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：以往几代蜂窝通信（如5G）旨在提升吞吐量、时延等关键性能指标（KPI）。然而，为满足不断演进的KPI需求以及信息与通信技术（ICT）行业雄心勃勃的可持续性目标，6G需采用不同设计思路。6G将需同时兼顾其服务的各类用例的性能与可持续性目标。此外，由于6G具有多种候选技术使能要素，系统设计空间将更为复杂。同时，因可持续性指标（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要素及6G系统设计关联的明确方法。为此，本文提出一种基于知识图谱（KG）的新型6G端到端（E2E）系统设计方法。该方法以以下内容为输入：用例KPI、以关键值（KV）和KV指标（KVI）表达的用例可持续性需求、技术使能要素满足这些KPI和KVI的能力、Hexa-X-II项目定义的6G系统设计原则、技术使能要素的成熟度以及不同使能要素间的依赖关系。该KG方法还引入了一种确定技术使能要素所对应关键值的新型途径。通过将其应用于Hexa-X-II项目定义的协作移动机器人用例的6G E2E系统设计（共选取82个使能要素），验证了KG方法的有效性。最后，本文还提供了所选使能要素子集的概念验证演示结果，进一步证实了KG方法在可持续6G系统设计中的有效性。