According to a press release, the group – known as ISG MAT – will explore: “Candidate techniques such as orthogonal multiple access, spatial division multiple access, non-orthogonal multiple access and rate-splitting multiple access. [These] enhance transmission efficiency across parameters such as spectrum efficiency, power consumption, latency and user fairness.”
The press release continued that “relevant deployment environments” considered by the group will include “indoor hotspot, urban macro [for instance, high demand density areas] and rural settings.” It will concentrate on “downlink multiple access techniques for the physical layer of the 3GPP radio interface.”
The group was officially launched with a kick-off meeting held in the middle of January, in London. This included 24 participants from industry, academia as well as government. The BBC’s Dr David Vargas was elected as chair, alongside vice chairs professor Bruno Clerckx from Imperial College London, and Viavi’s Dr. Stephen Wang.
Vargas said: "Multiple Access Techniques are at the core of mobile technology development and are considered as a key technology to enhance the radio interface for IMT-2030 systems.
“We are excited to launch the ISG MAT, bringing together industrial and academic members and play a crucial role in accelerating the development of advanced Multiple Access Techniques for 6G mobile systems."
According to ETSI, the group will produce reports to be considered by 3GPP, alongside “other relevant industry bodies” involved in 6G standardisation. It will thus “contribute to the development of 6G as a pervasive general-purpose communication system connecting humans and machines across a wide range of use cases.”
