SNS JU May 2024 Newsflash

SNS Journal 2024

The SNS Journal 2024 prepared by the SNS OPS project has been released. The aim of this second issue is to present call2 projects which were launched early 2024 and to give a flavor of call1 projects first achievements after 1 year of operation.

2023 market important milestones for the SNS Community and the JU. From the technological requirements analysis, use case definitions, architectural designs, to the early insights of the R&I projects. From the enlargement of the international and EU ecosystem of the SNS JU, to the monitoring and analysis of global 6G trends and innovative collaboration tools delivered by the Coordination and Support Action projects. All projects have contributed to the successful start of Europe’s 6G journey and to the establishment of strong foundation for further EU-based technological advancements.

SNS Call 1 Projects Highlights

At its first meeting of 15 December 2021 the SNS JU Governing Board adopted the Work Programme 2021/22. The first SNS call for proposals was published on the 18th of January 2022 and closed on the 26th of April 2022. For the first SNS call 35 projects were selected divided into 4 streams and a support actions one, the highlights of the first year of operation of these projects are now available.

The SNS projects organised 100 events and participated in or contributed to over 300 events. Over 300 publications have been issued by SNS projects, including Conference papers, White Papers and Peer review articles. Over 70 Tests & Trials have been carried out, and projects have made over 300 contributions to standards. 32 patent applications have been made by the projects, and in terms of open ource, 132 solutions have been used and 23 contributions accepted.

The SNS funded projects shape a solid research and innovation (R&I) roadmap and deployment program by engaging a critical mass of European stakeholders and facilitating international cooperation on various 6G initiatives.

6G-IA Published two New White Papers

In May 2024, the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) published two White Papers from the 6G-IA Open SNS Working Group.

White Paper: Open Networks and Services Whitepaper, Platform Subdomain

The whitepaper investigates the opportunities of open ICT platforms as an enabler for next generation disaggregated network deployment, provisioning, and operation. For this purpose, it provides an overview of most prominent open ICT platforms that support implementation of open networks such as ONAP, OpenStack, and Kubernetes as well as a taxonomy and classifications of their openness, features, and complexity.

White Paper: Open RAN and 6G Future Networks Development

This white paper explores the potential benefits and challenges of such architectures in the context of radio access networks (RAN). It also proposes a list of recommendations to European Commission to foster the maturity of open Network aiming at facilitating the future transition to 6G networks in the future.

EuCNC & 6G Summit

The EuCNC & 6G Summit will take place from 3-6 June 2024 in Antwerp, Belgium. Numerous SNS projects will be taking part in this event, which combines the EuCNC and 6G Summit, bringing together the world’s leading telecoms players.

The EuCNC & 6G Summit covers everything from 5G deployment and mobile IoT to 6G exploration and future communications systems. With over 900 delegates and more than 50 exhibitors, it’s an important platform for showcasing innovation.

More than 14 SNS projects will have their own stand or will be present on shared stands.

In addition to a stand presence, many of our projects take part in workshops and sessions.

Workshops

• The workshop 2 “International Workshop on Holistic 6G Radio Design” is jointly proposed by projects HEXA-X-II, 6G-SHINE and CENTRIC.
• HEXA-X-II will organize the workshop 3 “The 6G series workshop by Hexa-X-II”, with participation of PREDICT-6G, TERA6G, 6G-TANDEM, TIMES, CENTRIC, ETHER, ADROIT-6G, 6G-SHINE and 6G4Society.
• The workshop 4 “Strengthening EU-US Cooperation in Experimental Infrastructures Towards 6G” will feature 6G-SANDBOX, 6G-BRICKS and phase 2 projects 6G-XCEL and SUNRISE-6G.
• The workshop 5 “EU Collaborative Research & Innovation Focal Points in the SNS JU” will feature many SNS JU speakers including members of the Steering Board (SB) and Technology Board (TB). Including an introduction to the structure and why the office believes that the SB, TB and Working Groups are important for projects to exchange ideas and results.
• EXIGENCE is co-organising the workshop 7: Sixtainability: Paving the Way for a Sustainable 6G with participation of BeGreen.
• The workshop 8 “Architectural Considerations Enabling the IMT 2030 Framework by European 6G R&D Activities” moderated by a 6G Architecture Working Group representative will feature DETERMINISTIC-6G, FLEX-SCALE, DESIRE-6G, PREDICT-6G, ETHER, 6G-NTN, VERGE, 6G-XR, HEXA-X-II, 5G-STARDUST, SEASON, VERGE, RIGOUROUS, HORSE and 6G-SANDBOX. Phase 2 projects will also participate in this workshop with PROTEUS-6G, iSEE-6G, INSTINCT, 6G-SENSES, 6G-DISAC and 6G-GOALS.
• The workshop 9 “Trials, Pilots and Demos for Selected Verticals: the Experimental Way Forward towards 6G” proposed by SNS ICE and it is co-organised by, FIDAL, 6G-XR, PREDICT-6G, 6G-SANDBOX will feature a speaker from the Trials Working Group.
• 5G-STARDUST, 6G-NTN and ETHER projects will participate in the joint-workshop 12 “Non-Terrestrial Networks and Terrestrial Networks unification – from Vision to Reality”.

