Guest Editorial: Special Issue on "Comparison of 5G and Emerging 6G Technology and Its Application to Develop New Generation of Wireless Sensor Networks"

Abstract

As the commercial implementations of 5G networks have been initiated in different regions of the world, the focus of the researchers is bending towards the next generation of wireless communication. This research study intends to investigate the requisites of the fast establishment of the theoretical and practical measures for sixth generation (6G) wireless communication. To this end, this paper first outlined the existing research works that have considered different aspects of 6G, and then based on this existing works, the future vision is established. Then, the 6G vision is based on four types of connectivity and is summarized as “Wherever you think, everything follows your heart.” To fill the gap between the market requirements after one decade and the limited capabilities of 5G, different specifications of 6G that make it an appropriate replacement are discussed. Furthermore, different candidate technologies that can potentially realize the 6G communication are studied, followed by discussion on different challenges in the realization and possible research directions to cope with these challenges. By exploring the vision of future, its specification, and key candidate technologies, this paper attempts to summarize the general 6G framework. In addition, with mentioned challenges in realization of 6G, the aim of this paper is to guide the researcher and attract their interest to consider them.