For the last five years, most of the research into wireless communications has been motivated by its potential role in 6G. After this exploratory phase, it is time to identify which new technology components will make it into the standard and eventually into practical networks. It has recently become clear that 6G networks will operate in the upper mid-band from 7 to 25 GHz, which has been called the "golden band" since it offers more spectrum than current 5G networks in the 3.5 GHz band and much better propagation conditions than at mmWave frequencies. The most interesting new frequency range is around 7.8 GHz, where 650-1275 MHz of spectrum might become available, depending on the country. This might seem like a lot, but it is far from enough to reach the ambitious 6G requirements defined by the International Telecommunications Union.

For 6G to deliver on its promises, we also need a leap in the antenna technology - from "Massive MIMO" in 5G to "Gigantic MIMO" in 6G. In this video, Professor Emil Björnson explains the anticipated development with a focus on how many antenna elements we need to overcome the pathloss challenge, how to reach the theoretical peak bit rates, how to achieve impressive typical rates using spatial multiplexing, and how to utilize radiative near-field propagation effects for more precise communication, localization, and sensing. He also identifies four open research areas where new contributions have good prospects to affect the actual 6G technology implementation.

This talk was first delivered at the NGMA-ETI 2nd QMUL ‘6G’ Workshop, Queen Mary University of London, July 11, 2024.

The slides are available here: https://github.com/emilbjornson/presentation_slides/blob/master/6G_gigantic_MIMO.pdf

If you want to learn more, we recommend the following article:

Emil Björnson, Ferdi Kara, Nikolaos Kolomvakis, Alva Kosasih, Parisa Ramezani, Murat Babek Salman, “Enabling 6G Performance in the Upper Mid-Band by Transitioning From Massive to Gigantic MIMO,” IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, To appear.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.05630