Telecommunications

LG sets new real-world-ready distance record for 6G data transmission

LG and the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute have set a new distance record for 6G data transmission
LG and the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute have set a new distance record for 6G data transmission

Technology never sits still, so while 5G communications feels pretty new and flashy, the industry is already making preparations for the next generation. LG Electronics and the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz Institute have now conducted a test that set a new distance record for data transmission using 6G technology.

As you’d expect, 6G is expected to function like 5G and its predecessors, but much faster and more efficiently. That’s because it extends, for the first time, into terahertz (THz) frequencies, which should allow it to provide data rates up to 50 times faster than 5G with just 10% of the latency.

Companies like Samsung and LG have been testing and refining the technology for a few years now, continually setting new distance records for 6G data transmission. Now, in new tests LG and Fraunhofer have successfully extended that distance to 500 m (1,640 ft), shattering a record of 320 m (1,050 ft) set last year.

This milestone is significant, the team says, because 500 m is the standard distance for high-powered base stations set up around urban areas. The new tests also verified that 6G can communicate between building-to-building, building-to-ground and ground-to-ground terminals. All up, the technology is inching ever closer to real-world readiness.

The main disadvantage of 6G is that it usually has a short range. For the new test, LG and Fraunhofer developed a new multi-channel power amplifier and a receiver low-noise amplifier, which boosted the output by over 50% to achieve the new distance record.

Your 5G phone isn’t obsolete quite yet though – commercialization for 6G isn’t expected before 2029. In the meantime, there are plenty more technological kinks to iron out and network standards to be decided.

Source: LG

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
4 comments
Treon Verdery
One thing that could get their .5Km range to 2-4 kilometers is to broadcast and receive partial soliton waves. Solitons are waves that travel hundreds of times further than regular trigonometric waves, but have steep near linear sides. Solitons minimally interact with anything, but I perceive they will interact with a custom antenna shape. So, just have the partial soliton antenna shape on the phone as well as be a form at the broadcast antenna.
Treon Verdery
Another thing that could heighten send receive distance is making the phone antenna be a better inductor. with a hysteresis material like magnetite or cobaltite coating the antenna. I read a paper that said that 30% higher amount of some useful attribute of phone antennas occurred with a dipole phone antenna just being coated with magnetite, also another measure of some utility at the phone went up 70%. Getting a nonsentient genetic algorithm to optimize the antenna is likely to heighten efficiency. Previously genetic algorithms were able to make a three times better radio antenna than an engineer could think of.
paul314
500 meters? Sounds like 6G will be limited to dense urban areas for the foreseeable future. For Los Angeles that would be tens of thousands of base stations, and for anywhere rural forget it.

I'm beginning to wonder just what will need these kind of transmission rates, unless we're assuming that all of the "autonomous" systems of the future will actually be controlled by servers in a data center way the heck somewhere else. And at some point the power cost of transmitting all that data may exceed the cost of processing it locally.
Treon Verdery
I perceive Thz waves are kinda near 4 cm, if that is so then each phone could have three antennas, and the antennas 4.5 cm spaced apart at the interior without just being absorbing the same wave also if you visualize a phone with three horizontal rubber bands around it, that's at image like three circle antennas that could have a gap at the circle so a conductor can reach the phone.