Boosting Short-Range Wireless Communications in Entities: the 6G-SHINE Vision

In the coming 6th Generation (6G) era, the perva-siveness of wireless communications in everyday life and vertical markets is expected to take a major leap, enabling revolutionary and highly demanding use cases. In-X subnetworks are expected to be located at the edge of the 6G 'network of networks'; they can provide short-range high-performance wireless connectivity in entities like robots, industrial production modules, vehicles, classrooms, etc., overcoming the limitation of current wireless technologies in terms of data rate, latency, complexity, and reliability. In this paper, we present the vision of the 6G SHort range extreme communication IN Entities (6G-SHINE) project, granted by the Smart Network and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU). 6G-SHINE is the first project exclusively focused on short-range in-X subnetworks, and aims at providing a significant breakthrough in multiple wireless communication fields, from physical layer to network architectures. We present the main project objectives and provide an overview of the technology components being researched. Also, we discuss the expected long-term beneficial impact of the project and its potential for future 6G standardization.