Compared with the energy efficiency of conventional mobile communication systems, the energy efficiency of fifth generation (5G) communication systems has been improved more than 30 times. However, the energy consumption of 5G communication systems is 3 times of the energy consumption of fourth generation (4G) communication systems when the wireless traffic is increased more than 100 times in the last decade. It is anticipated that the traffic of future sixth generation (6G) communication systems will keep an exponential growth in the next decade. It is a key issue how much space is left for improving of energy efficiency in mobile communication systems. To answer the question, an entropy-based energy dissipation model based on nonequilibrium thermodynamics is first proposed for mobile communication systems. Moreover, the theoretical minimal energy dissipation limits are derived for typical modulations in mobile communication systems. Simulation results show that the practical energy dissipation of information processing and information transmission is three and seven orders of magnitude away from the theoretical minimal energy dissipation limits in mobile communication systems, respectively. These results provide some guidelines for energy efficiency optimization in future mobile communication systems.

翻译：与传统移动通信系统的能效相比，第五代（5G）通信系统的能效提升了30倍以上。然而，在过去十年无线流量增长超100倍的背景下，5G通信系统的能耗是第四代（4G）通信系统的3倍。预计未来第六代（6G）通信系统的流量将在未来十年保持指数级增长。移动通信系统能效提升的空间还有多大，这是一个关键问题。为解答该问题，本文首次基于非平衡态热力学提出了面向移动通信系统的熵基能量耗散模型。此外，推导了移动通信系统中典型调制方式的理论最小能量耗散极限。仿真结果表明，移动通信系统中信息处理和信息传输的实际能量耗散分别比理论最小能量耗散极限高出三个和七个数量级。这些结果为未来移动通信系统的能效优化提供了指导准则。