An ultra energy-saving mechanism based on beacon signals for 6G networks^✩

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) and millimeter Wave (mmWave) have been considered as potential frequency bands for 6G cellular systems to meet the need of ultra-high data rates. However, indoor communications could be blocked in THz/mmW cellular systems due to the high free-space propagation loss. Deploying a large number of small base stations indoors has been considered as a promising solution for solving indoor coverage problems. However, base station dense deployment leads to a significant increase in system energy consumption. In this paper, we develop a novel ultra-efficient energy-saving mechanism with the aim of reducing energy consumption in 6G distributed indoor base station scenarios. Unlike the existing relevant protocol framework of 3GPP, which operates the cellular system based on constant system signaling messages (including cell ID, cell reselection information, etc.), the proposed mechanism eliminates the need for system messages. The intuition comes from the observation that the probability of having no users within the coverage area of an indoor base station is high, hence continuously sending system messages to guarantee the quality of service is unnecessary in indoor scenarios. Specifically, we design a dedicated beacon signal to detect whether there are users in the coverage area of the base station and switch off the main communication module when there are no active users for energy saving. The beacon frame structure is carefully designed based on the existing 3GPP specifications with minimal protocol modifications, and the protocol parameters involved are optimized. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can reduce the system energy from the order of tens of watts to the order of hundreds of milliwatts. Compared to traditional energy-saving schemes, the proposed mechanism achieves an average energy-saving gain of 58%, with a peak energy-saving gain of 90%.

Keywords

6G / Indoor coverage / Energy saving / User detection / Beacon signal

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