Energy self-sustainability in 6G

With 5G being commercially deployed worldwide, research into 6G mobile communication networks has started. One of the major key performance indicators for 6G is its extremely massive connectivity for small devices to enable so-called Internet of Everything (IoE), which is a scale up from Internet of Things (IoT). Most of these IoE devices will be either battery-powered or battery-less. How to prolong the lifetime of these IoE devices becomes a key challenge. This calls for effort from two complementary aspects: 1) energy efficiency to reduce IoE device's energy consumption on one hand and 2) energy self-supply to open up new energy supply to IoE devices on the other. It is envisioned that 6G will provide energy self-sustainability (ESS) to massive IoE devices.