ARTES 4.0 Space for 6G

Establishing seamless ubiquitous and resilient connectivity is vital in the context of emerging technologies. The 6G era is expected to meet extraordinary requirements in our global economy due to the continuous need for technological evolution. 6G will lead to new IoT and AI services that will harness social and environmental topics to achieve large-scale sustainable impact and disruptive technological advances in society. 

Collaborations with industrial partners play a pivotal role in ESA's efforts to advance the digital transformation of industry and society, thanks to the integration of 5G/6G terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks.

How to work with ESA ARTES 4.0

What is Space for 6G? 

The 6G era is expected to meet extraordinary requirements in our global economy due to the continuous need for technological evolution. 6G will lead to new IoT and AI services that will harness social and environmental topics to achieve large-scale sustainable impact and disruptive technological advances in society.

What is 6G? 

6G is the sixth generation of mobile communication networks currently under standardisation and development.

As the successor to 5G cellular technology, 6G networks will be able to use higher frequencies than 5G networks and provide substantially higher capacity and lower latency. One of the objectives of 6G connectivity is to support one microsecond latency communications. This is 1,000 times faster - or 1/1000th the latency - than one millisecond throughput.

The convergence of satellite and terrestrial communications will assume to provide an unrivalled user experience through seamless hyper-connectivity with the key approach of providing unlimited, ultra-fast, and ubiquitous communications.

Sustainable society based on 6G technology 

6G is projected to become a fundamental building block in the development of a prosperous future for recent and coming generations. The 6G era will give rise to hundreds of new services and enhance the capabilities of existing technologies, allowing them not only to improve our individual lives but also to perpetuate environmental goals with the firm intention of leaving an ecological footprint.

Sustainability will be an inherent pillar of 6G, as evidenced by goals including bridging the digital divide, ensuring quality education, sustainable cities, and clean energy; this requires a more interconnected environment. This will only be possible when exploiting future 6G terrestrial and satellite converged networks to support sustainability.

6G Challenges 

To optimise the performance and development of 6G networks and consequently leading to revolutionary new services, several clear challenges facing communication technologies must be addressed. Key challenges such as the integration of EHF and THz frequency bands in 6G communications, which have always been limited by high penetration losses due to obstacles, water vapour or even oxygen, will result in a new complex 6G network architecture.  

The integration of satellite communications, which specially suffer from high propagation losses, will mean a difficult task for experts in terms of reaching long distances, indoor receivers, possible delays, or weather-related issues. Nevertheless, there are numerous studies focused on strengthening future networks by facing these challenges. Technologies such as Massive MIMO or Beamforming will play an essential role in the standardisation and development of 6G.

How to work with the ARTES 5G/6G programme 

Please see the 'How to work with us’ section on the ARTES pages for an overview of all ways how your organisation can benefit from collaborating with ESA.

How to work with ESA ARTES 4.0

Download the 6G white paper here