Smart communication components, systems and networks for 5G mid-term Evolution systems
The 7 projects under this stream follow an evolutionary path towards 6G networks development. The selected projects demonstrate complementarity and have been selected in such a way as to create a complete system view.
Research topics covered include energy-efficient radio networks, adaptive Open RAN, integrated 5G-Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), AI-based edge platforms, and intelligent resource management ensuring security, privacy & trustworthiness.
Project Mission
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 project’s ambition is to is to deliver a fully integrated 5G-NTN autonomous system with novel selfadapting end-to-end connectivity model for enabling ubiquitous radio access, importantly leveraging on 1) new highly flexible multi-constellation (multi-orbit) architectures integrated with 5G terrestrial segments, 2) full 5G- compliant regenerative SatCom capabilities, 3) unified radio interfaces 4) data driven AI-based techniques for multiconnectivity and radio resource management tasks 5) 3GPP and O-RAN architecture and concTeop’sth. 5G-STARDUST will design, develop, and demonstrate, up to TRL 5, a flexible satellite system integrated with the terrestrial infrastructure using self-organised network architecture. This allows for autonomous and intelligent multi-connectivity framework able to adapt to diverse vertical requirements. This innovative framework will also support the operation of multi-orbit constellations, with transparent and regenerative space nodes, to deliver 5G/6G NTN services. STARDUST positions itself in the worldwide 5G/6G ecosystem timeline development, both from the standardization and market perspective. From the global standardization perspective, 5G-STARDUST results are planned to support Non-Terrestrial Network inclusion in the 3GPP Release 19 based on the results of Release 18 and to influence the initiation of activities in 3GPP Release 20 and 21. From the deployment and market perspective, 5G-STARDUST lines up with the market introduction, i.e., deployment by MNOs, of the 3GPP release 16, 17 and 18.
Contact Details
Website: https://www.5g-stardust.eu/ Social Media:
Participants
- DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR LUFT – UND RAUMFAHRT EV, DE
- THALES ALENIA SPACE FRANCE SAS, FR
- HISPASAT SA, ES
- SOFTWARE RADIO SYSTEMS LIMITED, IE
- CENTRE TECNOLOGIC DE TELECOMUNICACIONS DE CATALUNYA, ES
- XILINX IRELAND UNLIMITED COMPANY, IE
- ADVANCED WIRELESS SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES (AW2S), FR
- THALES ALENIA SPACE LUXEMBOURG, LU
- CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI, IT
- FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV, DE
- ORANGE SA, FR
- MARTEL GMBH, CH
Project Mission
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 intercompute system” and promote energy efficiency across the whole 5/6G value-chain.
The ultimate objective is to enable and to foster 5/6G networks and vertical applications reducing their carbon footprint by a factor of 10 or more.
To achieve this objective, the project will exploit and extend state-of-the-art cloud-native technologies and the B5G Service-Based Architecture with new cross-domain enablers to:
1) boost the global ecosystem flexibility, scalability and sustainability, and
2) enable all the 5/6G stakeholders (from the ones acting at the infrastructure and network platform to vertical industries) reducing their carbon footprint by becoming integral parts of a win-win green-economy business, and meeting a Decarbonization Service Agreement.
The 6Green intent-based cross-domain interactions among stakeholders will allow achieving a tight proportionality between the time-varying and geographically distributed mobile workload produced by vertical applications and network slices, and the energy/carbon footprint induced to the 5/6G network and computing infrastructure continuum.
6Green will provide stakeholders with flexible and green Artificial Intelligence mechanisms that will allow propagating the environment impact to any players acting on virtual domains, and triggering zero-touch operations according to customizable energy- and carbon-aware policies, allowing to optimally use renewable energy sources.
The project will also deliver three future-proof use-case applications that will provide a diverse awareness of the green capabilities of the 6Green platform, and that will demonstrate the potential 5/6G impact in enabling other vertical industry sectors to reach the carbon neutrality targeted by the European Green Deal.
Contact Details
Website: https://www.6green.eu/ Social Media:
Participants
- CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI, IT
- ATOS IT SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES IBERIA SL, ES
- ERICSSON TELECOMUNICAZIONI SPA, IT
- TELENOR ASA, NO
- TELEFONICA INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO SA, ES
- TELECOM ITALIA SPA, IT
- ORANGE ROMANIA SA, RO
- GIOUMPITEK MELETI SCHEDIASMOS YLOPOIISI KAI POLISI ERGON PLIROFORIKIS ETAIREIA PERIORISMENIS EFTHYNIS, EL
- ATHONET SRL, IT
- INTERNET INSTITUTE, COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTIONS AND CONSULTING LTD, SI
- OCULAVIS GMBH, DE
- INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS, EL
- EURECOM GIE, FR
- CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE, IT
- SMILE, FR
Project Mission
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. At its basis, the platform is built as a highly-distributed grid of domain-level orchestrators, spread across multiple geo-dispersed and potentially heterogeneous edge environments, overseen by a cloud-managed multi-domain orchestrator. The use of standardised communication interfaces fosters separation of concerns (events) between the two orchestration layers through an integration fabric which ensures compliance with ongoing standardisation efforts. The platform is further enhanced with a) deep end-to-end telemetry to unlock visibility of the intertwined network and compute system states, b) AI-driven intelligence that leverages both the vast number of events originating from the dense IoT ecosystem and detailed monitoring data originating from the ACROSS telemetry sub-system, to generate new insights, c) full-stack cross-domain zero-touch provisioning via programmable “hooks” that exploit events originating from raw telemetry and AI processed events, and d) secure and trusted orchestration mechanisms for trusted computing technologies over large and heterogeneous cloud-edge deployments, as well as orchestration and monitoring of the security VNFs.
