6G Hardware Enablers for Cell Free Coherent
Communications and Sensing

6G-REFERENCE envisions a future where urban areas are equipped with sustainable solutions
that can cope with the ever-increasing traffic demands and population densification, while
providing disruptive capabilities like the materialization of the internet of sense.

6G-REFERENCE will:

DEVELOP

Develop integrated circuit and antenna component solutions, including dynamic frequency filtering and modulated radiation, to enable efficient spectrum coexistence schemes.

DEVELOP

Develop integrated circuit and antenna component solutions, including dynamic frequency filtering and modulated radiation, to enable efficient spectrum coexistence schemes.

DEPLOY

Deploy practical hardware enablers in terms of low complexity, cost and power consumption that could end up constituting a reference design for future 6G-distributed radios.

DEPLOY

Deploy practical hardware enablers in terms of low complexity, cost and power consumption that could end up constituting a reference design for future 6G-distributed radios.

Objectives

6G-REFERENCE will develop hardware enablers constituting a reference design of distributed
radios for a cell-free communication and sensing system operating in the 10-15 GHz range.

The project targets low complexity and low power, in other words, practical integrated circuits
(IC) and antenna systems for 6G applications. It aims at enabling new functionalities addressing D-MIMO communication scenarios but extended to support distributed sensing and accurate localization and positioning.

Objectives

6G-REFERENCE will develop hardware enablers constituting a reference design of distributed
radios for a cell-free communication and sensing system operating in the 10-15 GHz range.

The project targets low complexity and low power, in other words, practical integrated circuits
(IC) and antenna systems for 6G applications. It aims at enabling new functionalities addressing D-MIMO communication scenarios but extended to support distributed sensing and accurate localization and positioning.

Challenges

Accurate
synchronization
among distributed
radio units (cell-free
deployments)

Fronthaul data distribution

Integration of sensing capabilities

Low complexity/cost/
consumption radios

Coexistence with
other services

Methodology

Explore radio system
operation in the
10-15GHz range

Develop hardware
concepts and show
feasibility in CMOS

Use additive
manufacturing for
antenna arrays and
nanotechnology for
sensors

6G-REFERENCE Project Newsflash #3 – July 2025: Spreading our 6G Research All Over the World

Spain, The Netherlands, UK, Poland and USA. The 6G-REFERENCE partners have been very busy during the past few months travelling all over the world to spread our project preliminary research results in several events, meetings and conferences. At 6G-REFERENCE, we envision a future where urban areas are equipped with sustainable solutions that can cope with...

Our Technical Manager Eric Klumperink Brings the 6G-REFERENCE Research to IMS 2025 in San Francisco

Eric Klumperink, the 6G-REFERENCE Technical Manager and Associate Professor at the University of Twente, delivered a presentation as an invited speaker titled “Highly Linear Time-variant Mixers/Filters: Operation and Analysis”, as part of a workshop organized by IMS and RFIC Technical Program Committee at the 2025 IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) International Microwave Symposium...

6G-REFERENCE at the SNS JU Journal 2025

One more year, the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) has published their annual journal: the SNS JU Journal 2025, including information about 6G-REFERENCE, as they did last year in the SNS Journal 2024. In the 2025 issue, you can discover more about the 6G-REFERENCE project research activities, technologies, objectives and demo cases...

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