mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

The Road Towards 6G: A Comprehensive Survey

arXiv 2102.01420 ↗First posted 2 Feb 2021eess.SPcited by 40

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Abstract (arXiv)

As of today, the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system has been rolled out in many countries and the number of 5G subscribers already reaches a very large scale. It is time for academia and industry to shift their attention towards the next generation. At this crossroad, an overview of the current state of the art and a vision of future communications are definitely of interest. This article thus aims to provide a comprehensive survey to draw a picture of the sixth generation (6G) system in terms of drivers, use cases, usage scenarios, requirements, key performance indicators (KPIs), architecture, and enabling technologies. First, we attempt to answer the question of "Is there any need for 6G?" by shedding light on its key driving factors, in which we predict the explosive growth of mobile traffic until 2030, and envision potential use cases and usage scenarios. Second, the technical requirements of 6G are discussed and compared with those of 5G with respect to a set of KPIs in a quantitative manner. Third, the state-of-the-art 6G research efforts and activities from representative institutions and countries are summarized, and a tentative roadmap of definition, specification, standardization, and regulation is projected. Then, we identify a dozen of potential technologies and introduce their principles, advantages, challenges, and open research issues. Finally, the conclusions are drawn to paint a picture of "What 6G may look like?". This survey is intended to serve as an enlightening guideline to spur interests and further investigations for subsequent research and development of 6G communications systems.

Key facts. Cited by 40 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 2 Feb 2021.

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 1; 2022: 6; 2023: 6; 2024: 12; 2025: 10; 2026: 5.

40 papers.

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  1. 2023Holistic Network Virtualization and Pervasive Network Intelligence for 6Gcited by 14
  2. 2021Edge-Native Intelligence for 6G Communications Driven by Federated Learning: A Survey of Trends and Challengescited by 12
  3. 2024A Survey on Integrated Sensing, Communication, and Computationcited by 12
  4. 2024Beyond the Edge: An Advanced Exploration of Reinforcement Learning for Mobile Edge Computing, its Applications, and Future Research Trajectoriescited by 9
  5. 2022A Survey on XAI for 5G and Beyond Security: Technical Aspects, Challenges and Research Directionscited by 8
  6. 2023Resource-efficient Generative Mobile Edge Networks in 6G Era: Fundamentals, Framework and Case Studycited by 7
  7. 2022Federated Distillation based Indoor Localization for IoT Networkscited by 6
  8. 2025DeepSeek-Inspired Exploration of RL-based LLMs and Synergy with Wireless Networks: A Surveycited by 6
  9. 2023Federated Learning for 6G: Paradigms, Taxonomy, Recent Advances and Insightscited by 4
  10. 2024Survey of Graph Neural Network for Internet of Things and NextG Networkscited by 4
  11. 2025Agentic AI in 6G Software Businesses: A Layered Maturity Modelcited by 3
  12. 2024ViT LoS V2X: Vision Transformers for Environment-aware LoS Blockage Prediction for 6G Vehicular Networkscited by 2
28 more
  1. 2024Diff-GOn: Enhancing Diffusion Models for Goal-Oriented Communicationscited by 2
  2. 2023Semantic Text Compression for Classificationcited by 1
  3. 2024DISTINQT: A Distributed Privacy Aware Learning Framework for QoS Prediction for Future Mobile and Wireless Networkscited by 1
  4. 2024Optimizing Wireless Networks with Deep Unfolding: Comparative Study on Two Deep Unfolding Mechanismscited by 1
  5. 2024FLARE: A New Federated Learning Framework with Adjustable Learning Rates over Resource-Constrained Wireless Networkscited by 1
  6. 2024Unified Error Correction Code Transformer with Low Complexitycited by 1
  7. 2025SFL-LEO: Asynchronous Split-Federated Learning Design for LEO Satellite-Ground Network Frameworkcited by 1
  8. 2025Beamforming and Resource Allocation for Delay Minimization in RIS-Assisted OFDM Systemscited by 1
  9. 2025Cross-Attention Message-Passing Transformers for Code-Agnostic Decoding in 6G Networkscited by 1
  10. 2026Real-Time Adaptive Anomaly Detection in Industrial IoT Environmentscited by 1
  11. 2026A Communication-Centric 6G-LLM Architecture for Scalable Tactical Autonomous Defense Vehicle Networkscited by 1
  12. 2026LOLLA: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Closed-Loop Link Adaptation Towards a GPU-Accelerated AI-RANcited by 1
  13. 2022Deep Reinforcement Learning for Uplink Multi-Carrier Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access Resource Allocation Using Buffer State Informationcited by 0
  14. 2022Trust-Awareness to Secure Swarm Intelligence from Data Injection Attackcited by 0
  15. 2022A Graph Neural Networks based Framework for Topology-Aware Proactive SLA Management in a Latency Critical NFV Application Use-casecited by 0
  16. 2022Beyond 5G Networks: Integration of Communication, Computing, Caching, and Controlcited by 0
  17. 2023Multi-Power Level Q-Learning Algorithm for Random Access in NOMA mMTC Systemscited by 0
  18. 2023Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Resource Allocation for Cloud Native Wireless Networkcited by 0
  19. 2024Latency optimized Deep Neural Networks (DNNs): An Artificial Intelligence approach at the Edge using Multiprocessor System on Chip (MPSoC)cited by 0
  20. 2024Convolutional Neural Networks and Mixture of Experts for Intrusion Detection in 5G Networks and beyondcited by 0
  21. 2024Learning for Cross-Layer Resource Allocation in MEC-Aided Cell-Free Networkscited by 0
  22. 2025The Future of Internet of Things and Multimodal Language Models in 6G Networks: Opportunities and Challengescited by 0
  23. 2025Latent Diffusion Model Based Denoising Receiver for 6G Semantic Communication: From Stochastic Differential Theory to Applicationcited by 0
  24. 2025Semantic-Aware Visual Information Transmission With Key Information Extraction Over Wireless Networkscited by 0
  25. 2025Where 6G Stands Today: Evolution, Enablers, and Research Gapscited by 0
  26. 2025Communication-Efficient and Interoperable Distributed Learningcited by 0
  27. 2026Timeliness-Oriented Scheduling and Resource Allocation in Multi-Region Collaborative Perceptioncited by 0
  28. 2026AntennaFlow: A Generative Flow Model for Offset Correction in Phaseless Antenna Testingcited by 0