raw material. Most of the data used for er-efficient implementation that can be upgraded easily.”
deep learning for communications is synthetic and generat-
ed using sophisticated simulators thus offering an easy and On the other hand, cellular communication networks can also
cheap access to a massive amount of data. “The existence of be perceived as multi-agent systems that have heavily cou-
such high-quality datasets in large quantities will ensure that pled elements due to the interference between cells. “Solving
the deep learning models are trained with sufficient accuracy, problems such as power control and beam-management in an
which again will result in design of robust and reliable commu- optimal manner benefits from advanced multi-agent system

Transmitter Receiver

x y Dense layer
Multiple Normalisation Channel Multiple ^s
s with softmax
dense layers layer layer dense layers
activation

© 6G Flagship
Autoencoder based end-to-end communication system.

20
 6G White Papers

modeling tools,” Ali says. “Moreover, communication systems lem. “Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning will enable
can learn and adapt to new conditions and scenarios in an on- zero-touch optimization of the communication networks in a
line manner which makes reinforcement learning a natural fit sophisticated and simple manner,” Ali concludes. “This opti-
for optimization of wireless systems.” mization approach will revolutionize 6G wireless communi-
cation networks while providing connectivity for the most de-
Deep reinforcement learning is expected to play an impor- manding applications of future digital societies.”
tant role in modeling complex systems since it uses neural
networks as a function approximator for mapping between Read more:
the states and actions of the reinforcement-learning prob- www.6gchannel.com/wp-machine-learning

21
6G White Papers

6G WHITE PAPER ON
EDGE INTELLIGENCE
Edge intelligence aims to bring distributed artificial intelli- manage the computing environment, you can also utilize the
gence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods into the edge same capacity for novel application areas.”
computing environment to harness all the available comput-
ing and communication capabilities efficiently. The develop- Current AI technologies usually require massive amount of
ment has two sides: truly distributed and intelligent appli- computational power to learn from large-scale data. Whenev-
cations, so-called edge-native artificial intelligence, can be er large-scale databases are needed, e.g. for learning natural
performed in the edge of the network only if dynamic edge languages, image processing, and other data-heavy tasks,
platform orchestration is in place, which is only possible with there is and will be need for cloud computing resources. The
AI and ML. role of the edge is different: not all AI tasks are heavy in terms
of computing, but may require very local and real-time data,
The expert group that wrote the 6G White Paper on Edge In- especially when considering small-scale physical environ-
telligence created a roadmap with 10 key components. The ments such as traffic, driving, or manufacturing robotics.
path begins with the current edge network technologies,
such as mobile edge computing (MEC) and software-de- In 6G, many real-time applications become available with
fined networks (SDN), which play an important role in the 5G higher computational capacity and more intelligent solutions.
development. “These deployments aim for dynamic orches- They can be directly related to the everyday life of end users,
tration of the network, but with the edge intelligence, we can such as driving assistance systems which react to different
take one step further,” says Dr. Ella Peltonen, who led the changes in the road conditions, or privacy-preserving re-
expert group. “In addition to deciding the links and loads of al-time monitoring of home patients in the healthcare. Some
the networking links and nodes, we can distribute and trans- applications, such as those related to industry, manufacturing,
fer from node to node the computation, data analysis, AI/ML or network orchestration, may not be straightforward for gen-
model building, and many other factors of the whole applica- eral users to see, but will open possibilities for novel products
tion or service.” and services we can only imagine.

The edge intelligence makes it possible to dynamically decide “We are now drafting the first steps towards pervasive intelli-
if a task requires cloud computing capabilities, some pre- gent systems that can benefit different heterogeneous com-
learned models, or if it can be performed locally. Such deci- puting resources, from clouds through network infrastructure
sions are application specific – they need understanding of all the way to home appliances,” Peltonen says. “It is important
the task in the specific context. However, with context-aware- to hear perspectives of different specialists, not only comput-
ness, the same technologies and solutions can cover multiple er scientists or engineers but also those specialized in social
application verticals. sciences, psychology, medicine, and other human-related
studies. At the end of the day, we are developing these solu-
The main question to be asked is “what to compute, where, tions for people to use and benefit, not for the sake of the tech-
and when”. The answers can vary over time and place. “Net- nology itself.”
work load and latency are important tradeoffs, but we can also
consider many other context-related factors, such as energy Read more:
consumption, priority of running applications, availability of www.6gchannel.com/wp-edge-intelligence/
different resources, and optimal state of the whole network,”
Peltonen says. “To become truly dynamic in real time and to be
aware of its own context, network behavior needs to be de-
fined intelligently. And when you have intelligent operations to

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 6G White Papers

Roadmap to the
Edge Intelligence
5G Edge
First commercial 5G MEC
deployments

Pre-train ed
Edge
Pre-trained AI models used
for processing data at the
edge
Edge A I
AI features brought to each
edge node (ability to learn and
to share models with other
edge nodes)

Dedicated
Hardware
Specialized edge devices
capable of performing AI
computation
Distributed AI
AI algorithms distributed in a
network of edge devices,
providing low-latency and
reliable results

Learning -driven
Communicatio n
Complex wireless
communication systems
managed by edge intelligence
Secure and
private
Secure edge systems that
ensure user privacy and keep
information secure
Real-time
training
New distributed algorithms
that make it possible to build
models almost in real-time
Nanophot onic
technologies
Nanophotonic circuits will
perform complex matrix
operations
6G Edg e
First deployments of a new
generation of Edge AI

2020 - 2030
© 6G Flagship
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6G White Papers

6G WHITE PAPER:
RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR

TRUST, SECURITY
AND PRIVACY
In 6G, physical safety will increasingly depend on information structures is expected to continue in 6G networks. Security
technology and the specific networks we use for communi- should be part of the systems design, not an add-on. “We need
cation. The 6G White Paper: Research Challenges For Trust, to further explore the vulnerabilities in the communications
Security and Privacy discusses widely various technology protocols, software and the system architecture, as well as the
solution alternatives, including trust networking for 6G, net- role of post-quantum cryptography (PQC), as powerful quan-
work security architecture and cryptographic technologies tum computers are expected to appear in the vicinity of the
reaching for post-quantum era, physical layer solutions and 6G era,” Ylianttila notes. “Naturally, the regulatory aspects and
technologies, and privacy protection in 6G. Trustworthy 6G is the role of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will continue to be
therefore a multidisciplinary challenge, which relies on com- essential too.”
plementary areas of technology, regulation, techno-econom-
ics, politics and ethics. For example, while the more advanced use of network slicing
techniques in 6G has many interesting use cases, it may also
From the technology perspective, there are many alternatives open new vulnerabilities to the network. Also, the use of AI/
for building trust in the 6G network. “Currently, trusted third ML in security automation opens also new questions - machine
party (TTP) or certificate authorities (CA) are commonly used learning can be used to make safer systems, but also more
in the Internet, but this approach has several vulnerabilities,” dangerous attacks, depending on how it is used and for which
says associate professor Mika Ylianttila, editor in chief of the purposes. “We need to consider how to enable security-by-de-
white paper written by an international expert group. Thereaf- sign in 6G, while enforcing rigorous security monitoring, soft-
ter, trust networking with virtual networks, Software Defined ware testing and hardening practices,” Ylianttila emphasizes.
Networking (SDN), and Customer Edge Switching (CES) have
been proposed. A new trend is to consider smart contracts Physical layer security techniques are important for securing
and distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchain, the most critical physical links, such as wireless links to a med-
which may have many alternative consensus mechanisms to ical ICT monitoring, body-area networks and bio-cyber inter-
support trust between all the parties in a system. Also, trust faces. “The network density will increase in 6G, so there will be
modeling is needed to describe what evidence is used, how a lot of personal and sensitive information in the physical layer
this data is collected, processed, stored and distributed links, which can be eavesdropped or jammed,” Ylianttila notes.
among the stakeholders and how trust decisions are made. “Protecting that will be the first line of defense.”

The expert group perceives that novel features of 5G, such Safety risks are also high in application areas such as traffic
as network slicing and virtualization, serve as starting points, safety (smart cars, drones and traffic), energy (control-sys-
and the development towards cloud and edge native infra- tems), and due to increased use of social media where people

24
 6G White Papers

share more personal and sensitive information. System se- the Internet is a global network, and we need to find common
curity is only as strong as the weakest link. “If someone can denominators for trust and security, as it is up to the techno-
eavesdrop, tamper or create malicious attacks towards these logical community to create standards and technologies that
systems, the impacts in the future can be more drastic than pave the way towards a trustworthy 6G.”
ever,” Ylianttila points out. “However, we are confident that
the aspects of systems security will continue to improve as At the same time, we need an active development community
we move towards the future systems. It is our task and duty to – an involvement from various sectors of society and increased
make sure of that.” awareness of the end users. “Cybersecurity involves all aspects
of modern communications. Therefore, we need also active dis-
Divergence in the approaches for trust, security and privacy cussion and open debate about the future directions”, Ylianttila
taken by regulators in different continents and countries is of challenges. One means to promote wide discussion and open
major importance for 6G development. One notable example development is to organize webinars and hackathons, as the
of divergence considers network neutrality, which has also 6G Flagship program is doing. Welcome to join the webinar
wide impacts on trust, security and privacy in the communica- session “Fundamental Research Challenges for Trust, Security
tions networks. “Essentially it means that ISPs should treat all and Privacy: Where Are We Now and What Needs to be Done
data in the Internet equally,” Ylianttila explains. “Europe leads to Have Trustworthy 6G” taking place on 28 October 2020!”
the effort for open and neutral Internet. In the USA, FCC first
endorsed net neutrality but later repealed it (and it remains a Read more:
debated topic), and China does not currently have it. However, www.6gchannel.com/wp-trust-security-privacy

