Interactive map of SNS projects

The project goal is to create a collaborative environment for European and global stakeholders involved in the preparation of 6G smart networks and services. It is the instrument to present, leverage, and position the SNS JU activities and achievements in major European and global fora. The project works at a global level with other regions, where 6G activities are planned and ongoing.

The 6G4Society project aims to address the tension existing between two parallel needs in terms of technological development of 6G: 1) securing technology performance objectives, and 2) ensuring that societal and sustainable values are properly embedded into technology. This will be done by engaging all key stakeholders within the Smart Networks and Services (SNS) ecosystem, but also by embracing civil society players, regulators, policymakers, media, and the public at large, to ensure correct and clear information about the expected impacts 6G technology will produce and induce is elaborated and disseminated.

The SNS OPS project orchestrates and organises strategic activities to capture and promote the European view on 6G, the achievements of the 6G SNS and will start the process of monitoring the development and impact of these results on the evolution of 6G in Europe throughout the life of the 6G SNS initiative.

The 6Green project aims to conceive, design, and realize an innovative service-based and holistic ecosystem, able to extend “the communication infrastructure into a sustainable, interconnected, greener end-to-end inter-compute system” and promote energy efficiency across the whole 5/6G value chain.

VERGE  tackles the evolution of edge computing from three perspectives: “Edge for AI”, “AI for Edge” and security, privacy and trustworthiness of AI for Edge. “Edge for AI” defines a flexible, modular and converged Edge platform that is ready to support distributed AI at the edge.

5G evolution is expected to deliver services to a diverse gamma of verticals and to the overall society according to a anywhere, anytime, anydevice paradigm, hence calling for a polymorphic and flexible architecture. Such an ambitious deployment plan calls for the convergence of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, especially for providing connectivity to un(der)served areas, which is the motivation of 5G-STARDUST.

The SEASON project aims to design and validate a sustainable transport network infrastructure that supports beyond 5G and new emerging services. The SEASON infrastructure will rely on the joint usage of Multi-Band (MB) and Space Division Multiplexing (SDM), spanning the access, aggregation, and metro/long-haul segments, supporting the requirements for x-haul, further integrating the packet/optical and computing layers, and targeting cost-effective capacity increase.

The overall aim of NANCY is to introduce a secure and intelligent architecture for the beyond the fifth generation (B5G) wireless network. Leveraging AI and blockchain, NANCY enables secure and intelligent resource management, flexible networking, and orchestration.

The ACROSS project designs and implements an end-to-end service deployment and management platform for next-generation networks and services, aiming at unprecedented levels of automation, performance, scalability, and energy efficiency.

As the world moves from the 5G towards the 6G era, the mobile communications fabric needs to be architected differently to accommodate the emerging stringent requirements of innovative extreme future-looking applications that cannot be served by existing 5G mobile networks.

The 6GTandem project will demonstrate ultra-high-capacity coverage, off-load of lower frequency bands and new services such as sub-cm resolution sensing and positioning in high-traffic areas by adding sub-THz carriers to lower frequency bands in a seamless, tightly coordinated fashion.

DESIRE6G designs and develops a novel zero-touch control, management, and orchestration platform, with native integration of AI, to support eXtreme URLLC application requirements. DESIRE6G will re-architect mobile networks through a) its intent-based control and end-to-end orchestration that targets to achieve near real-time autonomic networking; and b) a cloud-native unified programmable data plane layer supporting multi-tenancy.

Driven by pivotal use cases from Industry 5.0, DETERMINISTIC6G addresses three central challenges of future deterministic end-to-end communication enabled by 6G: (1) a new architecture for 6G systems providing predictable performance and integrating it end-to-end with TSN and DetNet; (2) novel data-driven awareness of stochastically evolving network performance, with time synchronization over heterogeneous domains; and (3) leveraging novel digital twins of both 6G networks and cyber-physical systems, to anticipate situational circumstances impacting determinism of networks and safety of cyber-physical systems.

