Accelerating 6G and NTN Development through Network Digital Twins

Digital twins — virtual models of physical systems like 6G, NTN, and 5G — make it possible to simulate, analyse, and optimize all network systems and components, including their non-terrestrial elements.

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This is especially useful for accelerating rollouts and identifying bottlenecks and drawbacks before they become real problems. Let's examine how implementing digital twins can benefit network equipment manufacturers and mobile operators and explore its role in R&D acceleration, site deployment automation, spectrum and energy optimization.

Benefits of digital twins for network equipment vendors

When it comes to the development and rollout of network equipment, digital twins offer two major benefits — especially given the growing complexity brought by Open RAN and Non-Terrestrial Networks, AI and large data, and low latency demands.

First and foremost, digital twins play a pivotal role in performance validation, particularly in complex, multi-vendor environments like Open RAN where interoperability challenges surpass those of traditional network architectures. They offer a virtual environment to simulate and evaluate end-to-end network behavior against key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling comprehensive analysis across both RAN and core domains.

This includes testing critical factors such as scalability, reliability, and traffic flow, as well as assessing the impact of introducing new radio, distributed, or central units (RU, DU, CU). By identifying performance bottlenecks, predicting failure points, and validating workflows and recovery mechanisms in a risk-free setting, digital twins significantly reduce deployment uncertainties. Most importantly, they provide a clear picture of the potential risks (or confirm the absence of them) when integrating new hardware or software components. This fosters operator confidence and accelerates adoption of Open RAN architectures.