Sheffield claims UK’s first national 6G research facility

By Juan Pedro Tomás July 10, 2024

Collected at: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20240710/featured/sheffield-claims-uk-first-national-6g-research-facility

The 6G facility was developed in partnership with Keysight and is based on Keysight instruments and software

The University of Sheffield announced the launch of the “National 6G Radio Systems Facility” in the city of Sheffield, which aims to support the U.K. in becoming a world leader in the 6G field.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the new facility will play a key role in driving innovation in 6G by bringing together academics and industrial partners and giving them the specialty equipment needed to collaborate and develop future 6G solutions, the University of Sheffield said.

The new national center is based in the University’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“6G is the next generation of telecommunications technology and has fast become a strategically important area for research and development. Our new National 6G facility will play a huge role in developing the U.K.’s 6G capabilities; it will enable the U.K.’s universities and telecommunications industry to compete on a global scale and provide a unique experimental platform for researching and testing both current and future radio systems,” said Timothy O’Farrell, professor of wireless communication at the University of Sheffield, who will direct the new facility

The 6G facility was developed in partnership with Keysight, a strategic partner of the facility, and is based on Keysight instruments and software.

“Keysight is excited to collaborate with the University of Sheffield and build upon our leadership and expertise to make the vision of 6G a reality. With Keysight’s advanced instruments and software forming the foundation of the new National 6G facility, we are playing an active role in accelerating 6G research and enabling the U.K. to be at the forefront of global 6G research. As we approach the next generation of mobile communications, the urgency and focus on creating value is higher than ever. The ‘Next G’ brings with it some high expectations for both higher performance but also greater inclusion, sustainability, security, support for IoT, as well as ‘Native AI’,” said Mark Pierpoint, vice president of strategic innovations and partnerships at Keysight.

The facility will enable research into many aspects of 6G radio systems, including candidate waveforms, baseband and RF signal processing, digital acquisition, transmitter and receiver RF sub-systems and over-the-air (OTA) propagation measurements. It will also be capable of supporting research into 6G radio systems spanning all of the operating frequency bands – from sub-6GHz to sub-THz – including the 6G pioneering bands up to 220GHz.

Also, the facility’s equipment will support multiple over-the-air transmissions at once, facilitating research into novel advanced radio systems.

The standardization process for future 6G systems is in its early stages. At a recent plenary session, 3GPP decided to complete the standard specifications for commercial 6G networks and terminals by 2029.