Connected Futures Festival: 6G Demos at Belfast

There’s a lot of power in these tiny panels.

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (or RIS) can be used to bounce existing signals from hotspot to not spots. While individually small, the RIS panels can be built out in a modular fashion to cover larger areas and custom shapes depending on need. They can be stuck to walls or street furniture, to help reflect signals into areas without blanket coverage. Created in Belfast as part of the REASON project, this neat bit of kit is set to enable the future of ubiquitous connectivity.

The promise of higher bandwidth and lower latency means the stakes are higher for overcoming natural hurdles to network connectivity — like the buildings we live in, and the landscapes that surround us. Solutions like RIS will be key to achieving the consistency of connection that will be needed to run next generation applications for 6G networks and beyond.

There’s a lot to think about when taking care of a network: security, coverage, users, energy efficiency. And each factor, naturally, can have a knock-on effect on the next. So how do you optimise for all of these things?

Give the process a go yourself with this hands-on demo. What happens to user access when you ramp up security measures? Does your energy efficiency take a hit when you boost coverage? Is there a sweet spot where everything ticks over just right? These are all questions that will continue to grow in importance for future networks, as connectivity infrastructure underpins ever more critical operations and business applications.

Network configuration is changing with the introducing of 6G, as the complexity of how we connect — and what we use those connections for — increases exponentially. This will include networks in which devices won’t necessarily connect to individual cells, but instead maintain simultaneous connections to multiple base stations. The idea is that this will provide more sustainable and cost-effective connectivity, without having to take a hit on those other important configuration considerations. The REASON project is developing a totally new network typology, as well as employing cutting-edge AI technology to rethink and reshape the way that complex future networks can be managed.