Special Sessions

• TARGET-X and ENVELOPE will participate in Special Session 4: “From 5G to 6G Support for CAM (5G6GCAM) with the subject “Target-X: Accelerating the Uptake of 5G for Automotive”. The session is connected to CEF 2 Digital – Coordination and Support Actions (CEF DIG-2021-TA) and CCAM Partnership Horizon Europe projects.
• The Special Session 9: Large Scale Trials and Pilots: Challenges and Opportunities, will feature TRIALSNET, FIDAL, IMAGINE-B5G and TARGET-X.
• The 6G-MUSICAL project will co-organise the special session 7: “Beyond Joint Communication and Sensing: The Road Towards Joint Communication, Computation, Sensing, and Power Transfer for 6G” with the iSEE-6G
• 6G4Society is co-organising the Special Session 10: “Towards a sustainable and socially accepted 6G for society” with FIDAL project and BroadEU Net Programme.

Other projects like PRIVATEER, SAFE-6G, CONFIDENTIAL-6G and SUPERIOT have announced their participation to the event.

Convened Sessions

• The Convened Session 1: WiTaR: Women in Telecommunication and Research, will take place on Tuesday 4 June 2024 from 11:00-13:00 in the Gorilla Room 1 of the Flanders Meeting and Convention Center Antwerp. It Bahare Masood Khorsandi (Nokia, DE), Marie-Helene Hamon (Orange, FR), Irene Alepuz Benaches (UPV, ES), Ishita Mishra (Institute PIIU, IT), Pooja Mohnani (EURESCOM, DE), Marja Matinmikko-Blue (Univ. of Oulu, FI), Didier Bourse (Nokia, FR).

Objectives:
The Convened Session organized during EuCNC & 6GS 2022 and 2023, aims at communicating the WiTaR initiative up-dates and plans to the European and global 6G R&I community, further raising awareness of gender inclusivity and engaging different stakeholders and EU projects to discuss possible actions to improve gender diversity and inclusivity in the R&I activities especially in the Smart Network and Services (SNS) Joint undertaking (JU).

• The Convened Session 2: How to accelerate 6G research through global standards, will take place on Tuesday 4 June 2024 from 16:00-17:30 in the Gorilla Room 1 of the Flanders Meeting and Convention Center Antwerp. It will be chaired by Colin Willcock (6G-IA, BE) and David Boswarthick (ETSI, BE).

General Topics:
Presenting the 6G-IA WG on standards Riccardo Trivisonno, 6G pre-standards WG
Facilitating the path from R&I into standards, David Boswarthick, ETSI Director NET
Accelerating research in 3GPP, 3GPP expert (tbd)
The role of Software Development groups in ETSI (tbd)

The above information is only the highlights, many more SNS contributions are listed in the Conference Programme.

6G Programmable Deterministic Webinar Series

The “6G Programmable Deterministic Webinar Series” is jointly organised by DESIRE6G, DETERMINISTIC6G and PREDICT-6G projects.

This three-part series aims to delve into the intricate and transformative aspects of these SNS sister projects, featuring experts that will explore the latest developments and innovations shaping the future of 6G technology. Each session will provide in-depth information and foster key discussions for practitioners and researchers dedicated to the next generation of wireless communications.

The first webinar “Architectural enhancements for 6G programmable and deterministic networks” will take place on Friday 14 June at 10:00 CET.

