5G; Evolution, Innovation and Future Vision

Abstract

Cellular technology has progressed and evolved at an impossible pace in the last few decades. The world has quickly travelled from 1G to 5G. 5G is innovative and revolutionary beyond our imagination. It aims to impact each walk of life. It has extremely beneficial aspects that have the availability to revolutionize our globe and future vision. 5G encompasses all important fields of our lives, information technology, medicine, industry, and agriculture. It will bring countless benefits in our lives. It will maximize efficiency and productivity of all institutions. 5G is also associated with some risks and threats that threaten to decrease its efficiency and inclusiveness. Researchers and academia are working laboriously to solve these issues to cultivate maximum benefits from 5G. The aim of this project is to understand revolution that 5G promises and presents. It will also discuss research work of academia in this field to highlight challenges and threats to 5G evolution.

Key Words

5G, innovation, latency, internet of things, frequencies

INTRODUCTION

5G is an innovative global cellular network preceded by 4G, 3G, 2G and 1G. The essence of this technology is to connect everyone with everything. It is an important technology that can boost global economy. 5G is known for many useful features, low latency, amazing speed of data transfer, reliability, cost reduction and scalability. It will help in realizing the dream of internet of things and smart cities. Infrastructure and services of 5G have been successfully installed and deployed in about 35 countries and many other countries are following the suit. It will boost up global economy by up to $2.1 trillion and will generate about 22.3 trillion jobs. 5G is facing few threats in terms of security. A lot of work is being done to overcome these challenges for successful deployment of this technology that is beyond doubt a hallmark of human civilization. (AKHIL GUPTA, 2019)

Motivation

The main aim of this project is to understand 5G innovation with the goal of providing innovative services to citizens. This project will help citizens in understanding benefits and advantages of 5G and how it will revolutionize almost everything 5G vows to transform data transfer to high speeds and increase bandwidth while maintaining negligible latency.

Main Contributions of this paper

Main contributions of this paper are listed below:

• Design a platform to understand features of 5G and associated benefits and advantages.
• Present a 5G model to understand 5G innovation and revolution.
• Present opportunities to critically analyze 5G technologies and associated risks and challenges.
• Propose a framework to mitigate all challenges and risks.
• Design a framework to build framework for successful deployment of 5G in the light of given recommendations.

Structure of Paper

Section 1 of the paper highlights key features of 5G along with associated benefits and advantages. Section 2 will provide detailed account of risks and threats in the path of full deployment of 5G network. Section 3 of this paper designs a framework to mitigate these challenges while ensuring maximum efficiency and productivity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1 Collection of Data

Data was collected through various research papers, publications, and articles. Information and data were collected from authentic journals only. Data was deeply studied and critically analysed. Unreliable sites were not used as they will hinder authenticity of this paper.

2.2 Data Inclusion Criteria

A criterion was established in the beginning of the research. The criterion was then followed throughout the research. The criterion was, “The information used in this project will be analysed for its authenticity and validity.” Furthermore, terms and conditions were fulfilled throughout the project.

2.3 Data Analysis

The data and information collected through research papers and articles were thoroughly analysed and critically evaluated. Results and trends were extracted and drawn out from information. These results will be presented in the next sections of this report.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Problem: Deployment and Coverage of 5G

It is the trickiest part of 5G technology. All countries will face significant problems in this regard. 5G deployment can have three possible scenarios. In the first case, NSA 5G will be deployed with 4G and 5G in the same low/mid band frequencies. 4G and 5G will have same coverage areas. This configuration will have high data transfer speed and bandwidth. It will be used in populated cities and towns. In the second case, NSA 5G will be deployed in high frequency band and 4G will be deployed in low frequency band. In this scenario, 5G will have low coverage area as compared to 4G. In the third case, SA 5G will be deployed in low, mid, or high frequency bands. In this case, 5G units will be deployed as standalone units with all responsibility of connectivity. SA 5G will be deployed in all frequency range to ensure maximum coverage area. This kind of deployment needs a lot of technical specialties and planning. 5G deployment, no doubt, is incredibly challenging. The figure below explains 5G deployment scenarios. (Cantica Felita, 2017)

Problem: 5G- Architecture and Emerging Technologies

The primary focus of research in the field of 5G is cellular architecture, device-to-device communication, and massive multiple-input-multiple-output technologies.  Moreover, there are some emerging technologies that can improve and prosper 5G even further. These technologies include interface management, multi-radio-access technology, and full-duplex radios. Few other solutions include mm wave for global cellular networks and cloud technology. A 5G network can be designed in which device-to-device communication, internet of things and cloud network will be included. A lot of countries are working in this inclusive model and results are very fruitful. (AKHIL GUPTA, 2019)

Problem: Recent Trends in Emerging Technologies toward 5G Networks

Impact of recent technologies on 5G networks can be understood by following equation:

Figure 2: Impact of recent technologies on 5G networks

 

Massive MIMO is one of the technologies that can impact 5G cellular networks. It is a technology to reduce penetration loss of 5G networks by separating indoor and outdoor scenarios. Another technology in this field is millimetre wave technology. This technology increases bandwidth. However, it consumes a large amount of energy that makes it incompatible with mobile technologies. (ZORAN BOJKOVIC, 2019)

Results and Discussion

Results gained from all these literature surveys will be presented in four sections.

