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Imagine a surgeon using a robot to conduct a delicate ‘hands-on’ operation on a patient hundreds of kilometres away. This application of the ‘tactile internet’ is just one of the myriad possibilities opened up by so-called 5G – fifth generation – mobile communication.
International targets for 5G foresee a hundred-fold boost in data rates and a thousand times more devices brought into the internet from the early 2020s. But do we have the technology to make it happen?
Marco Di Renzo, coordinator of the EU-funded 5Gwireless project, is optimistic. “The highly demanding capabilities of 5G require an outstanding research and innovation effort to reach orders of magnitude improvement over the current technology and infrastructure.”
Partners in 5Gwireless are tackling three key technologies: the ‘densification’ of the mobile network, the use of higher radio frequencies at millimetre wavelengths, and new types of antennas.
“By synergistically combining these three emerging technologies, we believe that the challenging targets set for 5G communications will be achieved,” Di Renzo says.
Key technologies for 5G
Since 5G will require numerous, closely spaced base stations, the project is looking at how this can be done while, at the same time, reducing energy consumption. One approach is to use solar power while another is for small devices to ‘harvest’ power from the radio signals themselves. A report from 5Gwireless won a ‘best paper’ award at a prestigious international conference in 2017.
Project researchers have also published a modelling study on how to optimise the density of base stations to reduce energy consumption.
A second issue is that millimetre waves cannot easily pass through walls or even windows. “The way they interact with objects is completely different from what happens at current frequencies,” says Di Renzo. “When we started, it was not clear whether such frequencies could be used for communication between a base station and a mobile terminal. But yes, this is possible. We conducted some experimental activities and developed new models that can be used for optimisation.”
The third area of investigation is into the antennas must be deployed in very large numbers to make 5G a reality. 5Gwireless is developing a concept known as cell-free massive MIMO, whereby users are served simultaneously by a very large number of access points. One of the project partners, Ericsson in Sweden, has patented two innovations from this work. Another, TTI in Spain, has developed three new types of antenna.
Big benefits
5Gwireless has been set up as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Initial Training Network with 15 PhD students based at 10 academic and industrial partners, all with backgrounds in engineering or computer science. As well as working on their individual projects, the students are uniquely placed to benefit from the additional collaboration and training the network provides.
Their future is bright. The European Commission foresees benefits from 5G in 2025 of more than EUR 62 billion in the automotive, healthcare, transport and utilities sectors, and more than EUR 50 billion in smart cities, non-urban areas, smart homes and smart workplaces.
“There will be a lot of jobs coming in future thanks to 5G but there are as yet very few engineers with the kind of background 5G needs,” Di Renzo points out. “So this is a good opportunity to have many young people who can understand these three main technologies and also have a vision of what the entire system is going to be.”.