From 5G to 6G: key drivers, applications and research directions

The world is on the cusp of experiencing beyond 5G and it will surely reshape our lives in the most effective way. The fourth industrial revolution has been laid upon the pillars of 5G, cloud computing, and machine learning. We are on the verge of a merger of the physical world with the digital world. This article aims to peek into the future, in an era beyond 5G. To see a wireless world, 5G has to evolve to 6G. This article highlights the challenges posed by the dynamically disruptive emerging technologies, highly sophisticated applications, and unlimited data handling in an era of 5G, which will drift towards 6G in near future. The article presents the vision for 6G, key enabling technologies for 6G, and finally the bottleneck constraints and future research directions for beyond 5G. We foresee that 6G will be the key technology for sustainable development in highly populated developing countries and far-flung areas with sparsely spread populations. We stress upon 5G and beyond research to have an inbuilt societal awareness of the users about the social impacts and the use of the advanced technologies.