Agenda

• 10-10:10. Intro by Carlos J. Bernardos (UC3M)
• 10:10-10:50. Peter Szilagyi (Nokia): “Multi-domain deterministic service management architecture”
• 10:50-11:30. Chrysa Papagianni (University of Amsterdam): “Towards extreme network KPIs with deep programmability in 6G”
• 11:30-12:10. Joachim Sachs (Ericsson) and Gourav Prateek Sharma (KTH): “5G latency analysis and possible improvements”
• 12:10-12:40. Panel: “Architectural enhancements for 6G programmable and deterministic networks”
• 12:40-12:45. Closure

Participation to the event is open to all and free of charge upon registration.

Should you need any further information, please contact info@predict-6g.eu.

6G-IA & AIOTI: White Paper the Role of 6G in Agriculture

On May 2024, 6G-IA and AIOTI released a White Paper on the role of 6G in Agriculture. The document provides information about precision agriculture, aquaculture and novel farming techniques, environmental and biodiversity monitoring, and sustainability issues. The white paper provides information about several use cases studied in the context of various projects and identifies the main issues of these use cases related to 6G networks and technologies. It also presents ideas on how 6G smart networks and services will positively impact the agricultural domain.

BEYOND Expo 2024

6G-IA and 5G-MAG (MoU organized a workshop on 13 May 2024 for an exchange between their members and participants in research projects that may be relevant to Media. The intention of the workshop was to gather insight into the research areas relevant to media and mobile connectivity features and solutions (5G, 5G Advanced and 6G).

The workshop focused on a brief project presentation (12′) highlighting the technical problem the project is trying to solve. This was followed by an open discussion of requirements, features, technology readiness and prototyping.

FIDAL project participated with a presentation on ‘On Advancing Application – Network Interaction and 5G and beyond business models: Considering FIDAL Multi-media Use Cases”. The presentation was delivered Håkon Lønsethagen, from the project partner Telenor.

Roberto Viola (Vicomtech) talked about real-time holographic communications use cases and the research activities carried out in the 6G-XR project to enhance network control plane and user plane toward 6G.

TRIALSNET was represented by Telefónica, other EU projects representatives were present including NANCY and 6G-TANDEM.

Impact Assessment and Facilitation Action (IAFA) Event #4-3: Third event on Pre-Standardisation – Next Steps: 6G Trials and Testing

The Impact Assessment and Facilitation Action (IAFA) Event #4-3 Third event on Pre-Standardisation – Next Steps: 6G Trials and Testing took place on 13 May 2024 online.

This session explored the relationship between 6G pre-standardisation and large-scale trials, already a central topic of R&D projects under the SNS JU Phase I, specifically from stream C  (SNS Experimental Infrastructure) and stream D (Large-Scale SNS Trials and Pilots). The event introduced an array of tracking tools being developed by the 6G-Start, SNS-ICE and SNS-OPS CSA projects. These tools are designed to map relevant use cases, vertical associations, and pre-standardisation efforts within 5G and 6G projects. While this event brought the short series to a close, the key themes that emerged over the course of the three events will be summarized in a final report, which will be available on the HSbooster.eu stand at the next EuCNC 6G Summit in June.

SNS Stream B/D Projects Workshop on KPIs and KVIs

The SNS Stream B/D Projects Workshop on KPIs and KVIs took place on 16 May 2024. The objective of the webinar was to identify synergies and opportunities between Stream B and Stream D projects of the SNS JU.

The workshop was very well attended, such is the importance of the issue. Projects defined what they understood by these concepts and highlighted their methodology regarding KVIs and KPIs. They also gave examples of KPIs and KVIs tracked and identified in use cases.

The session included participants and presentations from the following projects:

• Stream D projects: TRIALSNET, FIDAL, TARGET-X, IMAGINE-B5G

Stream B projects: ORIGAMI, PRIVATEER, DETERMINISTIC-6G, HEXA-X-II, SAFE-6G, 6G-TANDEM, PREDICT-6G

6G4Society launches the Citizen Survey for an inclusive and sustainable 6G

The 6G4Society project is a Coordination and Support Action aimed at ensuring that societal and sustainable values are properly embedded into the development of 6G technology, bringing a sociological perspective to technological development.

Two of 6G4Society’s goals are to understand aspects influencing public acceptance of 6G and to engage the public to build social acceptance of the new generation technology. To do so, the project launched in May 2024 its Citizen Survey, a unique opportunity for European citizens to share their experiences and opinions about current 5G technology and the upcoming transition to 6G. The aim of the Citizen Survey is to gather this input to guide European Union policymakers and technology providers toward developing more inclusive and sustainable communication networks.

