Grant: Canada Excellence Research Chairs

Global mobile data traffic is increasing exponentially with 100 billion ‘Internet-of-Things’ devices by the year 2025. Thus, the need for improved wireless connectivity, rate, accuracy, reliability, and latency is greater than ever. Next generation communication technologies, i.e., the sixth generation (6G), will seamlessly integrate the digital, physical, and biological worlds in a way not yet witnessed before. Challenges centre on the extreme requirements of future vertical applications across areas such as transport, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and business. 6G networks must raise the capabilities of wireless networks by 10x-100x, providing Tb/s data rates, 0.1 ms latencies, 1-in-a-million chance of outage, and centimetre accurate positioning. They will have to do this in environments ranging from space, land, aerial or sea vehicles, and more. The leap to 6G will require significant fundamental research to overcome current bottlenecks and create high performance, hyper-flexible wireless networks with the intelligence necessary for future applications. The research programme addresses this challenge by developing original next generation communication technologies that employ new wireless optimisation and design, AI-empowered physical communications, quantum machine learning-optimised resource allocation to generate “a new wireless without limit” that guarantee high quality-of-service targets and simultaneously serve a massive number of users. This novel research programme aims to build a world-leading research and education initiative in 6G communications, filling the need for a concerted multidisciplinary 6G innovation nexus in Canada that will rival initiatives around the globe. This research programme designs novel next generation communications technologies, transiting from an era of connected machine to connected people and connected intelligence. It will have significant societal and economic impact that will usher advances of rapid and unprecedented levels: direct benefits for the economy will include the next generation of agriculture, manufacturing and energy; benefits for society will include better healthcare and ubiquitous access to digital services. By jointly addressing the technological, social, environmental, and economic challenges that lie ahead, this research will cement Canada’s place as a global leader in the 6G race and help to deliver digital access that is sustainable and benefits all.