PREDICT-6G’s mission is therefore set towards the development of an end-to-end 6G (e2e) solution including architecture and protocols that can guarantee seamless provisioning of services for vertical use cases requiring extremely tight timing and reliability constraints. To succeed, the solution will target determinism network infrastructures at large, including wired and wireless segments and their interconnections.

BeGREEN takes a holistic view to provide evolving radio networks that not only accommodate increasing traffic and service levels but also consider power consumption as a factor. Determining the metrics by which power consumption should be included is a key feature of the project. An obvious first stage is to consider the cost of the energy but also societal factors and the necessary reduction in global emissions.

CENTRIC proposes to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques through a top-down, modular approach to wireless connectivity that puts the users’ communication needs and environmental constraints at the center of the network stack design. From users’ objectives and application-specific requirements, AI techniques will be used to create and customize tailor-made waveforms, transceivers, signaling, protocols and RRM procedures to in an unique AI Air Interface (AI-AI).

TERA6G aims at developing disruptive photonic wireless transceivers enabling Terabit-per-second data throughput capacity and massive Multiple-Input/Multiple-Output multi-antenna techniques operating in the millimetre-wave (30 GHz to 300 GHz) and Terahertz (300 GHz to 3 THz) bands of the spectrum, unlocking the “Fiberover-the-Air” concept.

The TERRAMETA project aims to investigate revolutionary technologies for 6G and demonstrate the feasibility of Terahertz (THz) Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) assisted ultra-high data rate wireless communications networks. Novel high-performance hardware including the THz RIS and THz transmitter/receiver will be developed and advanced network analysis/optimizations techniques will be developed using these real THz components.

TIMES extends the state-of-the-art on three fronts: 1) Propagation channel measurements and characterization in THz bands; 2) Developing technological enablers for reliable THz communications; and 3) Implementation of a THz mesh network prototype, including design and fabrication of both active (transceivers) and passive (metasurface) nodes.

The 6G-NTN project aims at researching and developing innovative technical, business, regulatory, and standardization enablers to achieve full and seamless integration of the Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) component into the 6G system and establish European leadership in this domain.

The 6G-SHINE project will pioneer the main technology components for in-X wireless subnetworks, short range low power radio cells to be installed in a wide set of vertical and consumer entities like robots, vehicles, production modules, classrooms, for the sake of supporting extreme communication requirements in terms of latency, reliability, or data rates.

ETHER aims to provide a holistic approach for integrated terrestrial-non-terrestrial networks targeting 100% network coverage, 99.9% service continuity and 99.9% reliability, with 3 times higher energy efficiency and 95% Total Cost of Ownership reduction compared to current terrestrial-only deployments. To achieve these goals, ETHER develops solutions for a Unified Radio Access Network (RAN) and for energy-efficient, AI-enabled resource management across the terrestrial, aerial and space domains, while creating the business plans driving future investments in the area.

FLEX-SCALE advances disruptive research on complementary optical x-haul network technologies for Optical Switching Nodes and their Transceiver Interfaces that enable flexible capacity scaling based on the utilization of ultra-high bandwidth photonic/plasmonic technologies and the efficient exploitation of optical spatial and spectral switching (UltraWide- Band Spectral & Spatial Lanes Multiplexing; UWB/SDM).

SUPERIOT aims to develop a truly sustainable and highly flexible IoT system based on optical and radio communications, and the exploitation of printed electronics technology for the implementation of sustainable IoT nodes. The dual-mode optical-radio approach provides unique characteristics to the IoT system.

6G infrastructures must ensure reliability, trust and resilience on a globally connected continuum of heterogeneous environments supported by the convergence of networks and IT systems to enable new future digital services. The substantial increase of coverage and network heterogeneity raises severe concerns that 6G security and privacy can be worse than the previous generations.

6G technologies, benefitting from softwarisation, Gb/s speed and sub-THz communications paradigms, open up opportunities for developing new and innovative network management strategies while navigating the evolution toward disaggregation, new software-based paradigms in architecting and operating future connectivity platforms, and embracing features of computing, automation and smartness, trust, privacy and security.