Section 1: Salient Features of 5G; Benefits and Applications

5G is very innovative because of many peculiar features. Some of these features are:

• It will have high data transfer speed. This speed is up to 10Gbps. It is 10 to 100 times faster than 4G networks.
• 5G will have exceptionally low latency. It is 0 to 1 millisecond.
• It will have 1000 times increased bandwidth per unit area.
• 5G can cater 100 times more devices per unit area as compared to 4G and previous networks.
• Availability of 5G network will be 99.999% which is a very remarkable feature.
• 5G will give astonishingly 100% coverage.
• 5G will be energy efficient and will decrease energy use up to 90%.
• It will also increase battery life for low powered IoT devices by 10 years. (Amine Rghioui, 2018)

 

5G has huge benefits and advantages for our lives. Some of these applications are listed below:

• 5G technology will realize the dream of autonomous vehicles. These autonomous vehicles will be able to communicate with infrastructure, devices, vehicles, drivers, and passengers. These autonomous vehicles will operate with minimum human intervention. These autonomous vehicles are not possible with 4G technology due to high latency period. However, it will be phenomenally successful with 5G due to low latency period. As traffic on road needs very quick decision making, 5G with least or insignificant latency is necessary for this purpose. (Chatterji, 2018)
• 5G is essential for successful development of smart cities. Smart cities need high speed communication and data transfer. Smart cities will be fully automated and need quick interaction with humans and other objects. It is only possible with low latency and high data transfer speed of 5G. (Yousaf Bin Zikria, 2018)
• 5G will also introduce automation in industries as it will be highly flexible, scalable, viable and wireless. It will reduce operational cost of industries by making many processes automatic. 4G could not provide these services due to high latency and low data transfer speed. (Dan Warren, 2014)
• Furthermore, 5G will revolutionize entertainment industry as low latency and high speed can realize virtual and augmented reality. Augmented reality will be extremely helpful in identifying and observing problematic parts of a machine very carefully. 5G will improve virtual reality and will play sports remarkably interesting. (Daniel Minoli, 2019)
• 5G will also revolutionize drone technology for both filming and security services. It will also help in commissioning stage of industries and plants for highlighting faulty equipment and machine parts. 5G drones will make long distance surveillance and inspection possible. (Zsolt Marcell Temesvári, 2019)
• 5G will bring a lot of innovation in telecommunication industry. It will interlink many devices and will make data transfer very fast, quick and effective. It can also bring features of virtual reality in telecommunication industry. (Guangyi Liu, 2016)

Figure 4: Comparison of cellular technologies

 

 

Section 2: 5G; Risks, Threats and Challenges

5G has numerous advantages and applications. But it is not free of challenges and risks.

• 5G will be used for many critical and sensitive operations. So, if 5G networks get hacked, results will be truly disastrous and catastrophic. If services to a healthcare or a smart city get interrupted, it can become an issue of national security and sovereignty. (Rothwell, 2000)
• 5G will have the threat of mass network failure. 4G networks are based on isolated functionality. So, a failure can only cause partial network degradation. 5G will have centralized functionality. So, a failure can cause mass network failure.
• If 5G becomes unavailable, networks will be automatically shifted to 4G. It will lead to many new security and privacy threats. These threats were not present in previous cellular generations. (Lichtman, 2018)
• High speed data transmission is a very useful feature of 5G. However, same feature can be used for hacking and network attacks. Multiple networks will be available for this purpose. 5G will introduce many new applications. Some of these applications can be untrustworthy and can cause huge damage to security and privacy.
• Femtocells in 5G infrastructure can be attacked in a variety of ways. These femtocells and their equipment can be tampered and destroyed due to natural or malicious activity. These attacks will lead to privacy and security violation. (Myrtill Simko, 2019 Sep)
• 5G will be centralized and will have many routes and points that will need to be protected and saved. 4G networks has less such points so, their security is easier and comfortable.
• 5G will have increased bandwidth. So, it will strain security agencies by increasing areas of monitoring. (O’Flaherty, 2020)
• IoT devices will use 5G networks. But it will also cause many problems. Many IoT devices are not designed according to cyber security protocols. These devices can become a weakness in the system and can be used for security breech and risks. (Nathan, 2020)
• There could be other attacks like DoS attacks, botnet and man-in-the-middle attacks, call interception and location tracking.

