6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems

17/08/21 - 08:30 - 10:00

Abstract

6G and beyond will fulfill the requirements of a fully connected world and provide ubiquitous wireless connectivity for all. Transformative solutions are expected to drive the surge for accommodating a rapidly growing number of intelligent devices and services. Major technological breakthroughs to achieve connectivity goals within 6G include: (i) a network operating at the THz band with much wider spectrum resources, (ii) intelligent communication environments that enable a wireless propagation environment with active signal transmission and reception, (iii) pervasive artificial intelligence, (iv) large-scale network automation, (v) an all-spectrum reconfigurable front-end for dynamic spectrum access, (vi) ambient backscatter communications for energy savings, (vii) the Internet of Space Things enabled by CubeSats and UAVs, and (viii) cell-free massive MIMO communication networks. In this talk, use cases for these enabling techniques as well as recent advancements on related topics are highlighted, and open problems with possible solutions are discussed, followed by a development timeline outlining the worldwide efforts in the realization of 6G. Going beyond 6G, i.e., 7G, promising early-stage technologies such as the Internet of NanoThings, the Internet of BioNanoThings, and quantum communications, which are expected to have a far-reaching impact on wireless communications, have also been discussed at length in this paper.

The talk is based on the paper:

I. F. Akyildiz, A. Kak, and S. Nie, “6G and Beyond: The Future of Wireless Communications Systems,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 133995-134030, July 2020.

Short Bio

Ian F. Akyildiz received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981 and 1984, respectively. He is the Ken Byers Chair Professor Emeritus n Telecommunications, Past Chair of the Telecom group at the ECE and the Director of the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory between (1985-2020) at the at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Currently, he is the President and CTP of the Truva Inc. since March 1989.  Dr. Akyildiz  had many international affiliations during his career. He established many research centers in Spain, South Africa, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia, India, Cyprus, etc.   Currently he serves on the Advisory Board of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates since June 1, 2020. He is also the Megagrant Research Leader and Advisor to the Director of the  the Institute for Information Transmission Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, Russia, since May 2018. He is also an Adjunct Professor with Department of Electrical Engineering at University of Iceland since September 2020.

He is the Founder and Editor in Chief of the newly established of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies (ITU-J FET) since August 2020,  and is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Computer Networks Journal (Elsevier) (1999-2019), the founding Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Ad Hoc Networks Journal (Elsevier) (2003-2019), the founding Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Physical Communication (PHYCOM) Journal (Elsevier) (2008-2017), and the founding Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Nano Communication Networks (NANOCOMNET) Journal (Elsevier) (2010-2017).  He is an IEEE Fellow and ACM Fellow and received numerous awards from IEEE and ACM and other professional organizations, including Humboldt Award from Germany.  His current research interests are in 6G/7G Wireless Systems, TeraHertz Communication, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces, Nanonetworks, Internet of Space Things/CUBESATs, Internet of BioNanoThings, Molecular Communication and Underwater Communication.  According to Google Scholar as of March 2021, his H-index is 127 and the total number of citations to his papers is 126+K.