NextG Wireless R&D Gap Analysis

NIST has partnered with the National Science Foundation and Department of Defense (DoD) Research and Engineering group to identify technical gaps critical to the sustained innovation of post-5G wireless systems, building on the findings of NIST SP 1219 published in 2018. The team invites interested stakeholders to participate in a series of virtual workshops to identify long-term (10+ years out) R&D gaps not already being researched by industry or academic organizations to inform future R&D planning activities.

Through stakeholder interviews, survey instruments, and facilitated virtual discussions, our team will assess recent research advancements and characterize critical-path technology gaps currently going unaddressed by actors in the wireless industry. This working group will source recommendations from stakeholder participants representing diverse research backgrounds and technical areas of expertise. Beginning in Spring 2022 NIST will convene virtual workshops to invite stakeholder experts to characterize technical areas of interest such as joint communications and radar sensing, higher frequency bands, energy sustainable networks, and others of interest to participants. Specific gaps may relate to testing, measurement, and evaluation; software and hardware development; deployment, management, and operations; experimentation; and workforce development.

This effort is open to the public and we are currently recruiting interested stakeholders for working group participation. Project sponsors intend to complete market research in February and begin virtual workshops in April 2022. The format and estimated level of effort required for participation is as follows:

• Read-Ahead: Sponsors provide all working group participants with concise read-ahead materials describing technical concepts, specific R&D gaps, current activities, and NextG applications for each workshop topic area to review (1 hour total).
• Written Input: Sponsors publish a data collection survey to invite participants to identify and describe R&D gaps related to each workshop topic (0.5 hours every month).
• Facilitated Panel Discussion: Sponsors analyze survey responses and lead a virtual panel to discuss stakeholder input in greater detail. Sponsors facilitate open group discussion for working group participants to provide feedback on panel discussion (1.5 hours every month)
• Report Writing: Sponsors will begin drafting summary reports following each virtual workshop. We will extend the opportunity for workshop participants to provide feedback on draft findings before publishing these reports externally (1-2 hours total).

Sponsors intend to host monthly workshops between April - June 2022. Published outputs from this effort will not attribute input to specific individuals. Interested participants may contact Marc Leh (mleh [at] corneralliance.com ()) or Miller Higgins (mhiggins [at] corneralliance.com) for additional information.

The flyer linked here provides more details regarding the NextG Communications Gap Analysis.