Context: Secretary in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked state-owned telecom research and development organisation C-DoT to start working on 6G and other futuristic technologies.

• He inaugurated the Quantum Communication Lab in C-DoT and unveiled the indigenously developed Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) solution.

Key highlights

• C-DoT has become India's first organisation to offer a complete portfolio of indigenous quantum secure telecom products and solutions.
• Samsung, Huawei, LG and some other companies have started working on 6G technologies which is said to be 50 times faster than 5G and is expected to be commercially launched between 2028-2030.

About 6G Technology

• 6G, or the sixth-generation wireless communications system will be built upon the shortcomings of 5G.
• It is said to be 50 times faster than 5G.
• It is expected to roll out for consumers by 2038.

Key Features of 6G

• Higher millimeter-wave
• Microsecond latency
• Autonomous wireless systems

Working principle

• 6G will selectively use different frequencies to measure absorption and adjust frequencies accordingly. 
• This is based on the phenomenon that atoms and molecules emit and absorb electromagnetic radiation at characteristic frequencies, and the emission and absorption frequencies are the same for any given substance.

Goals of 6G networks

• Able to use higher frequencies than 5G networks
• To provide substantially higher capacity
• To support one microsecond-latency communication
• Extremely high data rates per device
• A very large number of connected devices

Global connectivity

• Lowering the energy consumption with battery-free IoT devices

Need of 6G

• It can integrate a set of previously disparate technologies, including deep learning and big data analytics.
• To handle IoT and mobile device data, strong relation has to be maintained between High Performance Computers (HPC) and 6G.
• It will provide the communication and data gathering necessary to accumulate information.

Advantages

• Capacity of supporting data rate of 1 Terrabyte per second and latency will expand the scope of capabilities to support innovative applications in wireless connectivity, cognition, sensing and imaging.

6G will have big implications for many government and industry approaches to public safety and critical asset protection such as:

• Threat detection
• Health monitoring
• Feature and facial recognition
• Decision-making in areas like law enforcement and social credit systems
• Air quality measurements
• Gas and toxicity sensing

Challenges of Implementing 6G Technology
Terahertz (THz) Signal

• Generation of continuous THz signal is difficult and expensive because it has more strict requirements regarding size and has more complexity in designing the antenna/transmitter.
• The energy loss of signal is too much.

Underwater Communication

• 6G is also aiming to provide underwater communication.
• Radio signals are highly attenuated in salt water.
• Therefore, acoustic communication is the only option for communication which is expensive.

Global Coverage

• 6G will rely on the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite having a height of 500 to 2000 km from the orbit for providing global coverage.
• LEO satellites travel very fast compared to the rotation of Earth. This leads to doppler variation and doppler shift in the network communication and cause random access, synchronization, signal detection, and signal measurement issues.

Heavy Computation

• 6G will combine communication with computation.
• To solve that 6G will rely on new technologies such as edge computing, federated AI, etc.
• However, implementing these technologies also has many sets of issues.

Lack of Technology

• The 6G has many promises to deliver, but hindered by underdeveloped real technology which could drastically advance 6G technology from 5G.

Artificial Technology

• 6G will be truly AI-driven mobile wireless communication.
• Implementing AI in physical layer is difficult due to the complexity of the physical layer and bounded learning capacity of AI algorithms.