 

Figure 5: Challenges in 5G technology

Section 3: 5G and Future Framework

Following technologies can make 5G more effective and successful.

Massive MIMO

Existing cellular architecture works through an outdoor BS that is installed between cell and mobile users. These BS work fine for outdoor communication. But these outdoor BS leads to decrease in data rate and energy efficiency. 5G architecture separates outdoor and indoor scenarios leading to decrease in propagation loss. This feature will be acquired by DAS (Distributed Antenna System) and MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) technology. Massive MIMI works on the principle that number of antennas in a BS greatly exceeds no. of devices in each locality. Benefits of massive MIMO are: (Carroll, 2009)

• It increases network capacity up to 10 times and at the same time improves efficiency of radiant energy up to 100 times. This leads to a high-grade spatial multiplexing. Energy is saved because of huge number of antennas as energy can now be focused with great precision and accuracy.
• Components required for massive MIMO are inexpensive and cheap. For-example massive MIMO can be achieved by low cost amplifiers. (Dan Warren, 2014)
• It will further reduce latency by significantly reducing fading dips.
• Massive MIMO will simplify access layer. Each subcarrier will get the same gain of channel. So, whole bandwidth will be received by all subcarriers. It will make access layer redundant.
• Massive MIMO will also decrease illegal interference and network jamming by providing many options to cancel dangerous and malicious signals. (Daniel Minoli, 2019)

Millimetre-wave technology

Existing mobile communication operates on sub-3 GHz spectrum. But as the cellular network continues to grow, this spectrum is not enough. These massive cellular networks require increase in bandwidth. Millimeter-wave technology is still in use for some point to point communication. It provides the bandwidth of Multigigabit to few kilometers. But the equipment used for this system is massive, bulky and energy inefficient. According to recent research, mmWave technology can supply required bandwidth for 5G technology for decades to come. In mmWave spectrum, 28GHz and 38GHz are the most studied ones. The two most important features of mmWave technology are extremely high bandwidth and extremely small wavelength. As a result, mmWave will provide high coverage area. It will also make installing a large number of antennae in an area. (Cantica Felita, 2017)

Figure 6: 5G Architecture with mm Wave technology

Dense Heterogeneous Networks

As 5G network will reduce cell size, increasing demands cellular networks can be fulfilled. Small cell size increases efficiency of area spectrum. It will increase power efficiency. Similarly, small cells can be installed everywhere to increase data reception. These small cells cover a large area. These cells can be femtocells that are low powered and are deployed in residential areas. These cells can also be high powered picocells for high outdoor coverage area. (Elena Pagnin, 2017)

Figure 6: Increase in performance by deployment of small cells

Device to Device Communication

5G will enable device to device communication. It involves many intelligent devices that can communicate with each other. They can store and analyses information. They can also issue and follow instructions. These machines can operate and take care of themselves without human interference and intervention. D2D communications are of two types. In band D2D communication takes place by licensed spectrum. It is exceptionally reliable. External interference can be controlled and managed. The other type is out band D2D communication which uses unlicensed spectrum; medical, industrial, and scientific bands. This device-to device communication is essential for successful development of smart cities and autonomous vehicles. It is highly beneficial for medical and industrial units. This D2D communication can be easily achieved by 5G cellular technology. (Zsolt Marcell Temesvári, 2019)

 

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

5G has huge potential and is capable of innovation and revolution. Some future directions are:

Deployment of Infrastructure:

5G has challenging infrastructure that should be deployed with care and expertise soon. Complete technical assistance must be ensured in this regard. Infrastructure must be deployed after considering all key parameters.

Massive MIMO:

 Massive MIMO must be used and exploited for best results.

mmWave technology:

mmWave technology must be used for best results where necessary.

Smart cities:

 5G should be exploited to develop smart cities with complete automation.

Autonomous Vehicles:

 5G should be used to develop autonomous vehicles soon.

Planning and Future Research:

 Research should be done to mitigate looming threats and risks as discussed in the section of challenges and risks. (ZORAN BOJKOVIC, 2019)

CONCLUSION

Fifth-generation mobile technology is highly innovative and promising. It has amazing features in terms of speed, data transfer, low latency, and energy efficiency. This project collected data through various authentic sources. This project studied features and applications of 5G in detail. Literature review also revealed underlying deficiencies and risks. After detailed critical analysis, this project concluded that massive MIMO, mmWave and dense heterogeneous networks can help in better exploitation of 5G benefits. 5G paints a very wonderful picture of human civilization with smart cities, autonomous vehicles, improved healthcare, and industrial applications. Another important aspect is device to device communication that will help in realization of many future goals and objectives. In a nutshell, 5G has the potential to change the face of human civilization by bringing multiple innovative features and applications. 5G is a successful technology that marks the wide horizons of mankind progress and development.