Evolution Towards 6G Intelligent Wireless Networks: The Motivations and Challenges on the Enabling Technologies

The rapid development and advancement of mobile communication technology since the world’s first cellular mobile communication service was launched, has led to the emergence and evolution of new generation systems that can be seen in every decade. The fifth-generation (5G), recently appearing generation are being deployed to meet the needs of new use cases with diverse technologies and equipment and to support the massive number of Internet-connected devices and Internet of Thing (IoT) in the coming years. However, some technical issues and more unfulfilled expectations in 5G already have been identified, which become a driving force to a significant movement leading to the standardization of the new generation, the sixth generation (6G) means to expand 5G capabilities to a higher level to allow massive IoT-enabled within the intelligent wireless network. The 6G networks are projected to come with the key features of advanced network virtualization, space-air-ground integrated networking, and omnipresent intelligence. In this paper, we present a survey on wireless evolution towards the 6G networks with a focus on the main driving forces behind the movement to 6G. In addition, different technologies and uses cases of 6G networks are reviewed in this article. The expected features and key technologies on the network slicing technology with the Artificial Intelligent (AI) enhancement to enabling a multitude of services with varying quality of service (QoS) requirements and its challenge in 6G also will be discussed.