25
6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON
BROADBAND
CONNECTIVITY IN 6G
The recent White Paper on Broadband Connectivity in 6G, ment based on rate-splitting, machine-learning based optimi-
published in June, explores enablers of the future intelligent zation, coded caching, and broadcasting. “All these are novel
wireless environment. “Our approach is multipronged and the approaches in the sense that these are not realized in a global
enablers depart from the current network-centric massive manner in 5G and thus intensive research is still needed,” Ra-
multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) regime,” says Prof. jatheva says. “For instance, 5G does not highlight the role of
Nandana Rajatheva who led the expert group, which wrote the satellites, except for remote areas, creating a demand to be
white paper. “The intelligent wireless environment we sug- fulfilled by 6G,” Rajatheva says. “The enablers we chose are
gest would establish connection easily and at high rate real- expected to provide full-coverage broadband connectivity,
izing it eventually at 1 Tbps rate. In addition, it would enable across the globe, and this means not just being confined to
improved localized services and highly accurate positioning urban areas.”
with low cost solutions such as radio stripes. By contrast, a
network-centric solution would need much more resources for As a large scale solution, combining all levels, the white paper
optimal connectivity which makes it costly and unwieldy.” proposes integrated space and terrestrial networks (ISTN)
which will facilitate full-coverage broadband connectivity
The white paper examines the user-centric paradigm in three thus ensuring global coverage at any time and from anywhere,
specific levels. At the infrastructure level, the group focuses such as on the sea, over the air and space, and in rural and re-
on ultra-massive MIMO technology and the possibly of imple- mote areas. The architecture of a typical ISTN would consist
menting it with the support of novel solutions including holo- of three layers – the spaceborne network layer, the airborne
graphic radio, intelligent reflecting surfaces or reconfigurable network layer, and the conventional ground-based network
intelligent surfaces (RISs), user-centric cell-free networking, layer connected through microwave/free space optical links
integrated access and backhaul, and integrated space (satel- in space and fiber links on ground The spaceborne network
lite and platforms) and terrestrial networks (ISTN). relies on various orbiting satellites such as the geostation-
ary-Earth orbit (GEO) satellites, medium-Earth orbit (MEO)
“Holographic radio is a new method to create a spatially con- and LEO satellites, and mini satellites known as CubeSats.
tinuous electromagnetic aperture to enable holographic im- The airborne network, on the other hand, consists of various
aging-level, ultra-high density spatial multiplexing with pix- aerial platforms including stratospheric balloons, airships and
elated ultra-high resolution,” Rajatheva says. “RISs, on the aircrafts, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and high altitude
other hand, enable user-centric nature by bringing users, who platforms (HAPSs). The traditional ground-based networks
are further away from access point, into coverage.” include wireless cellular networks, satellite ground BSs, mo-
bile satellite terminals, and more.
At the spectrum level, the group perceives that the network
must seamlessly utilize sub-6 GHz bands for coverage and “The integrated space and terrestrial network we suggest can
spatial multiplexing of many devices. Higher bands, on the make full use of the signal propagation characteristics of large
other hand, will be used for pushing the peak rates of point-to- space coverage and low loss line of sight (LoS) transmission
point links. This will lead to (sub-)Terahertz communications to achieve seamless high-speed communications with global
together with visible light communications which will facilitate coverage,” Rajatheva says. “With these capabilities it will take
dense networks with short-range connections, especially. us closer to an intelligent user-centric network by 2030, or
even sooner.”
At the protocol/algorithmic level, the suggested enablers
include improved coding, modulation, and waveforms to Read more:
achieve lower latency, higher reliability, and reduced complex- www.6gchannel.com/wp-broadband-connectivity
ity in comparison to 5G. The resource management is realized
via combinations of full-duplex radios, interference manage-

26
6G White Papers

27
6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON
CRITICAL AND MASSIVE

MACHINE TYPE
COMMUNICATION
TOWARDS 6G
Machine Type Communication (MTC) is a broad topic, which niche applications, e.g., in industrial communications net-
brought challenges to the international expert group tackling works. However, it is experiencing exponential growth since
it with Dr. Nurul Huda Mahmood in the wheel. How to define the last few years. Most recently, 5G has introduced two new
the scope when the expert group comprised of 31 experts service classes targeting MTC – massive MTC (mMTC) and
from 15 organizations with very diverse backgrounds? “To ultra reliable low latency communications (URLLC) – which
resolve this, we formed a nine-member editorial team repre- somewhat represent the two ends of MTC. In other words,
sented by both academy and industry,” Mahmood says. “In- 5G is natively designed to support MTC through mMTC and
ternal discussions helped us to converge to the scope that we URLLC service classes.
now have, and also address other challenges that came up
along the way.” With 25 billion IoT devices expected by 2030, MTC will un-
doubtedly be the dominant traffic source in 6G networks,
MTC and Internet of Things (IoT) are at times used inter- Mahmood projects. “The demands on MTC are expected to
changeably, which is not fully accurate. “Technically speaking, significantly evolve and diversify by 2030, requiring servic-
MTC is the paradigm of machines communicating with each es with a combination of existing and novel requirements
other, whereas a network of connected machines is at the core and hence posing new design challenges,” he says. “In
of IoT,” Mahmood says. “So, MTC is an enabler for IoT.” the white paper, we have tried to identify and characterize
promising new use cases by introducing five new MTC ser-
MTC is by no means a new invention. It has been around for vice classes as the first step towards designing MTC-spe-
more than 30 years now, or even more if you consider some cific 6G solutions.”

28
 6G White Papers
© 6G Flagship

Selected potential MTC use cases and the evolution of its requirements in 6G networks.

Energy efficiency will be a key design goal in future 6G sys- formation and infotainment material from road-side units only
tems driven by the growing interest in sustainability and the require broadband MTC due to a rather large traffic volume.
need for cost-efficiency. “We believe that energy efficiency in “This demonstrates the need to have optimal solutions ad-
future MTC networks will primarily be enabled by three capa- dressing different criticality levels smoothly integrated into a
bilities: energy harvesting from natural, as well as, transmitted single system, as envisioned for 6G,” Mahmood says.
sources; improved communication schemes that can operate
with very low power, e.g., backscatter communication; and The white paper team rose to the challenge of addressing a
ultra-low power hardware design to reduce the energy con- variety of solutions and squeezed MTC’s key drivers, potential
sumption of devices,” Mahmood says. use cases, evolving requirements and emerging service class-
es into a solid package. “We hope that our white paper will trig-
Zero energy MTC will be an important aspect of MTC overall. ger further discussions and research on this highly important
This is mostly relevant for MTC devices without stringent re- and interesting 6G research topic to accommodate billions of
quirements. Like many other sectors, the communication in- IoT devices,” Mahmood says.
dustry is also strongly committed to reducing its carbon foot-
print. Furthermore, many of these devices might be installed in Read more:
hard and/or dangerous-to-reach locations where it would not www.6gchannel.com/wp-machine-type-communication
be possible to replace or charge their batteries. The ultimate
goal is to keep such MTC devices operating until the device
itself becomes obsolete and reaches the end of its shelf life.

Design complexity and trade-offs for MTC are evident e.g.

for self-driving cars, which is one of the most prominent ap-
plication areas along with other use cases depicted in the
illustration. A fully autonomous vehicle has a vast number of
sensors performing different tasks at different criticality lev-
els. For example, sensors that control the speed of the vehicle
need to constantly monitor the road and its surroundings and
therefore require scalable and extreme URLLC services. Oth-
er sensors, that monitor and control the vehicle temperature,
sound volume and fuel level, require scalable mMTC to sup-
port a large concentration of device connectivity with a much
lower level of criticality. The downloading of maps, traffic in-

29
6G White Papers

6G WHITE PAPER ON
LOCALIZATION
AND SENSING
Until now, wireless networks have been designed targeting massive antenna array, which in their turn provide great op-
solely their communication features. In contrast to 5G and portunities for accurate localization and sensing systems. Yet,
earlier generations, 6G localization and sensing will be built- the inherent localization and sensing potential has been re-
in from the outset to both deal with specific applications and peatedly overlooked. “The full potential of environment-aware
use cases, while supporting flexible and seamless connec- applications such as wireless cognition, high-accuracy po-
tivity. In 6G systems, intelligent context-aware networks sitioning, high-resolution sensing and imaging can only be
should be designed so that they can exploit localization and realized throughout the 6G enabling technologies,” says
sensing information to optimize deployment, operation, and Dr. Carlos de Lima who led the expert group.
energy usage with no or limited human intervention.
6G will continue to develop towards even higher frequency
The expert group that wrote the 6G White Paper on Localiza- ranges, wider bandwidths, and massive antenna arrays. This
tion and Sensing assesses the specificities of the 6G conver- will enable sensing solutions with very fine range, Doppler and
gent communication, localization and sensing systems, as well angular resolutions, as well as localization to cm-level degree
as its overall structure through three main aspects. It identifies of accuracy. Moreover, new materials, device types, and re-
the most promising technologies, which will most likely pave configurable surfaces will allow network operators to reshape
the way towards the next generation of wireless communica- and control the electromagnetic response of the environment.
tion systems. Based on the desired features of the upcoming In fact, such intelligent reflective surfaces allow network op-
6G networks and the opportunities created by the technolo- erators to programmatically shape and control the electro-
gies, the group discusses interesting new applications. Fur- magnetic response of the environment objects by dynamically
thermore, it introduces challenges and identifies future direc- adapting parameters such as the phase, amplitude, frequen-
tions to realize smart 6G wireless systems that will not only cy, and polarization without requiring either complex decod-
provide ubiquitous communication but also empower high ing, encoding or radio frequency operations. At the same time,
accuracy localization and high-resolution sensing services. machine learning and artificial intelligence will leverage the
unprecedented availability of data and computing resources
Currently, the 5G new radio (NR) access interface offers large to tackle the biggest and hardest problems in wireless com-
bandwidth, very high carrier frequency, densification and munication systems.

