5G to 6G Project for Transportation and Public Works / Let's start with the realization of "reliable vehicle control" - Takeo Fujii(Professor, Center for Advanced Wireless Communications Research, The University of Electro-Communications)
ODAIBA IX Core/Industrial Transformation (IX) Leaders
Leaders Transforming Industrial Technology (No. 13)

XGMF kicked off its new project "Transportation and Public Systems 5G to 6G" in January 2026. This project focuses less on the future of public transportation from the telecommunications industry's perspective, and more on exploring what "future use cases" the parties involved in public transportation envision and how the telecommunications industry might be able to contribute to them. Takeo Fujii (Professor, Center for Advanced Wireless Communications Research, University of Electro-Communications), one of the industry's leading and extremely busy researchers, has been appointed as the leader of this project, involved in various projects, including the Effective Utilization of Radio Waves Committee of the Information and Communications Council (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). The project's direction and the future of mobility. We asked him about the direction of this project and the future of mobility. (TeleGraphic Editorial Department)

Let's start with the realization of "reliable vehicle control".

In recent years, the depletion of frequency bands has become an issue, but in reality, there are many frequency bands that are not being utilized in time and space. Therefore, Fujii Lab is focusing on cognitive radio and its linked wireless environment database as a way to utilize underutilized frequency bands. This database stores various parameters of the wireless environment, and cognitive radio users can access the database to recognize the wireless environment. In addition, by using wireless sensing as a method of database construction, it is possible to understand the status of the surrounding radio environment and to estimate the parameters of the radio environment. We believe that this should lead directly to the advancement of transportation systems using ITS (Intelligent Transportation System).

However, when we consider that vehicles and communication base stations cooperate with each other in ITS, it is highly likely that not only cars but also railroads and subways will be included in this "vehicle" category. Furthermore, since mobility (including automated driving) will ultimately be the total optimization of various types of individual vehicles, the XGMF project (which will start with land transportation) may need to include, for example, ships in its scope in the near future. When you think about it, the use of 5G/6G with its high speed, high capacity, wide coverage, and low latency is a prerequisite.

Of course, the idea of optimally combining multiple public transportation and other mobility services to meet individual mobility needs individually, as in Mobility as a Service (MaaS), may become important in the future, but this project should start with "How can 5G/6G contribute to achieving highly reliable vehicle control? However, this project should start with the question, "How can 5G/6G contribute to achieving reliable vehicle control? This concept of control includes maintenance. In fact, I think that public transportation is currently struggling with service and operational issues stemming from the cost and speed limitations of existing self-operated radios, the lack of engineers for maintenance, and the need to update the security equipment itself.

Some maintenance systems are beginning to utilize local 5G to transmit video images, analyze them with AI, and feed back inspection results. What is needed at this point is the concept of "reliability in congestion," which comes from the fact that a large number of passengers travel together in a vehicle. In particular, public transportation will be crucial to achieve this "reliability in congested wireless traffic," so it will be essential to ensure a different level of reliability from that of private cars.

In order to achieve this, it will be important to realize high-speed communications using millimeter waves, etc. that track vehicles in wireless networks for vehicles, and a mechanism to provide this to people using the vehicle, as well as how to make these networks coexist with existing networks. The development and maintenance of frequency sharing technology, including 5G systems, will be important. However, this will be solved through institutions and technology.

Dynamic frequency sharing has begun in Japan, but a leading example is the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) used in the United States. This is a mechanism for sharing private LTE and 5G networks in a 150MHz-wide frequency band in the 3.5GHz band (3550-3700MHz). This system enables wide-area connectivity, which has been difficult with conventional Wi-Fi, and low-cost deployment of private corporate networks in factories, etc., without obtaining a license, and is being used increasingly for industrial applications and IoT.

© Shigeru Takeda, Courtesy of Schrodingers.jp / Photograph

AI and 5G/6G for "Optimization of Comfort

As a result, in addition to the use of wireless communications in public transportation, we will see a world in which the comfort of providing communications to people on the move will be dramatically enhanced. Finally, we will then enter the phase of considering the "optimization of comfort" for the end user. Compared to satellite communications, there must be advantages because the vehicle is running on the ground. For example, to provide a wireless environment for a linear bullet train, it is unrealistic to use satellite communications, which have already been introduced for aircraft, because there are many tunnel sections in such a train. On the other hand, because the train is traveling on the ground, there is an advantage in communication speed, which is limited by satellite networks, and it is not a dream to use high-definition video in the train. Highly reliable 5G/6G is essential for such applications. AI will play a major role here, and will be able to control the user's behavior to make it more comfortable, for example, by providing suggestions from AI, such as "You should delay your ride one more stop. Of course, the AI may also be able to backcast the vehicle operation to achieve the end-user's comfort. It would be quite exciting to get to this point.

In this project, we will discuss 6G elemental technologies that contribute to service sophistication, smart maintenance, and equipment cost reduction from the user side (railroads, roads, and other public applications), as well as 6G service forms that contribute to industrial and public applications, in addition to discussions on the seeds side by researchers, development manufacturers, and carriers of elemental technologies, for the coming 6G. 6G service formats will be discussed. This may result in a requirement specification for 6G. First of all, please attend the "Future of Mobility Envisioned by Public Transportation (Integration of Advanced Industrial Technology and Advanced Communication Technology (IX) Workshop (Vol. 11)" to be held on Thursday, January 15, 2012. I myself will not be able to attend because of an overseas business trip on that day, but I hope to have a chance to meet you all again at a later date. (Talk)

---

XGMF ODAIBA IX core will hold "The Future of Mobility Envisioned by Public Transportation (Fusion of Advanced Industrial Technology and Advanced Communication Technology (IX) Workshop (Vol. 11)" on the upcoming Thursday, January 15.This page(This event is not limited to XGMF members. (This is not an event limited to XGMF members only.)
(TeleGraphic Editorial Board)