Page 151 - ITU Journal, Future and evolving technologies - Volume 1 (2020), Issue 1, Inaugural issue

ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies, Volume 1 (2020), Issue 1

Therefore, there is a need for general frameworks and the lexible key enabler platform. This engine can be de-
mechanisms to ease dealing with these challenges all to- signed in an AI-aided manner to optimize the key enabler
gether. Within this direction, an example framework is lexibilities jointly. An optimum work distribution should
proposed in the next section. be done for the lexible con igurations of key enablers to
meet all the system requirements in the most ef icient
4. ULTRA-FLEXIBLE 6G FRAMEWORK way. At the end, all system requirements should be met
optimally. The lexible cognitive engine will guaran-
Gathering together all potential 6G enablers in a lexible tee this optimization by the help of Key Performance
framework is an important challenge. Therefore, this sec- Indicators (KPIs) that show the success while meeting
tion brings the above-mentioned lexible perspectives for requirements. This lexibility optimizer considers also
the key enabler technologies and concepts under the um- complexity requirements while operating the system.
brella of a single ultra- lexible framework for 6G. Here, it
is important to realize that the presence of lexible op- ISAC technologies will be an important part of 6G tech-
tions in itself is not enough to render a network intel- nologies as discussed in the previous section. Any sensing
ligent. Rather, it needs the capability to make best use information can be exploited to make the wireless com-
of the available options. Therefore, some sort of intelli- munications more effective. The lexible cognitive engine
gence or cognition is imperative in future wireless net- can give decisions with more available information while
works. Keeping this in mind, the proposed framework meeting different requirements and handling with sev-
has the following primary components: 1) Flexible key eral impairments and constraints. Sensing information
enabler platform (like an advanced Mitola radio), 2) lex- increases the awareness and controlling capabilities of
ible cognitive engine, and 3) lexibility performance indi- the system. To provide these capabilities, AI tools in the
cators. Fig. 6 illustrates how these different components lexible cognitive engine provide useful and unnoticeable
are interconnected within the framework. The key points relationships without heuristic designs and theoretical
of this framework can be summarized as follows:
analysis. Hence, the lexible cognitive engine needs three
important elements while optimizing the lexibility level
1. New technologies should be integrated into commu- with key enablers: 1) Sensing information to increase
nications standards via a lexible key enabler plat- awareness and controlling capabilities, 2) AI tools to
form without waiting for ten years.
increase the functionality and effectiveness of sensing
2. Key enabler technologies should work together in information, and 3) KPIs to monitor the overall system.
an optimal lexibility to meet different requirements.
Therefore, a lexible cognitive engine can make an KPIs are needed to measure several performances of the
optimization between different lexibility aspects. communications system. One of these KPIs can be the
lexibility performance indicator so that the achieved
3. The amount of lexibility needs to be measured while lexibility can be quanti ied. It is dif icult to decide on
making an optimization. Hence, developing new a speci ic lexibility performance indicator because there
lexibility performance indicators is necessary. are many different lexibility perspectives as shown in
Table 3. This indicator can be technology-speci ic and
The previous cellular communications generations were require separate metrics for different technology cate-
standardized approximately ten years apart. From a gories. 6G networks will need lexibility indicators sim-
different point of view, it took about a decade for the ilar to the other KPIs such as spectral ef iciency and re-
available technologies to be included in the cellular liability. Generally, the current key enabler technologies
standards. Waiting up to ten years to bene it from an are not designed to be called lexible technologies. Flexi-
available technology does not make sense if it is possible bility aspects of these key enablers are described mostly
to develop a platform that hosts different technologies based on the inferences. In ideal conditions, 6G technolo-
lexibly. For now, we need to tolerate the limited lexi- gies need to be designed considering the lexibility per-
bility of 5G technologies for the next decade. However, spective as one of the key criteria. At that point, lexibility
an advanced Mitola radio can work like a smart phone performance indicators should be employed to quantify
that has installable and updateable software. We call this the advantages and disadvantages of new designs in both
radio a lexible key enabler platform. In this concept, the PHY and MAC layer.
the platform has the ability to have new key enabler
technologies by a softwarization. Thus, the lexibility 5. CONCLUSION
level of the wireless communications system can be
enhanced with new technologies and the related updates. 5G systems were characterized by diverse applications
and requirements. 6G is expected to continue in the same
As it is shown in Fig. 6, each technology can bring dif- vein by enriching the application fabric even further.
ferent perspectives to the overall lexibility. There is a Ful illing such a wide variety of use cases is not possible
need for a multi-objective optimization unit to control unless lexibility is incorporated in the promising key
all con igurable and lexible aspects of the enablers in enabling technologies for the future networks. Driven by

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