30
 6G White Papers

The white paper foresees that 6G systems will become “The unprecedented technological revolution evidenced by
the catalyst of a major transformation and the relevance of these examples demonstrates how our digital and physical
specific applications depends on the target use cases. For worlds are merging and, by doing so, changing the way we
example, THz imaging and spectroscopy have the poten- make business, interact with others, and experience our very
tial to provide continuous, real-time physiological informa- own lives,” de Lima notes. “6G localization and sensing, as
tion via dynamic, non-invasive, contactless measurements built-in system components, help in unleashing this extraor-
for future digital health technologies. 6G Simultaneous dinary potential while still taking ethical, privacy and security
Localization and Mapping methods, on the other hand, aspects into account.”
will not only enable advanced XR applications but will also
enhance the navigation of autonomous objects such as Read more:
vehicles and drones. In addition, convergent 6G radar and www.6gchannel.com/wp-localization-sensing
communication systems will benefit of both passive and
active radars which will simultaneously use and share in-
formation to provide a rich and accurate virtual image of
the environment.

© 6G Flagship
New Enablers Applications & Opportunities

New frequency bands Quantum MEC Sensing / imaging Robot localization Object recognition
Large bandwiths Technology

Higher accuracy Compact form Smart Context awareness Joint comm Big data analytics and
(mm and cm) factor metasurfaces and radar modeling of signals

AI & machine Roll, pitch, yaw Dense arrays Radar capabilities Low power AR / VR / MR
learning Directional transmission

High speed Tbps, Sensor fusion Localization and sensing

Low latency sub-ms for future eHealth

Challenges

High hardware Limitations in Dark spots and Increased Interference Short range Heat problem due to
power consumption hardware blockage from new services at THz very small size of THz
elements & hardware

Enabling technologies, new application opportunities and technological challenges of 6G.

31
6G White Papers

WHITE PAPER ON RF ENABLING

6G – OPPORTUNITIES AND
CHALLENGES FROM TECHNOLOGY
TO SPECTRUM

The role of radio engineering and technologies is fundamental with a whole new range of higher mmW and THz spectrums.
in the development of a new generation of cellular networks. The access to the spectrum is governed by the regulation
White Paper on RF Enabling 6G – Opportunities and Challeng- bodies and the availability of new frequency bands is restrict-
es from Technology to Spectrum covers key topic areas of RF ed by existing usage. The envisioned 1 Tbps extreme data
including radio transceiver implementation, radio signal prop- rates require a significant amount of spectrum to operate,
agation, antennas, packaging, optical communications, regu- and such frequencies are available at upper millimeter-wave
lation and standardization, and RF testing. The expert group (mmW) frequencies from 100 GHz to 300 GHz or terahertz
leader Prof. Aarno Pärssinen took an active role in defining the (THz) above 300 GHz frequencies. Higher frequencies offer
contents and invited leading experts on radio engineering to improved data rates for short-range connectivity, enabling a
contribute to the white paper. The international expert group high frequency reuse factor in the 6G network, thus signifi-
with 32 participants represented various complementary di- cantly improving network densification and throughput com-
mensions of expertise. “The group’s expertise ensured a ho- pared to the current 5G networks. On the other hand, lower
listic end-to-end view over the radio topics, which need to be frequencies currently used for the 4G networks offer a great
carefully explored before the 6G networks are in operation in benefit of larger cell sizes with wide-area coverage. Those sys-
the 2030 timeframe,” Pärssinen says. tems can offer data rates for the vast majority of the applica-
tions we are currently using with our mobile devices.
The radio spectrum is the foundation for wireless commu-
nications and the 6G system is targeted for the current and The spectrum availability through dynamic spectrum sharing
upcoming mobile communication spectrum bands, as well as is an opportunity, which needs to be carefully studied for 6G

32
 6G White Papers

systems. The sharing can be performed between different ra- 6G hardware prototyping and the needed radio perfor-
dio systems or operators themselves, leading to interference mance testing. As absolute physical dimensions diminish,
management being a key research challenge. Even if the 6G the tolerances in the physical dimensions of electrical com-
system is technically feasible for the upper mmW and THz ponents, mechanical parts, and assembly accuracy will in-
band operation, the protection of the existing systems may troduce significant variation to the radio performance when
restrict the use of these bands. the operational frequencies increase. The envisioned 1 Tbps
datarate requires a wide information signal bandwidth, e.g.,
In current 4G and 5G mobile terminals, radio transceiver solu- 30 GHz, and the generation of such will be a challenge. An-
tions are mainly implemented with complementary metal oxide other challenge is to shift the modulated signal to the oper-
semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology due ational frequency > 100 GHz. The highest frequency for the
to favorable cost, modularity and high level of integration. The traditional coaxial test cables and connectors is 110 GHz,
expert group foresees that future 6G frequencies at 100 GHz and testing of higher frequencies requires the usage of rig-
and above will also face major challenges due to the available id waveguides. The conducted RFIC measurements can
transistor speeds from the IC manufacturing processes espe- be done with measurement probes connected with wave-
cially in silicon-based technologies such as CMOS and silicon guides to frequency extenders. The system-level measure-
germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar technology (HBT), ments of 6G radios will be performed in over-the-air (OTA)
since approaching the technology boundary leads to exponen- manner as with current 5G mmW systems. However, the
tial degradation in gain and output power as well as increased setup is much more complex. Some of the technologies are
noise. “This aspect is often omitted at the early phase of con- still in early phase of the research/development and, due to
cepting of new standards,” Pärssinen notes. “This is somewhat small physical distances when approaching THz, any setup
visible already when mmW is adopted in 5G but will become a is very sensitive to tolerances.
serious issue if we will not take the hardware-aware approach
into account as the basis when defining 6G.” The white paper lists a set of research questions that the radio
engineering community should tackle in other to achieve af-
All parts of the radio spectrum do not support communica- fordable 6G communication at THz frequencies with extreme
tions equally well due to different characteristics and imple- data rates. The many major research questions include, e.g.
mentation boundaries. The white paper discusses how at-
mospheric attenuation is composed of free space path loss, • What are feasible 6G frequency bands >100 GHz, and which
molecular absorption, and specific attenuation due to rain. are usage policies of those?
Doubling the frequency quadruples the free space path loss • How to create a unified 6G channel model from GHz to THz?
per antenna element due to physical size issues. Molecular ab- • How to define spectrally efficient and radio hardware-aware
sorption has a moderate peak at 60 GHz by oxygen molecules 6G waveforms for Tbps datarates for affordable hardware
and severe peaks above 380 GHz due to water vapor. Fortu- implementation?
nately, there are wide spaces between the absorption peaks • What are the roles of electrical and photonic technologies
with only moderate attenuation. Heavy rain and temporal rain and new materials in 6G and what is the achievable sili-
rate variation substantially affect the signal strength of the con-based technology performance in THz/Tbps systems?
long links. High gain antennas can be used to compensate for • How to implement steerable antenna arrays >100GHz, and
high propagation losses enabling the range of up to 1 km with what is machine learning’s role in controlling the tunable an-
the fixed links at frequencies up to 300 GHz. tennas and RF solutions?

Fundamentally, the antenna’s gain can be improved by in- “Although the hype towards 6G is rising rapidly, we must ac-
creasing its aperture, which means either electrically large knowledge that without major efforts and investments in tech-
aperture antennas, such as integrated dielectric lens anten- nology research and development, 6G as we envision it now,
nas, or arrays of hundreds or thousands of antenna elements. will not happen by 2030,” Pärssinen concludes. “Patience and
Traditionally, an antenna is designed separately and connect- resilience are needed. It also took more than 15 years from the
ed to the RF system with a connector interface. “A separate start of serious research in lower mmW range to achieve com-
dedicated antenna 6G radiator will not be feasible at upper mercialization in 5G.”
mmW or THz frequencies due to significant transmission line
losses and high integration level of RF circuits and antennas,” Read more:
Pärssinen notes. “The antenna performance can be improved www.6gchannel.com/wp-rf-spectrum
by integrating the 6G antennas with the RF circuits or into RF
component packages. The phased arrays are used with 5G
systems, and will be further studied for 6G systems. Currently,
new materials are explored for 6G lens antennas in conjunc-
tion with integrated antennas. “The biggest challenge is to
reduce size of phased arrays to avoid solutions that require
thousands or tens of thousands antennas with parallelism in
RF electronics and, on the other hand, provide electrical steer-
ability with reasonable complexity,” Pärssinen says.

