The 6G radio access network (RAN) architecture is emerging as a disciplined evolution of 5G RAN. The 5G baseline introduced modular base station, providing a flexible framework for diverse deployment scenarios and multi-vendor interoperability. The key architectural challenge for 6G RAN is to preserve these benefits while adapting the RAN to new deployment and service requirements. This article reviews the emerging 3GPP 6G RAN architecture with emphasis on boundary selection. It discusses central unit and distributed unit split enhancements, recognition of radio unit as a distinct logical unit, and the RAN-core network interface study, where point-to-point signaling is favored over service-based interface for connectivity services. It also highlights open areas including RAN-core network interface for non-connectivity services, data collection framework, and artificial intelligence for 6G RAN.
Intent-based network management is the emerging paradigm for 6G service lifecycle automation, with the 3GPP intent management framework (TS~28.312) defining creation, translation, fulfilment, and assurance stages. Existing fulfilment and assurance approaches require deep packet i…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to play an important role in the sixth-generation (6G) air interface design, but making the air interface truly AI-native requires more than applying learning algorithms to individual radio functions. The deeper challenge is architectural:…
The rapid development of agentic AI and multi-agent systems is establishing AI agent communication as a fundamental requirement for the future Internet. While a diverse array of agent communication protocols has recently emerged, these solutions currently suffer from interoperabi…
Emerging uplink-dominant 6G use cases, such as cooperative vehicular streaming, require efficient transmission of high-volume visual data over limited wireless resources. While semantic communications can reduce traffic by prioritizing task-relevant content, most existing approac…
The rapid emergence of sixth-generation (6G) networks and the low-altitude economy has accelerated the evolution of wireless infrastructures toward air-ground integrated coverage networks (AGICNs), which seamlessly fuse terrestrial and aerial communication resources. However, exi…
Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architectures introduce programmable Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controllers (Near-RT RICs) that support closed-loop control through xApps at timescales from 10 ms to 1 s. Although AI has been widely studied for RAN optimization, fewer works d…