Privacy is considered a key pillar in EU research and development activities towards 6G. In the 6G multi-actor pluralistic environment, privacy is pivotal, not only for the end users, but also for all involved stakeholders; and it needs to be taken into account as a key requirement in all technologies of the network stack, including security mechanisms.

RIGOUROUS project aspires to identify and address the major cybersecurity, trust and privacy risks threatening the network, devices, computing infrastructure, and next generation of services. RIGOUROUS will address these challenges by introducing a new holistic and smart service framework leveraging new machine learning (ML) and AI mechanisms.

The Hexa-X-II flagship is a unique effort and a holistic vision, of a 6G system of integrated technology enablers, which accomplish “beyond the sum of the parts”, and of a “network beyond communications” platform for disruptive economic/environmental/societal impact; these are vital for establishing the European 6G technology leadership. Hexa-X-II will work, beyond enabler-oriented research, to optimized systemization, early validation, and proof-of-concept; work will progress from the 6G key enablers that connect the human, physical, and digital worlds, as explored in Hexa-X, to advanced technology readiness levels, including key aspects of modules/protocols/interfaces/data.

6G-BRICKS aims to deliver a new 6G facility, building on the baseline of mature ICT-52 platforms, that bring breakthrough cell-free and RIS technologies that have shown promise for beyond 5G networks. Moreover, novel unified control paradigms based on Explainable AI and Machine Reasoning are explored.

The 6G-SANDBOX project brings a complete and modular facility for the European experimentation ecosystem (in line and under the directions set by SNS JU), which is expected to support for the next decade technology and research validation processes needed in the pathway towards 6G.

6G-XR develops a technological feasibility of “better than 5G” KPIs, innovative radio spectrum technologies and the use and sharing applicable to beyond 5G and 6G spectrum, validate a representative end-to-end beyond 5G architecture (and later 6G) including end-to-end service provisioning with slicing capabilities, and at the cloud implementation level (Open RAN).

FIDAL key objective is to extend and deliver (i) advanced future proof Evolved 5G test infrastructures, anticipating evolution into next SNS phase, (ii) open & accessible to support 3rd party vertical experiments, (iii) test environments for rapid prototyping and large-scale validation of advanced, forward-looking applications.

IMAGINE-B5G project aims to create an advanced and accessible end-to-end (E2E) 5G platform for Large-Scale Trials and Pilots, providing a set of B5G applications, enabled by the integration of advanced 5G disrupting technologies. The project will support 3GPP Rel- 17 and beyond features which are crucial for implementation of private networks under real-life operational conditions to enable advanced 5G services which are driven by the industrial needs and requirements of a wide variety of verticals.

The TARGET-X project envisions accelerating the digital transformation of key verticals: energy, construction, automotive, and manufacturing using large-scale trials in multiple testbeds. By demonstrating, validating, and evaluating the potential of 5G/6G in real environments, the most advanced 5G/6G technologies such as real-time communication, localization, self-description, digital twinning, and sensor-network data fusion can be tested and evaluated.

TrialsNet will deploy full large-scale trials to implement a heterogenous and comprehensive set of innovative 6G applications based on various technologies such as cobots, metaverse, massive twinning, Internet of Senses, and covering three relevant domains of the urban ecosystems in Europe identified by i) Infrastructure, Transportation, Security & Safety, ii) eHealth & Emergency, and iii) Culture, Tourism & Entertainment.

Projects addressing/developing any sort of EE solution that may be applied at any level/layer (UE, Network, Application).

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Projects addressing/developing any sort of AI/ML solution that may be applied at any level/layer (UE, Network, Application), including AI-native architecture.

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Projects addressing/developing any sort of Digital Twin technology and/or Use Case, application.

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Projects developing solutions addressing security, privacy and/or reliability issues at any level/layer (UE, Network, Application)

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Projects developing targeted technologies/solutions for the management layer (e.g., automation of resource planning/deployment) or the orchestration of components, incl. zero-touch management.

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Projects working on developing disaggregated network components/solutions (in the core or RAN) using open SW /standards.

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Projects working on TSN/Deterministic solution aiming to minimize/diminish the delay and its variations throughout any network component.

