Previous generations of cellular communication, such as 5G, have been designed with the objective of improving key performance indicators (KPIs) such as throughput, latency, etc. However, to meet the evolving KPI demands and the ambitious sustainability targets for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, 6G will need to be designed differently. 6G will need to consider both the performance and sustainability targets for the various use cases it will serve. In addition, 6G will have various candidate technological enablers, making the design space of the system even more complex. Furthermore, due to the subjective nature of sustainability indicators, especially social sustainability, the literature still lacks clear methods to link them with technical enablers and 6G system design. Hence, in this article a novel method for 6G end-to-end (E2E) system design based on Knowledge graphs (KG) has been introduced. It considers as its input: the use case KPIs, use case sustainability requirements expressed as Key Values (KV) and KV Indicators (KVIs), the ability of the technological enablers to satisfy these KPIs and KVIs, the 6G system design principles defined in Hexa-X-II project, the maturity of a technological enabler and the dependencies between the various enablers. The KG method also introduces a novel approach for determining the key values addressed by a technological enabler. The effectiveness of the KG method was demonstrated by its application in designing the 6G E2E system for the cooperating mobile robot use case defined in the Hexa-X-II project, where 82 enablers were selected. Lastly, results from proof-of-concept demonstrations for a subset of the selected enablers have also been provided, which reinforce the efficacy of the KG method for designing a sustainable 6G system.

翻译：前几代蜂窝通信系统（如5G）在设计时主要致力于提升关键性能指标（KPI），例如吞吐量、延迟等。然而，为了满足不断演进的KPI需求以及信息通信技术（ICT）行业雄心勃勃的可持续发展目标，6G需要进行全新的设计。6G将需要兼顾其服务的各种应用场景的性能与可持续目标。此外，6G拥有多种候选技术使能器，这使得系统的设计空间更加复杂。同时，由于可持续性指标（尤其是社会可持续性）具有主观性，现有文献仍缺乏将其与技术使能器及6G系统设计明确关联的方法。为此，本文提出了一种基于知识图谱（KG）的6G端到端（E2E）系统设计新方法。该方法将以下因素作为输入：应用场景的KPI、以关键价值（KV）及其指标（KVI）形式表述的应用场景可持续需求、技术使能器满足这些KPI和KVI的能力、Hexa-X-II项目定义的6G系统设计原则、技术使能器的成熟度以及各使能器之间的依赖关系。该KG方法还引入了一种新途径，用于确定技术使能器所实现的关键价值。通过在Hexa-X-II项目定义的协作移动机器人应用场景中设计6G端到端系统，验证了KG方法的有效性——在该场景中成功筛选出82个使能器。最后，针对所选使能器子集的概念验证演示结果进一步强化了KG方法在可持续6G系统设计中的有效性。