Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF
In the Fraunhofer lighthouse project 6G SENTINEL, the five participating Fraunhofer Institutes are developing key technologies for the impending 6G mobile communications standard. To this end, they are working on further improving the data rates, availability, accuracy, service quality and reliability of mobile communications. 6G SENTINEL aims not only to push existing 5G technologies further, but also to develop brand new approaches that will help applications such as virtual reality, digital twins and autonomous driving achieve a genuine breakthrough with 6G. The top priorities are to exploit terahertz frequencies and develop technology for more flexible networks, in particular by incorporating satellites and flying platforms.
6G SENTINEL is targeting improvements to device antennas and front-end modules. It also seeks to optimize transmission technologies in the radio access network (RAN) and increase the flexibility of the core network. This means the project will help further develop all relevant components of a mobile communications network.
Fraunhofer IAF contributes to hardware development using its innovative mHEMT and GaN technology and develops transmitter modules with beam steering in the D band (110–170 GHz).