6G will provide ultimate experience for all through hyper-connectivity involving humans and machines, which will be achieved by connecting hundreds of billions of devices. This will require extremely high data rates in the range of 1 Tb/s. Likewise, many applications such as connected autonomous vehicles (CAV) or telesurgery will demand ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC), where a latency below 100 us is expected. On top of it, low power consumption is a must for 6G, where energy efficiency is considered as a key performance indicator (KPI) and is expected to exceed 1 Tb/J.

 

In order to make 6G possible, all the components of the 6G system must be optimized towards these goals. If a single component has high latency, the latency of the entire system may be compromised; and the same occurs for the other two KPIs. Thus, the way to get closer to the performance expected for 6G involves that experts in each of the components of the 6G system provide optimized solutions for these components.

 

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is a cornerstone for the implementation of communication systems. Therefore, it is essential to study this algorithm in depth and provide solutions that deal with the stringent requirements of 6G communications sytems. Accordingly, the main goal of the RAFFTING project is to break the limitations of current FFT architectures that may hinder the development of 6G. This is achieved by providing significant advancements in three areas of high importance for 6G: Non-power-of-two FFTs, low latency, and low power consumption.