The survey only takes 7 minutes to complete, and it’s available in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

SNS Projects @ IoT Solutions World Congress

The IoT Solutions World Congress took place co-located with Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress on 21-23 May 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. The event focused enabling tech-driven transformation, addressing climate change and sustainability, navigating regulations and standards, and fortifying security and cybersecurity.

Phase 1 SNS projects 6G-BRICKS and ADROIT-6G and phase 2 projects SUNRISE-6G and 6G-INTENSE were represented at Iquadrat’s stand.

SNS Projects @ 5G Forum 2024

The 7^th edition of the  5G FORUM, titled “Where 5G Leaders Meet” took place in Sevilla, Spain on 6-7 May 2024. This event is the most important for the telecom industry in Spain.

6G-SANDBOX was presented by Telefónica, Nokia and University of Malaga.

SAFE-6G project was given at the Telefónica stand to Andalusian authorities, as well as to the Deputy Director General of Spectrum Planning and Management of the Government of Spain.

SNS Projects @ Lisbon Energy Summit

The Lisbon Energy Summit & Exhibition, Europe’s leading energy transition event, welcomed over 3,000 visitors to FIL, Lisbon, Portugal, a world leader in new energies and technological innovation on 27–29 May 2024.

F6S Innovation showcased at its stand the SNS projects 6G-PATH and EXIGENCE.

IEEE ICC 2024 – Industry Panel

The industry panel at IEEE Communications Society ICC 2024 in Denver (CO, USA) on 12 June 2024, will provide a platform for industry and academia to exchange visions and discuss key technical challenges in this revolutionary field.

The SNS projects TIMES, TERRAMETA, 6G-SHINE and 6G-TANDEM will be part of the panel exploring innovative hardware solutions and cutting-edge technologies driving the sustainable development of 6G, with a focus on scalability, energy efficiency and reconfigurability.

3GPP Stage-1 Workshop on IMT2030 Use Cases

On 8 May 2024, the 3GPP Stage-1 workshop on IMT2030 use cases was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands and online. This workshop brought the 3GPP community closer to the initiatives of regional and global research organizations, market partners (MRPs), operator associations and the ITU.

The 3GPP SA1 working group has now been tasked with defining the 6G Stage 1 requirements to be met by future 3GPP specifications.

1st Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptative Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution (ATHENA 2024)

The 1st Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptative Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution (ATHENA 2024) will take place in 21-23 October 2024 in Athens, Greece. The workshop is supported by the SNS projects SAFE-6G, 6G-SANDBOX, ENVELOPPE, ECOeNET, ORIGAMI and 6G-EWOC.

The IEEE International Workshop on Computer Aided Modeling and Design of Communication Links and Networks (CAMAD) 2024 invites researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to submit their original contributions to the workshop titled “Empowering 6G Networks: Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptive Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution.”

Important Dates:

– Paper Submission Deadline: 30/06/2024

– Acceptance Notification: 15/07/2024

– Camera-Ready Submission: 22/07/2024

1st Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptative Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution (ATHENA 2024)

On 1-4 July 2024, CTTC will host in Castelldefels, Barcelona INTERACT’s 5th Training School on “AI/ML for 6G Communication Networks (and Beyond)”.

The final program has just been announced, and its available here.

The school will count with a number of distinguished lecturers, both from the industry and academia : Kaushik Chowdhury (Northeastern U.), Jakob Hoydis (NVIDIA), Alvaro Valcarce (Nokia), Carlo Fischione (KTH), Mehdi Letafati (U. Oulu), Oriol Sallent (UPC), Phillip Stefan (U. Stuttgart), etc.

The programme includes an introduction to AI/ML, and other lectures on digital twins and Sionna, protocol learning; unique lessons learnt from experimental RF fingerprinting, waveform classification, open RAN, and vehicular networks; deep learning-aided physical layer Security, AI-powered open and secure edge architectures, among others.

The programme will also count with a student poster session, an AI/ML challenge, with prizes and awards for both activities; as well as a panel discussion.

• Registration fee: 190 €
• Registration deadline: 10 June 2024

This training school is open to all, with young PhDs and early-stage researchers being particularly welcome to attend and participate.