Electromagnetic (EM) simulations, circuit-level simulations,

and system-level simulations are critical to reduce complex

33
Verticals & Business

WIRELESS
BOOSTS BUSINESS
Digitalisation is developing fast and becoming more wide- an environment for competition and cooperation. We have not
spread. Seeing the business opportunities it offers requires been able to fully exploit these opportunities until 5G.”
foresight – or the help of researchers.
The Port of Oulu is one of the test environments in the Busi-
Experts at the University of Oulu analyse opportunities for ness Finland funded 5G VIIMA project coordinated by the
digitalisation and help companies to develop new business University of Oulu. A key element is the locally operated net-
models. Partners include the Port of Oulu, which is now build- work, having roots in the local micro operator concept intro-
ing a 5G local network with digital services. “Digital business duced by the University of Oulu researchers several years
is any business that digitalisation is changing,” says Dr. Petri ago, which makes it possible for a company to have its own
Ahokangas from Oulu Business School at the University of 5G network. These private networks are one of the most im-
Oulu. “The key question is how digitalisation can make the portant innovations that will define digital business of the
business more profitable, more efficient, easier…” future. New business opportunities associated with these in-
clude different platforms with services that can be integrat-
This is where Ahokangas and Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue ed into local networks.
from the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) re-
search unit at the University of Oulu, come into the picture. In the case of the Port of Oulu, data from various sources is
“When a new wireless technology emerges, we start to look collected in the platform and content services are built for
at what kind of business opportunities it opens up and how stakeholders in the area. “For example, we offer a real-time
the company should apply the new technology,” Ahokangas snapshot of traffic within the port, which makes it possible to
describes. “We start to discover this by bringing together dif- optimise driving routes and improve safety,” says Mira Juola,
ferent stakeholders: companies, researchers, and the public who is leading the digitalisation project at the Port of Oulu. “For
sector. We use foresighting methods such as future scenar- the most critical port communication needs, it is a closed data
ios and action research, and combine strategy and technol- network. We are selling its capacity to operators in the region.”
ogy research with it. We help companies map out opportu- The system is not yet complete but is already ready to use.
nities and constraints and find solutions. We do not prepare “Our 5G network is in the pilot phase. The technology need-
a ready-made business model for only a single company but ed today is affordable, which enables data to be collected in
keep the research at a general level so that others can also cloud services and shared with the end users. In 5G, network
take advantage of it.” capacity is no longer a problem, for example, when streaming
video or using a large number of sensors that produce data.”
Solutions are sought from a triangle with sides for regulation,
business, and technology. The task is often complicated be- Regulation also poses a challenge. “As industry boundaries
cause these are new, largely undiscovered possibilities of disappear, regulations for mobile networks and the verticals
technology, as well as the fact that the operating environment can collide,” Ahokangas predicts. Regulation is already ham-
in question is rarely simple. Usually the target is a complex pering digital business, especially in Europe. “In a recent list-
multi-stakeholder environment – similar to the Port of Oulu. “It ing in Wired magazine, no company that had reached a turn-
is a closed area where companies traditionally have their own over of over one billion in the first five years of their operation
information and communication systems that don’t interact. In was European. Here, the business environment is so highly
addition, there is official information, customs clearance, etc.,” regulated that new start-ups are basically prohibited.” Utilis-
Ahokangas says. “When these are combined with digitalisa- ing and commercialising data, such as reselling it, is one of the
tion, all stakeholders at the port can benefit from the added key opportunities for digital business. The regulation on this
value. They can utilise each other’s knowledge, which creates also varies. In America, data is owned by the corporation that

34
 Verticals & Business

collected it, but in many Asian countries the state owns the license. Countries are also moving from country-wide spec-
data and in Europe it is owned by the consumer, Ahokangas trum auctions to other models, such as offering local licenses.
points out. “Making affordable spectrum available for private networks
in frequency range with favorable propagation conditions will
The regulation also applies to new radio frequencies on which be the major differentiator between countries,” Matinmik-
5G is based. “Governments decide on spectrum awards and ko-Blue concludes. “Countries that miss this window will lag
often hold auctions and, at the same time, shape the frame- in the quest of new business opportunities.”
works for future digital business,” Matinmikko-Blue says. The
deployment conditions in the different frequency bands dif- Read the original story by Jarno Mällinen:
fer drastically. Also the approaches for awarding spectrum www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/news/digitalisation-boosts-business
access rights differ. Some countries offer fewer frequency li-
censes and make money out off them through auctions, while 5G VIIMA project:
in other countries, large operators can more easily obtain a 5gtnf.fi/projects/5g-viima

35
Verticals & Business

INTELLIGENT REFLECTING SURFACES

CHANGING THE WIRELESS
SYSTEM DESIGN PARADIGM

The randomness and non-controllable nature of transmitted tion based super-resolution algorithm capable of accomplish-
electromagnetic (EM) waves that propagate from transmitters ing it,” Juntti says.
to the receivers calls for overturning. 6G Flagship’s wireless
system designers, together with wireless experts at InterDigi- The researchers are also modeling IRS as a component of ray
tal, are seeking to change the system design paradigm with the tracing based channel modeling. In order to quantify the poten-
introduction of Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) arrays into tial benefit of IRS usage, the team uses the same channel mod-
the wireless environment. In the ARIADNE project under the els as in other scenarios without IRS, whenever appropriate.
EU programme Horizon 2020, the IRS is seen as one of the ena-
bling technologies for the implementation of wireless systems What is certain, the IRS based approach should not be con-
above 100 GHz frequencies sidered as a direct competitor of the conventional MIMO
technology. Instead, the IRS can be used in MIMO systems to
The researchers now focus on the use of the IRS as a con- improve the performance. In conventional MIMO systems, the
trollable reflecting surface especially when implemented antenna arrays are connected to a transceiver. In IRS applica-
with metasurfaces. “We are looking into how the EM propa- tions, on the other hand, the emphasis is on the cases where
gation environment can be altered by controlling the reflec- arrays are not connected to transceivers, i.e., they do not re-
tion, refraction and absorption properties of an IRS,” says ceive or transmit signals but redirect and focus them into the
Prof. Markku Juntti who leads the signal processing team desired directions.
at 6G Flagship. “Beamforming, in particular, is of interest as
we consider the curvature of the EM waves, along with oth- Sustainability of IRS solutions further increases their appeal.
er real physical phenomena, near the IRS.” The practical and “The introduction of IRS can potentially reduce the number of
cost-efficient realization of the surfaces will be a major chal- transmitters in a wireless system allowing us to achieve the
lenge for the antenna technology and material researchers of same performance with lower power consumption and less
6G Flagship to begin with. hardware than in systems without IRS,” Juntti says. “In addi-
tion, the manufacturing of an IRS is likely to consume less re-
At best, the IRS can provide hassle-free solutions as they sources such as rare earth metals, than the electronics used
can be introduced into a wireless system without a need to in transceivers.”
change the system concept (standard) or hardware. Addition-
al signal processing in transceivers is not necessarily needed Dr. Alain Mourad, Director Engineer R&D at InterDigital, sees
either. Unleashing the full potential of the IRS will neverthe- great potential in IRS solutions. “The incorporation of IRS sur-
less require changes to all of these. Just how much alteration faces capable of steering radio waves in a controlled manner,
is needed or is worth of, remains an open research question, i.e. enabling control of channel characteristics, promises to
which drives the team forward. One of the key problems is how progressively impact the evolution of wireless technologies
to estimate the radio channel in IRS assisted systems and how and protocols beyond 5G”, he says.
to use the estimated channel information to control the IRS.
“Our results so far show that the channel estimation is a major From an industrial R&D perspective, the IRS roadmap sees
challenge, but we recently devised an atomic norm minimiza- nearer term opportunities in the areas of coverage, directivity,

36
 Verticals & Business
© 6G Flagship

and range extension in support of massive MIMO and new

band applications up to 50 GHz. In the medium term around
the year 2025, InterDigital envisions that the IRS roadmap
expands the applications to include support of multi-Gbps
links and high-resolution localization in outdoor and indoor
deployments. This is added to the IRS support in bands up
to 100GHz. Longer term towards 2030 timeframe, IRS prom-
ises enablement of ambitious technologies and applications
such as support of data rates of more than 100 Gbps at 300
GHz frequencies, holographic MIMO with 1000’s of ele-
ments, wireless power transfer and new physical layer se-
curity methods.

