Figure１ The "new normal": a contactless society using ICTFigure 2 Cyber physical system■Specic R&D activities: radio wave emulator, spatial and temporal synchronization, and ultrahigh-speed wireless network5G technology is expected to enable much faster communications, much larger capaci-ty networks, reduced communication delays and increased connectivity. Developers of beyond-5G/6G networks are targeting to surpass 5G networks by increasing the pa-rameter values of these functions by an or-der of magnitude. In addition, the scale of beyond-5G/6G networks is planned to be ex-tended so that they become available for use in drone, aviation, outer space and marine operations. Because the number of wireless devices people use is exponentially increas-ing with the advances of communications technologies, design, testing and practical use of wireless systems using conventional methods are likely to become very difcult. Under the condition in which a vast number of wireless devices are densely used within a small space, monitoring of wireless commu-nications in real space will be impractically expensive and time-consuming. One poten-tial approach to monitoring this is to monitor wireless communications within cyberspace, which may enable efcient monitoring of complex, large-scale systems and detection of radio frequency interference that may oc-cur between similar or dissimilar systems. An R&D project aiming at increasing radio wave resources was launched in FY2020 under the title “Research and development for the ad-vancement of radio wave simulation system technology in virtual space.” The project will be funded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications from 2020 to 2023.Temporal synchronization of the cy-ber-physical system is critical to enable indi-viduals to remotely work with other individu-als, robots or avatars via cyberspace. Because reference signals used in wireless communi-cations will become more accurate, it may be feasible to develop more energy-efcient mobile communications systems by coordi-nating multiple terminal devices and base stations. It may also be feasible to precisely synchronize actions taking place at distant locations using accurate reference signals. NICT has been researching and developing technology basses needed to achieve syn-chronization, such as optical lattice clocks, chip scale atomic clocks, traceability tech-nologies and bidirectional wireless commu-nications technologies.White papers published by research orga-nizations both in Japan and abroad suggest that ultrahigh-speed (100 Gbit/s) wireless communications using a terahertz band may be available in beyond-5G / 6G networks. Active efforts by NICT and others led to a momentous decision at the 2019 World Ra-diocommunication Conference: a total band-width of 137 GHz in the vicinities of 300 GHz and 400 GHz was decided to be used both in xed and land mobile services. This inter-national agreement on the adoption of the broadest bandwidth ever used in wireless networks is highly signicant.NICT has also been researching 300 GHz band hardware and working to establish ITU-R and IEEE 802 standards in collabo-ration with the industrial and academic sec-tors. In another project, NICT is developing an advanced core network needed to put 100 Gbit/s-class wireless communications into practice. We previously developed an ex-tremely high speed optical ber communica-tions technology comprised of multicore -bers, which can be used as a base technology to develop a 100 Gbit/s-class wireless com-munications system, including a 100 Gbit/s-class access network.■ Future prospectsOne of our beyond-5G/6G R&D objec-tives is to develop articial neural networks needed to bring Japan’s Society 5.0 vision into reality by integrating physical space and cyberspace. In the face of a new normal way of living, this integrated technology may po-tentially enable us to create a system in which people dispersed in space can continue to be productive and engage in activities valuable to them by allowing them to remotely work together with other people, robots and ava-tars using ICT. To develop the technologies I described in this article with specic exam-ples, we need to integrate various technology components, work together with researchers overseas and make efforts to reach interna-tional agreements. I look forward to collabo-rating with many researchers.9NICT NEWS 2020 No.6
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