Recently, China has taken the lead in defining the use plan of 5g system in if frequency band. The three major communication operators will take the first step of 5g business in 2018 and strive to achieve large-scale business in 2020. So, what's the difference between 4G and 5g networks? What is the strength of 5g net?
There is an old saying in the communication industry: 2G follow, 3G breakthrough, 4G synchronization, 5g lead.
In addition to operators, several mainstream mobile phone manufacturers in China have also participated in the formulation of 5g standard work and started the exploration of 5g mobile phone application scenarios. In June this year, vivo, which has been invested in R & D for more than one year, shared some imagination about 5g smart phones in the future. After five months, what is the progress and challenge of vivo in 5g R & D?
Recently, Sina Technology made an exclusive interview with Qin Fei, director of research and development of vivo 5g.
As we all know, terminal manufacturers are the most close to users in the whole communication industry chain. For the majority of consumers, they can really feel the difference of 5g, and also need to use intelligent terminals. In Qin Fei's opinion, in addition to the regular communication, information, game, entertainment, photo taking and other functions of 4G mobile phones, what's more important in 5g era is that 5g applications can be applied to the practical functions of users, so they are willing to pay for 5g.
Qin Fei believes that 5g smart phones in the future should become three centers of individuals, namely, smart perception center, smart control center and smart service center. "Like a friend, it should have insight into users' interests, hobbies, habits and even feelings". He compared 5g mobile phone to a personal assistant, which can provide more human services anytime and anywhere, which will be the biggest improvement of 5g smart phone.
Qin Fei said that 5g mobile phones can not be developed as a simple single product, but should be treated as a system project. 5g mobile terminals are only the closest link to users in this project. "Through 5g network, mobile phones with AI will cooperate with intelligent computing centers at all levels in the network to become more intelligent and user-friendly terminals.".
Qin Fei said frankly that at present, there are still many challenges and technical difficulties in the research and development of 5g terminal products, such as terminal power saving, battery life and RF related technologies.
The following is part of the interview:
Sina Technology: you have proposed 5g smart phones, which should be combined with AI. How is it going in five months?
Qin Fei: first of all, in terms of progress, the main work during this period is how to integrate AI and 5g, and further decompose the technical framework. As a terminal company, the most important thing is to find 5g application scenarios and provide intelligent services in these scenarios.
To identify scenarios and provide appropriate services, the first thing to bear the brunt is smart computing. Smart phones will have the ability of deep learning. Through the high-performance and low-cost 5g network, smart phones will further communicate with all levels of smart computing centers in the network, cooperate with each other, and provide consumers with more intelligent services.
Sina science and technology: you study communication all year round. What are the defects of current mobile phones?
Qin Fei: specifically, in terms of terminal power saving and battery life, the current terminal products have the problem of excessive power consumption, so it is necessary to further explore the technology of terminal power saving. Through a large number of tests by vivo researchers, it is found that the terminal power saving is mainly in a large number of useless, redundant and frequent monitoring, measurement and detection functions, which will have room for improvement.
From the function machine to the smart machine, it is a retrogression from the perspective of battery life. Cell phone batteries used to last for half a month or a week, but now it's a day or a few hours. People need rechargeable batteries every day. So the problem of mobile power consumption is a pain point for our terminal companies and consumers.
After 5g, we found that the broadband has become larger, from 20MB to 100MB, which will consume more power. So we did some things. We used 4G mobile phones to test the power consumption of each module in the actual network, including baseband, battery, screen, audio and video, etc., and made a detailed test of the current of each module in actual use, with the measurement accuracy reaching millisecond level.
We found that 70% of the power consumption of the communication module is the power consumption of the communication module under the condition of normal use of the mobile phone (normal use of the mobile phone is to make a few calls, go to wechat, occasionally watch videos, etc., all playing mobile games for five consecutive hours).
There are many defects in the design of communication protocol, which cause frequent monitoring, detection and measurement. In order to avoid the frequent monitoring mentioned above, we designed a very power-saving early indication signal, and more adaptive adjustment of the user's mobile state measurement cycle and other methods. These designs have not been pushed into 5g protocol at present. We hope to promote them in the next version. According to the simulation results, the normal use time of mobile phone is expected to double after using these technologies.
Sina Technology: imagine what kind of experience 5g will bring to people in the future?
Qin Fei: first, 5g mobile phone. Now you have a lot of imagination, including the screen, the display form has changed, the shape may no longer be 'small board brick'. Although the shape will change, there are several things that can't change: first, it's portable and mobile, which is certainly a necessary condition for a mobile device; second, the original basic functions remain unchanged, such as access to information, games, entertainment, photography, and basic functions. In addition, we have more imagination about 5g, and put forward three visions:
First of all, it is a 5g smart phone combined with artificial intelligence. It is a smart perception center. It needs to sense the environment around me. At the same time, I can sense the whole world and even any corner through the Internet of things. If you need this intelligence perception information, this perception will be calculated through our artificial intelligence. This is one of the inputs to smart services.
Second, intelligent control center, control is the output of intelligent services, such as smart home, now we can simply turn on the air conditioner and TV by operating the mobile phone. In the future, these functions are intelligent. When you know that you are going to leave work, you will turn on the air conditioner in advance, instead of manual operation.
The third is the intelligent service center, with the above input and output capabilities, and finally a brain to provide you with various functions in your future life and work, which can help you to be a secretary and assistant, both emotional and intelligent. At this time, 5g smart phone becomes a smart perception center, smart control center and smart service center. We hope that this is the change that 5g mobile phones superimposed on 4G can bring to you.