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Projects working on ISAC/JCAS solutions aiming to use the telecommunication network to detect passive objects, perform spatial localization and other sense-capabilities (e.g., weather-related).

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Projects working on mmW solutions, THz communications, Visible light communications and/or optical wireless communications).

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Projects working on developing solutions targeted to make use and increase the use of Cloud & Edge functionality (near, far, extreme), edge-offloading, including cloud-native networking.

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Projects working on developing new/upgraded devices and/or components, advanced antennae HW, RIS, HW accelerators and/or transceivers.

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Projects working on developing or integrating micro-electronics or photonics components on any layer of the network.

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Projects working on solutions enabling simultaneous connectivity to multiple technologies/networks and/or Carrier Aggregation (CA) or Dual Connectivity (DC) solutions, including multi-domain/multi-cloud solutions.

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Projects working on developing, deploying, and testing network functions that are cloud-native, introducing new dimensions of flexibility and integration with cloud services.

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Projects working on developing, deploying and/or testing network slicing solutions, including network exposure.

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of any kind of subnetwork within (B)5G networks.

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of Radio Access Network solutions (excluding Edge).

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of Transport and/or Optical Network solutions.

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of Edge (near, far, extreme, etc.) solutions.

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of Core Network solutions.

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Projects focusing on the definition, deployment, testing and evaluation of Satellite / NTN solutions and their integration with (B)5G / 6G networks.

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The First SNS JU Call for proposals was opened on the 18th of January 2022 and closed on the 26th of April 2022. It results in 35 projects divided into 4 streams and a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) stream. In total 9 Key Technologies Areas are covered for a total of 250M€ of investments.

The Second SNS JU Call for proposals was opened on the 1st of January 2023 with a deadline of 25 April 2023. It results in 27 projects divided into 3 streams and an SNS Coordination and Support Action (CSA) stream. In total 9 Key Technologies Areas are still covered for a total of 130M€ of investments.

SUNRISE-6G aspires to create a federation of 6G test infrastructures in a pan-European facility that will support converged Testing as a Service (TaaS) workflows and tools, a unified catalogue of 6G enablers publicly accessible by experimenters, and cross-domain vertical application onboarding.

6G-PATH plans to work closely with other ongoing/starting Stream-B and Stream-C projects in a feedback loop, where the innovations that partners are achieving in other projects can be deployed and further tested by their pool of use cases and Open Calls, while sharing results and outcomes to further cement the innovation being made.

The ENVELOPE architecture will serve as an envelope that can cover, accommodate and support any type of vertical services. The applicability of ENVELOPE capabilities will be demonstrated via the project CAM UCs and via at least 9 open call projects.

6G-Cloud will incorporate scalability, sustainability, resilience, and security requirements into the system design. The concept will be validated by three well-defined proofs of concept and promoted through 6G architectural standardization work and open-source projects to reach

6G-INTENSE aims to abstract and federate all kinds of computational and communication resources under an internet-scale framework, that is governed by an intelligent orchestration paradigm, termed as DIMO.

6G-TWIN aims to deliver methods, modelling and simulation solutions for the definition, creation and management of multi-layered virtual representations of future 6G systems, where heterogeneous domains (i.e., edge, fog and cloud) and communication technologies (e.g., cellular, optical and NTN) coexist.

EXIGENCE commits to reducing the energy consumption/carbon footprint of ICT services by a factor of three for typical services (e.g., video streaming), by a factor of five for challenging services (e.g., NPN), and bringing the CO2e to Zero for some realistic use cases that will be studied in the project.

ORIGAMI aims at spearheading the next generation of mobile network architecture, overcoming eight factual barriers to ensure a successful 6G future. ORIGAMI strives to create global single standards, promote green transition, boost affordability and accessibility, and inspire groundbreaking applications and fresh business models.

The 6G-DISAC project aims to bring the integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) vision to life by adopting a holistic perspective with widely distributed intelligent infrastructure compatible with real-world integration constraints and future wireless network flexibility requirements.

6G-GOALS will take the wireless system design to its next stage by considering the significance, relevance, and value of the transmitted data, transforming the potential of the emerging AI/ML-based architectures into a semantic and goal-oriented communication paradigm.

