Terahertz Days: The role of Directional Terahertz Communications in the 6G era: Usage scenarios, system concepts, promises and challenges

The exploitation of the THz band is expected to catalyze 6G applications, as a solution to both wireless backhaul and fronthaul, and integrated backhaul/fronthaul applications. However, the utilization of THz wireless technologies comes with several challenges, mainly associated with the very high propagation losses in the THz regime, which require the utilization of high-gain directional antennas with strict beam alignment requirements, and with challenging blockage scenarios, which call for intelligent beam steering and blockage avoidance based medium access and resource allocation. In this talk, we first discuss critical usage scenarios and significant technology pillars defining the THz Wireless system concept. Then, a quantitative assessment of intelligent pencil beamforming wireless access technologies is presented, along with the impact of beam misalignment and blockage. Finally, the benefits of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are reported and their expected role in future THz wireless systems is discussed. Speaker(s): Angeliki Alexiou, Gunes Karabulut Kurt Agenda: 11:55 AM – 12:00: Workshop opening by Mansour Naslcheraghi, Chair of YP Montreal 12:00 AM – 12:05: Terahertz Days workshop series introduction and speaker introduction by chair of Terahertz Days, Dr. Gunes Karabulut Kurt 12:05 AM – 12:50: Talk by Prof. Angeliki Alexiou 12:50 AM – 01:00 or more (depending on speaker’s availability): Q & A session Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/285255