Sixth generation wireless networking is still years away from commercial availability, but industry groups are prepping a specification that includes an unusual application to provide 6G wireless sensing of objects and people without the need for conventional sensors.
Today, Wi-Fi can scan a room using triangulation and multiple access points to find people or objects, but 6G is expected to rely on mmWave frequencies that enable far more accurate and dense scanning than Wi-Fi does. Using mmWave is more like police or airplane radar using low power that can sense whatās nearby with radio wave reflections off those objects directed back to the transmitter, explained Jack Gold, founder and chief analyst at J. Gold Associates. Or 6G carriers could set up triangulation from cell towers.
ā6G sensing could be useful in cars or with IoT and smart cities types of devices,ā Gold said. āNow remember, 6G isnāt real yet so even though people talk about 6G sensing, the devil is in the details. Weāve talked about wireless sensing before on other technologies, like wideband, but that never really took off.ā
Business models and use cases for 6G sensing are quite different from models that use location information gathered from a phone or IoT device, said Monica Paolini, founder and principal analyst at Senza Fili in comments to Fierce Electronics. As a result, the business models and use cases will be very different from those using location information.
āThis is an entirely new use of the wireless signal and one that does not require any additional cost in terms of infrastructure, because it just piggybacks on existing networks. In the industry we are still trying to figure out how to use it and how valuable it will be. I think it will be hugely valuable to individuals and enterprises but will take some time to sink ināwhich happened to Wi-Fi too.ā
As for top use cases, Paolini believes the indoor ones will be adopted first to track elderly, recovering or disabled kids and pets. āYou would get an alert if your elderly parent does not get of bed in the morning,ā which would be offered by a service or healthcare provider, she said.
Home security would be another application. āMore generally, 6G sensing allows you to track the movement of objects and things without the need for cameras, so itās less expensive, reduces privacy concerns and can track motion throughout the environment,ā Paolini added.
Infrastructure vendors like Qualcomm or Huawei would stand to benefit from 6G sensing āas long as we get a good standard that allows interoperability across vendors,ā she said. A standard that includes 6G sensing might end up being like NFC where many devices have it and vendors benefit, ābut it wonāt be life-changing,ā Paolini said. āThe biggest economic benefit will go to the service and application providers who develop services that use 6G sensing.ā
Efforts underway by many players
Qualcomm is among the large companies exploring 6G wireless sensing. The company has conducted advanced research over the last two years with a demonstration of mmWave in 2022 that used 28 GHz spectrum to sense objects outdoors, including a metal box, according to Danny Tseng, director of technical marketing for 5G Advanced and 6G for Qualcomm.
Qualcomm has been following āvery early-on researchā that has come up in standards groups, he told Fierce in an interview, including 5G-3GPP release 19 work (which was described in a recent Ericsson blog) as well as the IEEE Communications Society for an āIntegrated Sensing and Communication Emerging Technology Initiative.”
As early as late 2022, Qualcomm had laid out its views on the evolution of 5G Advanced to 6G where integrated sensing was mentioned alongside AI and other objectives.
The focus of 6G sensing looks at higher frequency bands, mmWave and sub-terahertz, but mainly in the 140 GHz range, Tseng said. āThe higher the band, the more granularity itās going to provide. Weāre trying to understand how the spectrum affects its resultsā¦with different configurations such as the network working with devices or the network by itself. Thereās a whole bunch of stuff weāre trying to do.ā
Qualcommās work could eventually result in a chip that is incorporated in a radio transmitter, but āthere are multiple discussions on how to do it. It could be the network uses just its infrastructure to do the sending,ā Tseng said. One real world example: if there is foliage between a base station and a device being sensed and the tree gets taken down, engineers might need to use a different beam-forming algorithm.
āRF sensors are one of many sensors that could be used, but itās kind of one tool in a toolbox,ā Tseng said. Sensor fusion could be a good approach. āMost of the discussion is within 5G and 6G as a way to improve network performance with whatās around a base station…Within the telecom industry, thereās interest in using sensing as an insight to improve the network.ā One question is whether 6G sensing on every base station would be better than a camera on every base station.
āWeāre still very early in terms of 6G,ā Tseng said. āItās five years from there being real commercial devices and networks, but itās not too late to talk about [sensing].ā
In addition to major players in 6G such as Qualcomm, Ericsson and Huawei, there is also a sensing initiative of ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions) called Next G Alliance, designed to advance North American wireless technology leadership. ATIS has 150 member companies and recently published a 24-page report noting that Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) āprovides an opportunity to create a future where the boundaries between sensing and communication are blurred and where the seamless interaction between humans, machines and the environment can lead to a more harmonious and sustainable existence. ā
The report concludes on a broad finding that joint communications and sensing ārequires tight coupling among sensors and the communications networkā where artificial intelligence will play a ācritical role.ā Innovations will be required to make future chipsets, devices and networks, the report adds.
In October 2023, Nokia announced a 6G Lab in Bangalore, India, to research āNetwork as a Sensorā technology to allow the network to sense objects, vehicles, people and movement without needing dedicated sensors.
For its part, Interdigital also outlined a vision for 6G sensing in a November blog that recognizes the role the International Telecommunications Unionās (ITUās) emerging vision for 6G where integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) āis expected to be a new, revolutionary features of 6G, alongside integrated AI and communication and ubiquitous connectivity…ā The European Telecommunications Standards Institute also has a specification group focusing on ISAC.
One feature of ISAC that some carriers may not realize: it will ānot likely have backward compatibility constraints because the approach will require new signals introduced in 6G who structure and numerologies arenāt part of the current 5G NR paradigm,ā Interdigital reported.
One skeptic on the business value
Clearly, 6G sensing is in its early days, but plenty of research and discussion is underway by major players and international standards groups, although it is difficult to assess the level of business interest in it.
One analyst is fairly unimpressed, so far, about its business value.
From a technical standpoint, the idea seems āfeasibleā to use 6G for dual purposes–to send data and also to detect objects, Joe Madden, founder and chief analyst for Mobile Expert, told Fierce.
āHowever, from a business perspective, I have not found any customers who are asking for this feature,ā he added. āItās not important to enterprises that they should get their location or sensing from the same radio. So I view this concept as a feature created by engineers because itās cool, not because its needed.ā
Madden said he is a āneutral observer of the marketā who doesnāt promote any particular new technology idea. āIn this case, I donāt think that sensing will be a killer app that will drive anyone to 6G.ā
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