“The IRS trend is a key enabler for smart radio environments

and is perhaps the final frontier of network softwarization
turning the channel into a software programmable entity too,” 6G Symposium 2020
Mourad says. “This will push the B5G/6G roadmap far and is October 20 – 21, 2020, Virtual Event
poised to challenge the network architecture in time.”
• Join InterDigital and other 6G Flagship members
The impact of IRS goes beyond wireless and will embrace oth- at the inaugural 6GSymposium. Organized by
er fields including artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning InterDigital and the Institute for Wireless Internet of
(ML) opening up new applications that will support challeng- Things at Northeastern University, we gather expert
ing coverage, positioning, energy and capacity KPIs forecast speakers from industry, academia, and govern-
in B5G/6G. These prospects make IRS a great research topic ment’s brightest minds to help shape the road to 6G.
for new passionate researchers that the 6G Flagship program
is constantly seeking, especially within its collaborative re- • We will explore the requirements and drivers for 6G,
search projects. as well as exploring how regulation, spectrum
management and sharing, AI, research platforms
Read more: and more need to evolve to meet those requirements.
www.interdigital.com
• NEW KEYNOTES ADDED - Ajit Pai, Chairman, FCC &
Walter Copan, Director, NIST

• Register for a free pass at www.6gsymposium.com

37
Verticals & Business

FEASIBILITY TESTS FOR

FUTURE AIR MOBILITY 
Ambitious project plans with tight schedules have faced dras- required for missions as well as mapping the areas around
tic delays due to the pandemic, which has put a halt on mo- 5GTN, at various elevations, for identification of 5G signal
bility and has limited access to research premises and equip- quality and performance.
ment. One of the multi-partner projects forced to redraft its
research steps is the EU-funded ICT project 5G!Drones. Com- “The upcoming trials themselves will involve the validation of
mitted to trial selected use cases for the most prominent un- both 5G and UAV key performance indicators (KPIs) - 5G be-
manned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications, the project relies on ing able to fulfil its generic KPIs and UAV specific ones, and
the complementary expertise from 20 organisations around UAV vertical sector being able to fulfil its use cases KPIs by
Europe, both universities and companies. After a four-months’ exploiting 5G features,” Haapola says.
wait, 5G!Drones project partners were finally able to realise
feasibility tests in Oulu together with colleagues from Tallinn, 5G and beyond 5G cellular communications solutions take
Estonia and Helsinki, Finland once travel between “green” drones one step further towards autonomy by providing re-
countries, based on the traffic light system, was approved in liable beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLoS) connectivity for
Finland in August. extended drone operations. Reliable remote operations and
management are key requirements in enabling urban air mo-
“The feasibility tests provided us with much insight on which bility in smart cities.
portions of the trials can be safely executed remotely and what
kinds of experts are required on-site,” says Dr. Jussi Haapola “The use of drone services at the network edge to operate and
from the University of Oulu who co-ordinates the project. manage missions is a significant milestone paving the way to
“It was also relieving to note that with appropriate planning next breakthroughs in service migration based on drone mo-
both on-site and off-site collaboration can be managed, even bility,” Haapola says. “Edge deployments minimise the com-
though the pandemic situation brings forth uncertainty.” mand and control delay between drones and their operators
and provide crucial data offloading capabilities for a num-
The goals of the feasibility tests included integration, legislative, ber of real-time, high-bandwidth consuming solutions like
network coverage and service level, and exact trial site identi- high-quality video streaming, lidar, 3D-mapping, and so forth.”
fication aspects. With regards to integration, the drone oper-
ator had its mission software installed at a 5G Test Network The integration of drones in smart cities involves addressing
(5GTN) edge server in Oulu and operated the mission remote- many of the challenges required for U-space advanced or full
ly from Estonia. The 5G quality-of-service and 3D mapping services. “The UAVs need to be able to communicate not only
missions were uploaded to the drone and managed real-time with one another, but with the unmanned aerial systems traffic
using 5G cellular connectivity. A drone carried a 5G cellular management (UTM), the drone operator, the city urban air mo-
handset for the 5G quality-of-service measurements and de- bility infrastructure, the service provider, and the customer,”
livered the information to the drone operator in real time. Haapola says. “The drone missions need to secure a certain
service level from mobile operators throughout the mission
Legislative aspects, on the other hand, included obtaining per- requiring an intricate interplay with communications, service
mits to fly the drones equipped with cellular devices, mission virtualisation and migration, advanced data processing, and
planning and all relevant documentation for safe execution of automated flow of information between multiple actors.” 
the feasibility tests.
The autonomy of drones, on the other hand, is a long-term
Furthermore, network coverage, service level and exact trial goal, closely aligned with U-space development targeting
site identification aspects included testing of the components 2035. Currently, especially professionally operated drones

38
 Verticals & Business

support many automated operations, including completely be a good starting point for all-cellular swarm management.
automated missions. However, there always exists a drone op- This kind of required feature set probably co-aligns with
erator supervising the missions and an on-site safety pilot who U-space, U3 - advanced services targeting 2027.
can take over in situations the drone is not capable of handling.
Other automated features include, for example, obstacle and In the meanwhile, researchers tackle challenges in carrying
collision avoidance, and return-to-home features. out validation activities, from day to day. Yet, COVID-19 has
brought attention to the capabilities of UAVs in somewhat un-
Drone swarms, which are gaining a lot of interest, are very expected ways. “The pandemic situation has also shown the
useful in search and rescue operations where they can reli- potential of UAV applications in remote parcel delivery and re-
ably cover large distances in a short amount of time. Control mote safety surveillance, among other things,” Haapola says.
of drone swarms require wireless mesh connectivity between
drones, collaborative localisation schemes, swarming man- Read more:
agement, as well as interfacing of swarms with other actors, 5gdrones.eu
including U-space. Other use cases include large area 3D or
lidar-mapping for agricultural purposes, forest mapping, or
even cave system mapping. For example, 3GPP is currently
working on enhanced cellular V2X standardisation that could

39
5G/6G Sustainability

ACTION PLAN FOR

SUSTAINABLE 6G 
Sustainability is a recurring element in almost all of our recent- stakeholder group is needed in developing sustainable 6G.
ly published 6G White Papers, which offer food for thought to a The use of new wireless techniques broadly in society brings
number of stakeholders. It appears in the developed scenarios along new stakeholders without knowledge of how ICT could
for the business of 6G and it is a key driving force for remote help them in the achievement of the SDGs. Novel ideas and
area connectivity. White Paper on 6G Drivers and the UN SDGs out-of-the box thinking on various aspects of 6G need to
examines different facets of sustainable 6G and introduces a flourish, driving experts and end-users alike to discussions on
preliminary action plan for engaging different stakeholders the most promising and even surprising combinations of tech-
along with prioritized focus areas within the mobile commu- nology components needed to make 6G a reality.
nication sector technology and industry evolution to best sup-
port the achievement of the UN SDGs. The action plan identifies specific roles for stakeholder groups
in the joint development and evaluation effort. “Governments
“The role of ICT in meeting the sustainable development goals play a key role in contributing to coverage and low cost of
is critical,” says Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue, research coor- service for everyone through the creation of the regulatory
dinator of 6G Flagship. “It is not enough to treat 6G develop- framework and incentives to invest and operate the systems,”
ment and UN SDGs separately. The UN SDG framework will Matinmikko-Blue says. “More flexibility is needed to allow low-
also need to evolve – with the technology development.” cost solutions in challenging areas that are not of business in-
terest to operators.”
The role of ICT should be seen broadly, not only through ICT
related indicators in the UN SDG framework, which are cur- Both 6G and UN SDGs can increase openness, not only
rently very few. “ICT’s role in helping to achieve all 17 SDGs through new key performance and value indicators, but also
is significant through new collaborative business models that through early participation and strong commitment. Verticals
build around the common target of achieving the SDGs,” Mat- and their public sector counterparts will face significant eco-
inmikko-Blue says. “The group suggested freemium models nomic constraints as national and international level agree-
and free access to the Internet for basic content which would ments are adopted for inherent changes to meet the UN SDGs
help accelerate the subscriber base among the digitally disad- in areas such as automotive, healthcare and energy. To adapt
vantaged. While considering the increasing machine-centric their operations, the verticals will need to take everything the
communications, human-centered 6G development should future technologies can offer and engage early on in the pro-
ultimately have the goal to improve the quality of life.” cess of 6G development instead of waiting for the telecom-
munications industry to define what 6G can bring for them.
The research community has taken the leading role in facili- For the mobile communication sector, 6G is not only about
tating stakeholder interactions in the writing of the white pa- developing yet another generation, but a true opportunity to
pers that define 6G vision. But, more is required and a broad contribute to sustainability at large.

40
 5G/6G Sustainability

IMMERSIVE MEDICAL
DEMO AWARDED
6G Flagship’s researchers received an innovation award from tions of current state-of-the-art technology cause a few-sec-
5G Momentum, an ecosystem coordinated by the Finnish Trans- ond delay mainly due to video format conversions and scaling
port and Communications Agency Traficom, earlier this year for to target device type – a challenge, which can be overcome
their Remote Medical Expertise and Education demonstration. once devices get up-to-speed with network capabilities. The
The award was granted for an organisation, which has contrib- demo experience can be real-time or shown via recordings.
uted to making 5G visible nationally and/or internationally and
has demonstrated considerable creativity in 5G development. The current medical use case offers alternative views sup-
Possible use cases, on top of the rewarded eHealth case, include ported by wearable and video equipment. An ordinary visit by
all kinds of remote consultancy and guidance situations e.g. in a nurse to a patient’s home gets holistic content as observa-
industry maintenance, repair and installations, as well as all tion of critical symptoms can be shared with a distant special-
kinds of hands-on instructions. All this can now be remote. ist with modern means. In a more challenging use case, inside
a hospital the surgeon gets vital sensor information to own
The idea for the demo, which is illustrated below, came from AR glasses during a medical procedure and can thus observe
researchers’ realization that there are no complete commercial the data effortlessly with a glance – without having to turn the
solutions available that would combine the use of AR-glasses, head. In the demonstration, sensor readings of the patient -
VR-glasses, 360-camera, and 5G in both uplink and downlink. body temperature, accelometer and skin conductancy – are
Initial version now already shows the power of mobile technol- visible in the glasses.
ogy, but the demo team has already new enhancement ideas
for improving end-user experience, introducing new eHealth In parallel, colleagues or groups of medical students can ob-
devices and the usage of edge processing. serve the activities anywhere - next door to the operation
room or on the other side of the globe. Viewers can see either
The idea of “remote medical consultancy or operation with a the exact nurse’s or doctor’s view with the vital sensor infor-
patient” is fully scalable and can be utilized for different types mation, or the overall view of the space allowing them to focus
of consultancy or educational purposes. Digital data is collect- attention to any desired detail.
ed via 360 and close-view cameras and connected biosensors.
Critical data is shown through AR-glasses locally and remotely Watch the video
with video via VR glasses and/or handheld devices. The limita- youtu.be/b4j9Tz3SOoQ © 6G Flagship