6G-SENSES proposes the integration of novel 6G RAN technologies such as Cell-Free Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) and Joint Communication and Sensing (JCAS) to support the 6G vision that is sustained by the current (and future) architectural framework based on 3GPP and O-RAN.

INSTINCT proposes a revolutionary path to 6G and has the ambition to specify the relevant KPIs/KVIs, formulate suitable models, devise the theoretical framework, invent new technologies, evaluate via simulations and validate using 2 HW and 1 SW demonstrators, a networked intelligence concept able to meet the unprecedented 6G requirements.

iSEE-6G extends beyond JCS and propose a Joint Communication, Computation, Sensing, and Power transfer (JCCSP) unified radio platform, which includes all support elements of the proposed solutions in future 6G networks.

The 6G-EWOC project aims to contribute to the development of future 6G-AI-based networks by ending with TRL-4-level developments on critical technologies and devices for expanding the reach of 6G, especially in high mobility scenarios.

The ECO-eNET project will perform foundational research on emerging transmission technologies, to form a new confluent edge network that brings together optical and radio transport to scale to new levels of efficiency and capacity for 6G, by integrating confluent front-/mid-/back-haul (xhaul) with cell-free and distributed multiple-input multiple-output based access networks.

The OPTI-6G project develops a Photonic near IR Cell Free 5G Network, which does not suffer from interference because of the propagation characteristics of EM waves in this part of the spectrum and provides universal broadband coverage within buildings from pervasively located OWC access points.

PROTEUS-6G focuses on the development of advanced packet-optical x-haul networking infrastructure, relying on novel software-programmable-photonic-integrated-circuit-based subsystems operated under an intelligent software management system, capable of simplifying and optimizing network operations and supporting future ultra-high capacity, low-latency and energy-efficient 6G cellular and cell-free MIMO radio access networks.

ELASTIC’s approach addresses the critical issue of security in 6G orchestration by leveraging Confidential Computing with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), and by implementing security policies and service level agreements provided by verticals in edge cloud-native environments and enclaves.

The project proposes novel concepts and solutions, for a unified and intelligent security architecture for distributed network and cloud domains, capable of addressing advanced 6G use cases and applications, by integrating required architectural enablers for flexible yet cost-efficient deployment in 6G networks.

The ambition of the NATWORK project is to set the foundations and deploy the very first economically realistic, energy efficient and viable bio-inspired AI-based 6G cybersecurity and resilience framework for intelligent networking and services, taking a holistic approach and considering all elements in a cross-sector business environment to address the diverse requirements and challenges that arise.

ROBUST-6G aims to address cybersecurity risks in 6G networks by developing AI/ML-driven security solutions, enabling autonomous security management, ensuring privacy and transparency, and achieving energy-efficient, sustainable, and robust network designs.

SAFE-6G aims to develop a 6G-native trustworthiness framework by leveraging AI/ML to optimize safety, security, privacy, resilience, and reliability, ensuring user-centric trust through the entire service lifecycle across an open, distributed edge-cloud continuum.

6G-REFERENCE aims to develop sustainable, ultra-dense cell-free hardware solutions for 6G, integrating joint coherent communications and sensing, addressing synchronization, fronthaul, sensing, low-cost radios, and spectrum coexistence challenges to create a reference design for future distributed radios.

FirstTo6G aims to develop the world’s first 6G transceiver technology, data converters, and sub-THz frontends, combining high bandwidth, energy efficiency, and low-cost solutions to enable 6G deployment, strengthen European microelectronics, and advance technological sovereignty.

TeraGreen aims to pioneer energy-efficient Tbit/sec wireless communication for 6G by leveraging THz spectrum, innovative quasi-optical MIMO antennas, advanced low-power THz transceivers, and novel baseband technologies, drastically reducing energy consumption while boosting data rates.

6G-XCEL aims to advance AI-driven 6G networks by developing a decentralised multi-party AI framework for coordinated control across radio and optical networks, enabling secure, sustainable, and standardised AI adoption through global collaboration and validation.