A Contemporary Survey on 6G Wireless Networks: Potentials, Recent Advances, Technical Challenges and Future Trends

TL;DR

This survey reviews recent advances, potential features, and challenges of 6G wireless networks, emphasizing technological breakthroughs like quantum and holographic communication, and outlines future research directions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive taxonomy of 6G technologies, highlighting key enablers, breakthroughs, and open challenges to guide future research in 6G development.

Findings

Identification of quantum, holographic, and terahertz communication as key breakthroughs.

Discussion of enabling technologies like blockchain and VLC for seamless networks.

Outline of open research challenges and future directions for 6G.

Abstract

Smart services based on Internet of everything (IoE) are prophesied to reap notable attention by both academia and industry in the future. Although fifth-generation (5G) is a promising communication technology, however it cannot fulfill complete demands of novel applications. Sixth-generation (6G) technology is envisaged to overcome limitations of 5G technology. The vision and planning of future 6G network has been started with this aim to meet the stringent requirements of mobile communication. Our aim is to explore recent advances and potential challenges to enable 6G technology in this review. We have devised a taxonomy based on computing technologies, networking technologies, communication technologies, use cases, machine learning algorithms and key enabler technologies. In this regard, we subsequently highlight potential features and key areas of 6G. Key technological breakthroughs which include quantum communication, tactile communication, holographic communication, terahertz communication, visible light communication (VLC) Internet of Bio Nano Things, which can put profound impact on wireless communication, have been elaborated at length in this review. In this review, our prime focus is to discuss potential enabling technologies which can develop seamless and sustainable network, encompassing symbiotic radio, blockchain, new communication paradigm, VLC and terahertz. In addition, we have investigated open research challenges which can hamper the performance of 6G network. Finally, we have outlined several practical considerations, 6G key projects and future directions. We envision 6G undergoing unprecedented breakthroughs to eliminate technical uncertainties and provide enlightening research directions for subsequent future studies. Although it is impossible to envisage complete details of 6G, we believe this study will pave the way for future research work.