PATIENT DOCTOR OR NURSE OBSERVER

during a visit or a procedure treating a patient viewing in real-time

AR glasses

Forehead camera

360° camera

41
5G/6G Sustainability

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND

ZERO CARBON BASE STATION

With the introduction of latest innovations in mobile technolo- gated into one larger entity, which can then enter the energy
gies, the ICT sector can create wide positive impact on the re- market. The research focus at this stage is on the design and
duction of CO2 emissions. For each CO2 ton caused by broad- implementation of the sustainable microgrid scenario. “We
band radio networks, ten tons can be reduced elsewhere by e.g. are investigating the most suitable wireless communication
increased remote working, avoidance of traveling and effective strategies in order to distribute information more efficient-
use of digitalized services. This makes wireless connectivity a ly,” Pouttu says. “The use of key cloud functionalities, such
major contributor towards a zero-carbon society. Researchers as time-based approach and event-based approach, edge
and developers in Finland, and around the globe, are seeking computing and edge devices coupled with accurate energy
innovative combinations of technical solutions, which build on weather forecast for 48 hours ahead, can aid the demand re-
renewable energy and novel features of mobile networks. sponse management, diagnose wasted energy and thus im-
prove our sustainable microgrid model. In addition, real-time
6G Flagship’s “Smart Energy Grids” team seeks to connect the data of the university’s 800 kW solar production unit is con-
electricity grid with communication networks and automation nected to and is available from the 5G live Test Network and
and to define novel mechanisms for energy market systems with accurate local weather estimates the day ahead, give us
and structures. The team is now exploring a 5G/6G solution, tools for handling the balancing market.”
which is powered by Renewable Energy Sources (RES), and
provides the backbone for communications as well as com- The team also develops advanced P2P multi-agent or ma-
puting for the information exchange required for maintaining chine learning based DR-based frequency and voltage con-
such grids. “The ultimate goal is to integrate and intertwine the trol methodologies. They allow local trading of energy and
solutions on flexibility management, grid control, energy trad- inclusion of accurate weather and power consumption data.
ing, network management and distributed wireless communi- As a result, flexibility of usage between prosumers increas-
cations into an environment that can demonstrate renewable es inside a microgrid, consisting for example of sustainable
generation penetration approaching 100%,” says professor communities in remote or developing areas as well as of mi-
Ari Pouttu who leads the team. crogrid operators and distribution system operator / trans-
mission system operator for grid-connected microgrids in
Recently, there has been a rapid growth in RES such as photo- developed areas.
voltaics (PV) and wind generation. Furthermore, storage sys-
tems, electric vehicles, micro-generation and flexible loads “The solution itself can be built in a hierarchical manner from
at the premises of end users add flexibility to the system. “To household level to microgrid, to distribution grid, and all the
address the volatile nature of RES, we aim at developing fully way to transmission grid making the solution scalable and
distributed novel paradigm empowering peer-to-peer (P2P) more importantly resilient,” Pouttu says. “On the other hand,
flexibility approaches that are able to optimize the usage of large investments to our current mostly centralized pow-
demand-response (DR) as well as RES,” Pouttu says. er grid makes the penetration of these technologies rather
slow, but it does offer an avenue to integrate gradually large
The researchers are now modeling a virtual power plant where amount of microgeneration into our future carbon positive
a large number of small micro-generation units are aggre- power system.”

42
 5G/6G Sustainability

© 6G Flagship
Nokia Energy Efficient Mobile Networks the site total. In addition, site locations can be thermally chal-
lenging, meaning that it is very difficult and expensive to keep
Minimizing energy consumption is one of the key design crite- the site cool. “By modernizing the hardware of an existing BTS,
ria for new base transceiver station (BTS) products at Nokia. its energy consumption can be reduced by up to 46%. With
The most straightforward way is to improve power efficiency the latest BTS SW energy-saving features, consumption can
with the help of new technology that allows increased pro- be further reduced by 30% during periods of low traffic.”
cessing capacity per unit of energy consumed. Another im-
portant area is algorithmic evolution where things get done This is where liquid cooling excels, as it not only reduces the
in a smarter way, thus reducing overall power consumption. cost of cooling due to significantly better energy efficiency,
Good examples of this are the various means to improve the but also enables further energy savings. It is estimated that
power amplifier efficiency through signal processing. with reuse, site CO2 emissions can be reduced by up to 90%.
“In addition to the energy-related benefits, liquid cooling of-
In practice, the resource utilization of a cellular network is not fers operators a way to use site resources more efficiently
constant; it typically varies greatly over time and based on ge- by being able to pack more BTSs into the same floor space,”
ographical location. “Data consumption typically peaks in the Peltola says. “This is relevant for network architectures where
evenings, while other times it can be just a fraction of the peak,” baseband processing of tens or hundreds of radio sites is cen-
says Jukka Peltola from Nokia BTS product management. “For tralized in a single location.”
an energy-efficient BTS, it is important that it can dynamical-
ly adjust power consumption according to processing needs. Another benefit is that a liquid-cooled BTS is completely si-
This can include powering off unused processing resources lent. “This allows operators to install BTSs in locations that are
and shutting down unnecessary cells or frequency layers.” otherwise impossible due to the fan noise inevitable with air-
cooled BTSs,” Peltola notes. “Because of this, operators have a
Nokia’s products undergo continuous evolution, where im- bigger choice of potential sites. This will further help in reduc-
provements happen both via advanced software (SW) fea- ing site acquisition and rental costs, and offers easier access
tures and introduction of new products based on new tech- for maintenance.”
nology, such as next-generation systems on a chip (SoCs).
“They have quite different development cycles and offer dif- Ideas depicted in the concept image (above) of an optimized
ferent levels of improvement,” Peltola says. “SW features often carbon-neutral system indicate that BTS power consumption
have less relative impact, but on the other hand, they are often optimization and control will better enable completely off-grid
applicable to the entire installed base, whereas new products operations by relying on batteries/solar panels/windmills for
offer much higher relative improvement, but will impact only energy production and storage. Energy efficiency is a key en-
those sites that have new products installed.” abler for such solutions. This, in turn, will enable operators to
further expand the terrestrial network coverage to areas that
In June, Nokia released news that its commercial liquid cooling would otherwise be difficult or impossible to reach. In paral-
5G AirScale Base Station solution has been deployed for the lel, the only means to achieve a zero-carbon radio network is
first time anywhere in the world in base stations of the Finn- to use carbon-neutral or renewable energy. Finland is the first
ish mobile operator Elisa. During operation, a BTS transforms country in the world where all national 5G networks are oper-
most of the electricity consumed into heat. With liquid cool- ated carbon-neutrally, and it is leading the way.
ing, this heat can be captured and easily removed from site
and either dissipated, or reused to heat premises or to warm Read more:
household water, among other uses. “Much focus is put into https://www.nokia.com/about-us/sustainability/
making products energy efficient, and quite rightly so,” Peltola
says. “However, often the power consumption of an entire site
is neglected even if site cooling can account for up to 66% of

43
Innovators

VETERAN OF
ALL THE ”G’S”
Academy Professor Matti Latva-aho is now known as the head his Academy Professorship. Then he received the news that
of 6G Flagship, and is the international face of 6G research would jolt the entire University.
that stems from Oulu and Finland. Not shying away from ‘im-
possible’ things, Latva-aho has always taken on challenges ”We felt euphoric,” Latva-aho reminisces. “We couldn’t be-
more formidable than the one before throughout his career. ”I lieve that we had been selected. That this amount of funding
have never tried to take the easy way out, that’s just who I am,” was secured. The first few months were a blur to us all, it was
Latva-aho says. very unreal. It was very joyful, of course, but a huge change at
the same time.”
Latva-aho has been deeply immersed in the world of radio
technology and mobile telecommunications for decades Everybody sprang into action. ”We rolled up our sleeves and
now, and is a veteran of all the ”G’s”, leading up to 6G. As a re- went to work,” Latva-aho says. “We wanted to get everything
searcher, he says he was always driven by the desire to solve up and running first and foremost and build up our interna-
practical problems as opposed to pure theoretical research. tional reach and scope during the second year of operation.
”For me, theory is another tool in the toolbox,” Latva-aho Then, the U.S. President tweeted about 6G in February 2019
says. “I have always wanted to solve problems that are rel- and there we were, thrust in the spotlight. Things accelerated
evant to everyday or practical life. This has been my guiding from there.”
principle from the very early days of my career.”
The exceptional circumstances that have defined this year
The early 1990’s was the time of great economical recession have impacted 6G Flagship like the entire world. Everybody
in Finland and internships were very few and far between. has been working remotely and the second 6G Summit was
Latva-aho was lucky to get one, and this led to a stint in Nokia held virtually, a change in plans that happened in a matter of
Mobile Phones, which was the cell phone arm of the company weeks, if not days. Travel days dropped to zero for Latva-aho,
at that time. Latva-aho originally planned a career in industry, which is something he welcomes. This means more chanc-
but fate would have it otherwise. es to re-energize in nature, which is very important for him.
He has been an avid fisherman since childhood, and he often
He was offered a part in a research project at the Universi- wakes up early in the morning to check the nets before get-
ty. ”The idea was to do this one project at the University and ting to work. In the winter he likes to ski cross-country, and he
then go back to Nokia. Well, here we are,” Latva-aho says says he has worked out many work-related problems while in
with a laugh. the woods, listening to nature, observing the animals.

