Towards 6G Internet of Things: Recent advances, use cases, and open challenges

TLDR

IoE-driven smart services are growing rapidly, yet 5G falls short of meeting the massive data and user demands that future 6G networks must support. The paper reviews recent 6G activities, trends, enabling technologies—including AI, THz, and quantum communications—and outlines use cases and future research directions for IoT networks. The authors survey emerging 6G connectivity solutions—including holographic beamforming, AI‑enabled IoT, edge computing, and backscatter communications—and analyze use cases and trends relative to 5G.

Abstract

Smart services based on the Internet of Everything (IoE) are gaining considerable popularity due to the ever-increasing demands of wireless networks. This demands the appraisal of the wireless networks with enhanced properties as next-generation communication systems. Although 5G networks show great potential to support numerous IoE based services, it is not adequate to meet the complete requirements of the new smart applications. Therefore, there is an increased demand for envisioning the 6G wireless communication systems to overcome the major limitations in the existing 5G networks. Moreover, incorporating artificial intelligence in 6G will provide solutions for very complex problems relevant to network optimization. Furthermore, to add further value to the future 6G networks, researchers are investigating new technologies, such as THz and quantum communications. The requirements of future 6G wireless communications demand to support massive data-driven applications and the increasing number of users. Unlike existing works, this paper highlights the recent activities and trends toward 6G technology, network requirement, essential enabling technologies for 6G networks, and a detailed use case analysis between 5G and 6G networks. Moreover, this paper surveys emerging 6G connectivity solutions, such as holographic beamforming, artificial intelligence-enabled IoT networks, edge computing, and backscatter communications to serve smart communities. Furthermore, several future research directions to accomplish 6G-based IoT networks are also highlighted.