LGU+ Wins Prime Minister's Award for 6G Antenna 'Intelligent Mirror'

Transmitting External Building Signals Indoors to Eliminate Shadow Zones
Enhancing Radio Wave Efficiency Without Additional Power Consumption, Contributing to Energy Savings

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Su-yeon] LG Uplus announced on the 21st that it has won the Prime Minister's Award at the 23rd Radio and Broadcasting Technology Awards for developing and demonstrating the next-generation mobile communication antenna technology called 'Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (Intelligent Mirror)'.

Hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Korea Radio Promotion Association, the Radio and Broadcasting Technology Awards are given to companies that develop and commercialize excellent technologies and products in the radio and broadcasting fields. LG Uplus has been focusing on developing next-generation antennas that can utilize ultra-wideband frequencies ranging from hundreds of megahertz (MHz) to tens of gigahertz (GHz) ahead of the 6G era, where large-capacity services such as holograms and extended reality (XR) will be commercialized.

This technology, called the 'Intelligent Mirror,' is used to transmit or reflect external building signals indoors to resolve mobile communication shadow areas. In particular, it can improve radio wave efficiency without additional power consumption, which is expected to save energy when operating communication networks. LG Uplus formed a consortium with CriMo, an antenna specialist company, to verify the performance and applicability of RIS. It was confirmed that radio wave efficiency can be improved even at 5G frequencies.

LG Uplus is verifying the performance of RIS in the terahertz wave band, a candidate frequency band for 6G, with the research team of Professor Hong Won-bin at Pohang University of Science and Technology. They plan to secure core 6G technology by producing prototypes in the future. Additionally, it is expected to contribute to operational automation in connection with 6G networks, where artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will become widespread.

Kwon Jun-hyuk, Executive Vice President and Head of the Network Division at LG Uplus, said, "I believe we received this Prime Minister's Award in recognition of our efforts to cultivate next-generation mobile communication technology while fulfilling the mission of enhancing customer perceived quality," adding, "We will continue to open the era of 'Uplus 3.0,' which realizes customer satisfaction based on excellent quality."