An ambitious researcher, he says one of his most significant A well-balanced life leads to an ability to focus clearly. Lat-
personal achievements was when he finished his doctor- va-aho is as ambitious as ever and still not one to take the
al thesis, in 1998. He says it was a long time coming and he easy way out. There are new and exciting things happening
doubted many times if he would be able to finish the the- at the Flagship and the momentum is not only maintained but
sis and get his doctorate. In the end, his work paid off, and gained. But, all the while he is keeping an eye on the future.
he was awarded the best doctoral thesis prize of technical
sciences in Finland. Read more:
www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/news/6g-matti-latva-aho
Before 6G Flagship, Latva-aho had been considering his op-
tions in terms of his work. He had purposefully been taking a
back seat and was thinking about how to make the most of

44
Innovators

45
Innovators

NEW MATERIALS ENABLE

FUTURE ELECTRONICS

Professor Heli Jantunen is the first person in the world to intro- rials enable advanced high efficient radio systems. Professor
duce the possibility of making electroceramics in ultra low tem- Jantunen leads a team of researchers at the University of Oulu
peratures. The next-generation multi-purpose electroceramics that has a pivotal role in the innovation ecosystem of compa-
are a global breakthrough in the field of electroceramics. They nies of diversified profiles. The close collaboration between
enable the use of lower production temperatures, new materials public and private actors demonstrates its best achievements
and 3D printing in the production of electroceramics and also in Oulu through leadership, knowledge, and systematic, resil-
allow production to be small-scale, local and energy-efficient. ient hard work.

One of the areas where printed intelligence and new solutions “Because of my background in industry, I have always seen the
based on novel synthetic materials will be needed is in tele- research as a development process. We have a good team and
communications, in 5G and 6G networks and devices. Mov- solving problems collectively is our strength. The multidisci-
ing up to the ultra-high frequencies, as is expected to hap- plinary approach produces high-quality scientific results and
pen in 6G networks of the future, means that researchers will the research challenges are often based on the needs of our
encounter things they are not even aware of at the moment, industrial partners. Our group is also a part of the 6G research
starting with physics. ecosystem. We research and create new materials, and devel-
op devices using the most feasible manufacturing technolo-
“I think this is such an exciting time and we will come across gies. The research method is both theoretical and practical”,
some extremely intriguing issues. The physical properties of says professor Jantunen.
conductors will change, or reveal their limits when we are in
the 100-150 GHz range or higher. For instance, there is a hint Yet another award
that at very high frequencies carbon nanotubes have better
conductive properties than silver, which is the best known Professor Heli Jantunen, the receiver of 2019 Finnish Sci-
conductive material at the moment. Right now, no one knows ence Award and many more, was recently awarded Yushan
why this is,” professor Heli Jantunen says. Scholar by the Ministry of Education (MOE), ROC Taiwan.
As known and mentioned her works on ultra-low tempera-
She is the Leader of the Microelectronics Research Unit in ture co-firing ceramics in particular have received world-re-
University of Oulu, focusing on novel ICT electronics, high fre- nowned recognition.
quency applications, energy harvesters, sensors, multifunc-
tional micromodules and printed electronics devices. Her re- “This is a relevant award. I have had a long research relation-
search group has also invented electro ceramic materials with ship with Taiwanese universities for almost 20 years. We have
ultra-low sintering temperature including even fabrication at focused on strengthening joint research in both countries.
room temperature in 2014. This award shows that collaboration with top researchers has
been rewarding and important to all of us. The award will ena-
Professor Heli Jantunen, who specializes in electronic ma- ble several visits in the future as well”, Heli Jantunen greets.
terials, holds 76 patents and has published over 250 journal
papers, many of them in the fields of ultra-low temperature Read the story New electronics
co-firing ceramics. through new materials:
www.oulu.fi/university/news/firi
The results of her research have been broadly utilized in the
telecommunication industry where the high technology mate-

46
 Innovators

BEYOND COMMUNICATIONS
ENGINEERING IN 6G
Enthusiastic and expressive, Mehdi Bennis has a way of pull- tail distribution thinking into wireless, especially as it relates
ing a listener into his field of excitement without resistance. to the reliability of communication networks. And so my focus
The Centre for Wireless Communication associate professor became how to bring in this awareness of tail distribution to
has been wrapping his head around the 6G vision and while he wireless, machine learning, and, basically, how to manage risk.
thinks the real revolution is yet to come, he has a pretty good Now the entire industry talks about tails,” Bennis adds.
idea where it will come from.
“ICON is the first group to investigate federated learning in
“Google’s federated learning is a low-hanging fruit”, says the context of wireless communication in the context of 6G,
Bennis, but there is more to come with federated knowl- an area that is rapidly evolving. But we need much more,”
edge distillation. Bennis says.

While 6G is still years in the future, we can count on a few Because even in this approach we are still trying to do pattern
things as certainties, when it does come. First, the amount of matching and correlation. As Bennis sees it, the important
data generated, transmitted and analyzed is going to grow thing is to extrapolate, not interpolate. This is why we need to
exponentially. Second, we will have super-high transmission look into neuroscience, physics, and other areas.
rates to whisk that data around in the ether. Then the two big
buzzwords of the moment—artificial intelligence and ma- Read more:
chine learning—are usually thrown in the mix as all-purpose www.oulu.fi/university/news/mehdi-bennis-6G
solutions. But how do we get to the promise of the future, to
a digital mirror world where we can simulate our complex
systems before building them for real, to having the ability to
reason and plan instead of mere pattern matching and curve
fitting as done today.

Machine learning and its marriage with communication are

what keep Bennis busy at the University of Oulu. Coming from
a background in communications engineering, Bennis earned
his PhD in Oulu in December 2009 and stayed as a post-doc
researcher at CWC. He now runs ICON, a research group of
12 talented researchers whose focus is on the intersection
of machine learning, communication and control, focusing
on how to enable intelligent communication based on limited
data and extracted knowledge. Bennis says that he is incorpo-
rating many disciplines in his work, drawing from such fields
as game theory, control theory, financial theory and neurosci-
ence, among others.

“During my visit in Princeton in 2017, I began looking at tail

distributions,” Bennis says, gesturing with his hands, creating
a Bell curve in the air, and then focusing on a tiny sliver of its
end. “The things that happen very rarely, but when they do, a
lot of stuff goes wrong.”

“So, it’s things like earthquakes and hurricanes and the like,
rare, or hard-to-predict events that cause massive repercus-
sions. I was not convinced by the focus back then on running
time-consuming simulations without gaining any basic un-
derstanding of URLLC. So I decided to bring in the concept of

47
Innovators

FAST UPLINK GRANT FOR

MACHINE TYPE COMMUNICATIONS
Dr. Samad Ali graduated with a doctoral degree early this year. Often, radio channels that are used for such a signaling, are
In his thesis, he examined two-step design of predictive re- overloaded due to the large number of devices that share the
source allocation for Machine Type Communications (MTC). same resources. “Fast uplink grant saves radio resources,
“First step, which is known as source traffic prediction, is the eliminates collision and congestion, and reduces the laten-
process of predicting the set of active devices that want to cy by skipping the scheduling request process of the IoT
transmit data,” Ali defines. “The second step is the optimal devices,” Ali clarifies. “By saving such scares radio resourc-
selection of the devices without prior knowledge about their es, wireless networks can provide connectivity for massive
quality of service (QoS) requirements.” number of devices.”

The concept of the so-called fast uplink grant is at the core His research derives inspiration from carefully selected ma-
of his research. It refers to the process by which the users are chine learning tools. “Causal inference enables the source traf-
scheduled for transmission of data packets. “The users are se- fic prediction in even-driven MTC that have a burst of trans-
lected by the two-step process that I develop in the thesis,” mission from many devices in a short period of time,” Ali says.
Ali says. “Fast uplink grant is crucial because it eliminates the “This, if implemented correctly in combination with anomaly
extra signaling that the IoT devices must perform before the detection tools, can solve a big problem that the wireless net-
transmission of their data packets.” works face when a large number of IoT devices start a burst of
transmission while facing an unexpected even.”

Multi-armed bandit algorithms, on the other hand, are a set

of classic tools that are used to balance the exploration and
exploitation dilemma. “This dilemma shows up in many prob-
lems in real life as well as in engineering,” Ali says. “In predic-
tive resource allocation, they are used to select the best IoT
devices for transmission without a prior knowledge about
their QoS requirements.”

For more complicated problems, where the set of observations

is large, Ali relies on deep learning, which is used as a function
approximator to make the optimal selection. “All these tools
can solve complex problems in a simple and elegant way with-
out complicated calculations,” he concludes.

