Visit Keysight at MWC 2025

Planning to visit Mobile World Congress, March 3-6, in Barcelona, Spain? Meet Keysight at Hall 5, booth # 5F41 to see how you can take 6G from simulation to emulation.

Accelerate 6G research

With Keysight's expertise in measurement science and state-of-the-art RF and cellular testing capabilities, you can accelerate the pace of 6G research. Contact us today to learn more about how Keysight can help you develop the next generation of wireless technologies. 

Fundamentals of 6G eBook

Gain expertise in the fundamentals of 6G

With the deployment of 5G well underway, vendors and service providers can help consumers, industry, and government unleash a multitude of use cases. However, 6G researchers must go much further. 6G technologies will provide unprecedented performance, reliability, and security, fully connecting society for the first time.

Discover the building blocks for 6G research

We can help you tailor your entire development ecosystem to the fast-moving requirements of wireless research.

6G Research Icons

New Spectrum

Unlock the frequency bands targeted by 6G and validate new spectral efficiency technologies.

Read how ⟶

6G Research Icons

Novel Architectures

Innovate on 6G network architecture by leveraging the best of Open RAN and non-terrestrial networks.

See how ⟶

6G Research Icons

AI and ML

Optimize system designs by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Learn how ⟶

6G digital twins

Digital Twins

Accelerate next-generation 6G network designs with AI-enabled digital twins to expedite development. 

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6G security

Security

Prepare for the coming security challenges 6G will present to enable secure connectivity anywhere.

Read how ⟶

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Sustainability

Discover how 6G will enable energy efficiency in networks and enable sustainable technologies.

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Keysight experts weigh in on 6G research challenges

6G FR3 channel emulation

AI / ML and sensing in 6G

NTN sky-to-lab: end-to-end emulation

Frequently Asked Questions – 6G Research

What are the key research areas in 6G?

New horizons ask for new technology. It is true that 6G will greatly benefit from 5G in areas such as edge computing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), network slicing, and others. At the same time, wireless technology research needs to match new 6G technical requirements. 

The most sensible demand is understanding how to work in the sub-terahertz frequency. While 5G needs to operate in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands of 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz to achieve its full potential, the next generation of mobile connectivity will likely move to frequencies above 100 GHz in the ranges called sub-terahertz and possibly as high as true terahertz.

Another area of research interest is designing 6G networks for AI and ML. 5G networks are starting to look at adding AI and ML to existing networks, but with 6G we have the opportunity to build networks from the ground up that are designed to work natively with these technologies.

There is also a challenge that 6G aims to tackle: security. How to ensure the data is safe and that only authorized people can have access to it — and solutions to make systems foresee complex attacks automatically.

One last technical demand is virtualization. As 6G evolves, we will start to move to the virtual environment. Open RAN (O-RAN) architectures are moving more processing and functionality into the cloud today. Solutions like edge computing will be more and more common in the future.

What are the anticipated use cases and applications driving 6G research?

As 6G is expected to be commercially available by 2030, several industry groups have published their 6G visions, including the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN), the 6G Flagship, and the Next G Alliance. The use cases and applications for next-generation communication technologies envisioned by these organizations are summarized below:

Ubiquitous connectivity: Under 6G, improved inclusivity and bridging of the digital divide are pivotal social objectives. Voice, video, and broadband services will be available even in remote areas and disaster zones through advances beyond 5G, such as better non-terrestrial networks, airborne and space-borne base station swarms, and mesh access networks.

Immersive personal digital experiences: Network bandwidths of 50-200 gigabits per second (Gbps) are expected, perhaps even one terabit per second (Tbps). With per-device throughputs of 300-500 megabits per second (Mbps) and microsecond latencies, users will enjoy rich communication and digital experiences through immersive high-resolution video calls, extended reality displays, and remote telepresence through multi-sensory and holographic interfaces.

Joint communications and sensing: The sub-terahertz frequencies considered under 6G will enable the combination of communication signals with waveforms that resemble those of imaging radars. Research is underway to re-use the same antennas, transceivers, and spectrum for both communications and sensing, enabling use cases like using smartphones for autonomous driving or detecting people in low-visibility rescue missions.

Automobiles: Automobile companies are actively researching and prototyping the use of 6G technologies for improved autonomous driving systems, real-time data processing, vehicle-to-everything communication, and advanced sensing capabilities.

Industrial-scale communications: Expect widespread public and private networks with extensive use of internet-of-things (IoT) devices for smart cities, agriculture, transportation, energy grids, and environmental monitoring.

Precise positioning: Indoor and outdoor positioning with accuracies of 1-10 centimeters (cm) will enable precise object and presence detection, navigation, imaging, and mapping.

Will 6G improve sustainability?

Sustainability is a critical driver for 6G research and development. In December 2023, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) published details of the 6G "IMT-2030 Framework" in Recommendation ITU-R M.2160

IMT-2030 is also expected to help address the need for increased environmental, social and economic sustainability, and also support the goals of the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

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