The 6G project started in July 2021 and is expected to last until June 2024
The University of Oulu in Finland and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in South Korea announced a new, collaborative research project to develop an advanced system architecture for as-yet-unstandardized “6G” systems.
The collaboration, which is part of the 6G Bridge program, is funded by BusinessFinland and the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT as separate yet complementary projects. It is a continuation of the collaboration between the University of Oulu and ETRI, building on a previous partnership that ranged from a 5G project demonstrated at the 2018 Winter Olympics to an industrial wireless automation project that has its final demonstration in early 2022.
The 6GBridge-6CORE project aims to define a service-centric system architecture for a future 6G system, along with supporting mechanisms and algorithms that enable the autonomous management of the system. In collaboration with Korean partners such as ETRI, SNU, and LG Uplus, the project also involves the development of joint experiments and trial activities based on some “Beyond 5G” applications and use cases, and addressing the autonomous lifecycle management of the deployed services, focusing on deterministic applications, the University of Oulu said.
The project started in July 2021 and is expected to last until June 2024.
Finland was one of the first countries to start research on future 6G technologies. The 6G Flagship initiative was launched in 2018. Currently, Finland also leads the European 6G flagship initiative Hexa-X, funded by European Union.
In May 2022, several Finnish research institutes and companies doing 6G research and development founded a national coalition, dubbed 6G Finland, with the aim of boosting Finland’s competitiveness in the as-yet-unstandardized 6G field.
The goals of the new initiative were to build new international partnerships, intensify national 6G cooperation by more prioritized and coordinated joint actions, and increase the impact of Finnish 6G expertise globally.
The founding members of 6G Finland are Aalto University, University of Helsinki, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, University of Oulu, University of Tampere, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Nokia Bell Labs, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finnish Defense Research Agency and BusinessOulu.
The members of 6G Finland aim to create a 6G research and development roadmap on the most important common priorities. 6G Finland also aims to operates as a national contact point for Finnish 6G know-how and will actively participate in 6G discussion nationally and internationally.
6G systems are expected to be commercially launched by 2030, while the first phase of standardization will likely start from 2025, leading to the first 6G specification in 3GPP Release 21 by 2028 followed by commercial deployments around 2030.