Overall, 6G Flagship and the University of Oulu have offered

the recently fresh doctor of technology a great launch pad
for his career in research. “As a pioneer in the research field,
6G Flagship constantly pushes the boundaries of science
and technology,” Ali says. “It is a great opportunity, and priv-
ilege to be a part of a forward-looking team that provides an
environment to work on novel ideas and encourages out-
of-the-box thinking. This helps creative people to come up
with innovative technology solutions that can transform the
societies and help the humanity in finding solutions to some
of the most challenging problems in the world. Therefore, I
would highly encourage talented students and researchers
to consider joining 6G Flagship to follow their passion in sci-
ence and technology. Keep an eye on our study programs
and open positions!”

48
 Innovators

MASSIVE IOT AND

WIRELESS ENERGY TRANSFER

Onel Alcaraz López defended his doctoral thesis “Resource energy availability at the devices’ side. However, CSI is difficult
allocation for machine-type communication: from massive to acquire in WET systems, because it demands costly proce-
connectivity to ultra-reliable low-latency” in April. We asked dures in terms of energy expenditure from the IoT devices. We
him a few questions before his thesis defense. These are his propose CSI-free/limited schemes that allow the PB to effi-
thoughts on his research outcomes and their significance. ciently power massive deployments of low-power IoT devices.

What is the link between Machine-type Communications, wire- What is the essence of the suggested distributed architecture?
less energy transfer and IoT in your thesis? What triggered
your interest in the topic? In a distributed architecture, multiple PBs are deployed and
no strict coordination between them exist. The proposed CSI-
The Internet of Things (IoT), composed at the core by ma- free/limited solutions are local, hence, easily adapted to mul-
chine-type devices, is a revolutionary paradigm that promises ti-PB setups. However, complementary solutions exploiting
wireless connectivity to anything, and paves the way to a sus- certain low-coordination mechanisms from the PBs are also
tainable data-driven society. attractive and worth to deeply investigate.

Wireless Energy Transfer (WET) technology has emerged as What would the proposed solution, once implemented, mean
an efficient and sustainable solution for powering low-com- for IoT sustainability?
plexity IoT devices. WET eliminates the need of the traditional
wired and/or battery-based charging, and thus allows simpli- Industry and academy are foreseeing hundreds-thousands of
fying the servicing and maintenance, reducing the form fac- IoT devices in a 10 meter-radius circular coverage area. Our
tor of the IoT devices, improving their durability and reliability solutions aim to sustainably power and provide connectivity
thanks to contact-free designs, and facilitating waste-free to such massive number of devices, and constitute an initial
(ecological-friendly) deployments. Realizing WET in practical spark towards realizing “always-alive” devices with ubiqui-
scenarios seemed challenging and futuristic at the time when tous QoS guarantees and zero battery wastage.
I started my research, which sowed my passion for this re-
search area. What inspiration are you hoping this thesis brings to developers?

What is lacking from current solutions? Researchers on wireless communications will benefit most of
the analysis in this thesis. We delved into concepts that are rel-
The main open problems are related to how to further boost evant moving forward to the 6G era: data aggregation, sched-
the end-to-end WET efficiency, support low-speed mobility, uling mechanisms, non-orthogonal access, distributed radio
and seamlessly integrate wireless communication and WET. resource management, and the novel schemes for massive
In addition, providing wide coverage with quality-of-service WET, of course.
(QoS) guarantees is critical since the number of low-power
IoT devices with challenging requirements will dramatically How will your work on this topic continue?
increase in the coming years.
We will investigate the most appropriate antenna array architec-
In your solution, how are battery-constrained devices pow- tures at the PB and evaluate collaborative schemes. We plan to
ered wirelessly? use machine-learning/artificial intelligence to allow the proposed
schemes update and optimize themselves on the fly based on
The deployment of power transmitters, named power beacons devices’ clustering information and their energy demands.
(PBs), may be mandatory for supporting QoS. PBs equipped
with antenna arrays have traditionally used Channel State In- Read more:
formation (CSI)-based energy beamforming to increase the www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/zoom-into-massive-iot-wet

49
6G Flagship in Numbers

6G FLAGSHIP
IN NUMBERS
Staff

305
experts in 2020
58
Nationalities

Publications (May 2018 – September 2020)

1 151
65% International joint publications

75% Joint publications with collaborators

Peer-reviewed publications
/ Journal and conference articles 11% Joint publications with companies

Collaboration (May 2018 – September 2020)

259
Research projects with
136 New company
collaborators

external funding
85 Companies investing in
research portfolio

50
 6G Flagship stats

Doctoral Degrees (May 2018 – September 2020)

46
Doctoral degrees
178 861
Doctoral thesis downloads
Number of downloads in University of Oulu
repository http://jultika.oulu.fi/

6G White Paper (September 2019 – September 2020)

White Paper
2019 125 763
downloads
Number of downloads of 6G White Papers in
University of Oulu repository http://jultika.oulu.fi/

White Papers
2020 239 031
downloads

51
Open positions

ASSISTANT OR
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
IN MACHINE LEARNING
FOR WIRELESS SYSTEMS

We are looking for highly talented individuals who hold a doc-

toral degree and have excellent potential for a successful sci-
entific career in Machine Learning for Wireless Systems.

The position, starting as tenure track from 1 June 2021, or

later according to mutual agreement, is directed to investi-
gate design of fundamental theory and algorithms of machine
learning applied in wireless communications and networks, its
applications in sensing, and massive distributed networked
applications.

The position of an Assistant or an Associate Professor is ini-

tially a fixed-term position for five years. Career advancement
in the tenure track system is based on assessments of the
candidate’s performance and merits as described in the Uni-
versity of Oulu Tenure Track guidelines.

The position is placed Faculty of Information Technology and

Electrical Engineering in one of the following research units:

• Center for Machine Vision and Signal Analysis (CMVS)

(www.oulu.fi/cmvs)
• Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) – Radio
Technologies (RT) (www.oulu.fi/cwc)
• Centre for Wireless Communications – Networks and
Systems (NS) (www.oulu.fi/cwc)

Responsibilities include conducting outstanding world-

class scientific research, publishing in leading journals and
conferences, acquiring external research funding, supervis-
ing doctoral students, active participation in the internation-
al scientific community, creating and teaching related BSc
and MSc level courses, and exhibiting academic leadership
and innovativeness.

Application deadline: 15 January 2021

More information:
www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/career_opportunities

52
ASSOCIATE OR
FULL PROFESSOR IN
WIRELESS NETWORK
TECHNOLOGIES

We are looking for highly talented individuals who hold a doc-

toral degree and have excellent potential for a successful sci-
entific career in Wireless Network Technologies.

The position, starting as tenure track from 1 June 2021, or later

according to mutual agreement, is directed to investigate, ap-
ply, and design the fundamental theory and new solutions for
wireless networking.

The position of an associate professor or full professor is in-

itially a fixed-term position for five years, but a continuation
period may be granted, or the position may be made perma-
nent. Career advancement in the tenure track system is based
on assessments of the candidate’s performance and merits as
described in the University of Oulu Tenure Track guidelines.

The position is placed at the Faculty of Information Technolo-

gy and Electrical Engineering, Centre for Wireless Communi-
cations – Networks and Systems (NS) research unit.

A successful applicant is expected to master and to have a

substantial research track record in queuing theory, network
information theory, network coding, and network protocols.

Responsibilities include conducting outstanding world-class

scientific research, publishing in leading journals and con-
ferences, acquiring external research funding, supervising
doctoral students, to be an active member of the international
scientific community, and creating and teaching related BSc
and MSc level courses, and exhibiting academic leadership
and innovativeness.

Application deadline: 15 January 2021

More information:
www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/career_opportunities

53
6G Research Visions Webinar Series

Challenges for 6G Addressing a Sustainable Future –

9 Sept. 2020
What Is Missing Today?

Essential Choices for Developing Preferred Business of 6G in the

16 Sept. 2020
Age of Platforms, Ecosystems, and Empowerment

30 Sept. 2020 Remote and Rural Area Connectivity Challenges and Solutions

Deep Dive into the White Paper on Machine Learning in 6G Wireless

14 Oct. 2020
Communication Networks

21 Oct. 2020 Edge Intelligence

Fundamental Research Challenges for Trust, Security and Privacy:

28 Oct. 2020
Where Are We Now and What Needs to Be Done to Have Trustworthy 6G?

4 Nov. 2020 Scoring the Terabit/s Goal: Broadband Connectivity in 6G

11 Nov. 2020 Deep Dive into Machine Type Communication towards 6G

Localization and Sensing – Technologies, Opportunities

18 Nov. 2020
and Challenges

Deep Dive into the White Paper on RF enabling 6G –

25 Nov. 2020
Opportunities and challenges from technology to spectrum

Deep Dive into the 6G White Paper on Validation and Trials

2 Dec. 2020
for Verticals towards 2030’s

9 Dec. 2020 Deep Dive into the 6G White Paper on Networking

54
6G Research Visions Webinar Series

.com

55
 COMING UP

IEEE 32nd Annual International Symposium on

Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications

13-16 September 2021 | Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland

6G Driving Sustainability

6gflagship.com

6G Waves 2, Autumn 2020

Hanna Saarela, Ville Wittenberg, Marja Matinmikko-Blue | 6G Flagship, University of Oulu, Finland

ISSN 2670-2029 (print) | ISBN 978-952-62-2763-4 (print) | ISSN 2670-2088 (online) | ISBN 978-952-62-2764-1 (online)

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