Keio University has started a research project in FY2022 entitled "Development of innovative communication systems using error-free plastic optical fibers" which was proposed by Professor Yasuhiro Koike, Director of Keio Photonics Research Institute (KPRI), as the Head of Research, and adopted as "General Issue 05001 Beyond 5G Functional Realization Program" of the "Beyond 5G R&D Promotion Project" solicited by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).

According to "Beyond 5G Promotion Strategy ~ Roadmap towards 6G ~" issued in June 2020 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the schedule for adopting Beyond 5G around 2030 calls for, in particular, concentrated efforts maximizing advantages of our country's strengths to be carried out during the first 5 years of Leading Activities Phase.

The NICT Beyond 5G R&D Promotion Project aims to strengthen Japan's international competitiveness in Beyond 5G by conducting R&D on element technologies necessary for the realization of Beyond 5G with private companies and universities through public offering, establishing element technologies for commercialization, and reflecting them in international standards.

The adopted research theme "Development of innovative communication systems using error-free plastic optical fibers" aims to create data transmission systems by innovative error-free POF (Plastics Optical Fibers) that realizes high bandwidth, energy saving, low latency data communications. Our total contract amount is approximately 5oo million yen/year for FY2022.  We aim to establish the innovative communication systems by error-free POF as an element technology necessary to realize Beyond 5G by FY2025.