Beacon Signal based Energy-saving Mechanism for 6G Networks

Terahertz (THz) and millimeter wave (mmWave) have been considered as potential frequency bands for 6G cellular systems to meet the need of ultra-high data rates. However, indoor communications could be blocked in THz/mmW cellular systems due to the high free-space propagation loss. Deploying a large number of small base stations indoors has been considered as a promising solution for solving indoor coverage problems. However, base station dense deployment leads to a significant increase in system energy consumption. In this paper, we develop a novel ultra-efficient energy-saving mechanism with the aim of reducing energy consumption in 6G distributed indoor base station scenarios. Specifically, we design a dedicated beacon signal to detect whether there are users in the coverage area of the base station and switch off the main communication module when there are no active users for energy saving. The working process is carefully designed based on the existing 3GPP specifications with minimal protocol modifications, and the protocol parameters involved are optimized. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can reduce the system energy from the order of tens of watts to the order of hundreds of milliwatts. Compared to traditional energy-saving schemes, the proposed mechanism achieves an average energy-saving gain of 58%, with a peak energy-saving gain of 90%.