6G-RIC Research and Innovation Cluster:

Open and secure 6G technologies as a global market opportunity for Germany

The 6G Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC) is a research hub designed to lay the scientific and technical foundations for the next generation of mobile communications (6G) across all technology levels, from radio access to core networks and fiber optic transport networks.

By pursuing cutting-edge research and international networking, 6G-RIC aims to help establish Germany and Europe as global leaders in the expansion of sustainable 6G technologies.

6G-RIC is focused on researching and developing a secure, flexible and open communications infrastructure as the basis for successful digitization in business and all areas of society.

Position Paper

Executive Summary

How to score a 100-fold capacity increase in an energy-efficient way? How to address privacy and security concerns specific to the convergence of communication and sensing? How to design semantic-aware communication protocols?

These are some of the key research questions to be answered in the transition toward 6G, according to the 6G-RIC Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC) research roadmap.

At the heart of 6G-RIC are six Technical Innovation Areas (TIAs), which serve as technology drivers for 6G. Each TIA is associated with specific research challenges, whose resolution lies at the focus of the 6G-RIC research agenda. In this document, we formulate these challenges in the form of key research questions that should be answered within each of the six TIAs. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the selected questions, 6G-RIC undertakes a holistic approach that simultaneously investigates hardware architectures, signal and protocol design, network computing aspects, as well as algorithmic and implementation complexity. In this context, energy efficiency and security play a leading role as horizontal aspects overarching all studied technologies.

Editors
Sławomir Stańczak, Zoran Utkovski

Co-editors
Daniyal Amir Awan, Ehsan Tohidi, Henrike Wissing, Igor Bjelakovic, Johannes Dommel, Lorenzo Miretti, Renato Cavalcante, Rodrigo Hernangómez

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Our Objectives

As a network of leading national scientific institutions, 6G-RIC pursues the following strategic goals:
  1. Establish energy efficiency and security as driving performance metrics
  2. Demonstrate the value of 6G in selected use cases
  3. Create an open infrastructure for SMEs and startups to develop/test 6G technology
  4. Build a new ecosystem based on openness and softwareization
  5. Improve conditions for spin-offs through cooperation with industry
  6. Train and promote young talent

6G-RIC will develop key components and technology demonstrations for open and secure 6G communication systems. To assess the value of 6G, different technology components will be brought together in overarching end-to-end demonstrations and tested in the “real lab”.

In the long term, 6G-RIC will establish an open infrastructure enabling SMEs and startups to develop technology components and test them using state-of-the-art measurement technology in the lab under controlled conditions approximating the real world.

illu-vision

6G-RIC in a nutshell

6G-RIC is an interdisciplinary and coordinated collaboration linking a total of 32 research groups from 20 universities and research institutions supported by over 60 associate partners from science, industry and the public sector.

6G-RIC is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the “Souverän. Digital. Vernetzt.” research program.

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