Demo Abstract: Experimental 6G Research Platform for Digital Twin-Enabled Beam Management

The millimeter-wave (mmWave) domain has attracted significant interest as a novel radio spectrum for mobile networks. Using the vast available spectrum, the lack of radio resources in the sub-6 GHz domain is overcome. However, mmWave propagation characteristics constitute severe challenges for the network, particularly when it comes to mobility support, beyond line-of-sight coverage, and beam alignment. This work presents an experimental 6G research platform that enables beam management and scaled mmWave network coverage studies based on context information. The interaction of the physical setup operating a 28.5 GHz link and the digital twin for link quality assessment and context-aware beam management allows for the development and evaluation of so-called smart radio environments enabled by reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. Here, we use it to validate the HELIOS framework consisting of custom-tailored passive reflectors, as presented in a previous work. As a result, we demonstrate context-aware beam switching to HELIOS-based propagation paths, thus recovering and even avoiding link failures from blockages throughout user mobility.