The ACROSS concept is developed over a federated heterogeneous validation and testing environment that hosts a number of test cases and scenarios for promoting all potential intelligent and trusted zero-touch provisioning processes with different event triggering origins. The test cases are carefully designed for being promoted as proof of concept (PoC) project submissions to standards and open-source initiatives (targeting but not limited to ETSI ZSM, ETSI NFV-OSM, TMF, ONF).
Contact Details
Website: https://across-he.eu/ Social Media:
Participants
- NOVA TELECOMMUNICATIONS SINGLE MEMBER SA, EL
- NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS ISRAEL LTD, IL
- L.M. ERICSSON LIMITED, IE
- NEC LABORATORIES EUROPE GMBH, DE
- TELEFONICA INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO SA, ES
- CENTRE TECNOLOGIC DE TELECOMUNICACIONS DE CATALUNYA, ES
- PANEPISTIMIO PATRON, EL
- UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA DE MADRID, ES
- UBITECH LIMITED, CY
- K3Y, BG
- INLECOM COMMERCIAL PATHWAYS COMPANYLIMITED BY GUARANTEE, IE
- WINGS ICT SOLUTIONS INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IKE, EL
Project Mission
BeGREEN will take 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 will be to consider the cost of the energy but also societal factors, linked to the necessary reduction in global emissions will also be considered.
Contact Details
Website: https://www.sns-begreen.com/ Social Media:
General Contact: info@sns-begreen.com
Contact person – Project Manager: mir@gigasys.co.uk
Participants
- ACCELLERAN, BE
- TELEFONICA SA, ES
- L.M. ERICSSON LIMITED, IE
- PARALLEL WIRELESS ISRAEL LTD, IL
- IHP GMBH – INNOVATIONS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE MICROELECTRONICS/LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUER INNOVATIVE MIKROELEKTRONIK, DE
- FUNDACIO PRIVADA I2CAT, INTERNET I INNOVACIO DIGITAL A CATALUNYA, ES
- NEC LABORATORIES EUROPE GMBH, DE
- UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA, ES
- RUNEL NGMT LTD, IL
- BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLC, UK
- GIGASYS SOLUTIONS LTD, UK
- ARM LIMITED, UK
Project Mission
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. In this direction, novel architectures, namely point-to-point (P2P) connectivity for device-to-device connectivity, mesh networking, and relay-based communications, as well as protocols for medium access, mobility management, and resource allocation will be designed. These architectures and protocols will make the most by jointly optimizing the midhaul, and fronthaul. This is expected to enable truly distributed intelligence and transform the network to a low-power computer. Likewise, by following a holistic optimization approach and leveraging the developments in blockchain, NANCY aims at supporting E2E personalized, multi-tenant and perpetual protection.
Contact Details
Website: https://nancy-project.eu/ Social Media:
Participants
- PANEPISTIMIO DYTIKIS MAKEDONIAS, EL
- GIOUMPITEK MELETI SCHEDIASMOS YLOPOIISI KAI POLISI ERGON PLIROFORIKIS ETAIREIA PERIORISMENIS EFTHYNIS, EL
- FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION, ES
- NEC LABORATORIES EUROPE GMBH, DE
- FUNDACIO PRIVADA I2CAT, INTERNET I INNOVACIO DIGITAL A CATALUNYA, ES
- ITALTEL SPA, IT
- NETCOMPANY-INTRASOFT SA, LU
- EIGHT BELLS LTD, CY
- THALES DIS FRANCE SAS, FR
- DRAXIS ENVIRONMENTAL SA, EL
- ORGANISMOS TILEPIKOINONION TIS ELLADOS OTE AE, EL
- VIRTUAL OPEN SYSTEMS, FR
- INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN, SI
- CONSORZIO PER LA RICERCA NELL’ AUTOMATICA E NELLE TELECOMUNICAZIONI C.R.A.T., IT
- ERICSSON TELECOMUNICAZIONI SPA, IT
- BI2S-BUSINESS AND IOT INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS LTD, CY
- INNOCUBE I.K.E., EL
- ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS, EL
- SIDROCO HOLDINGS LIMITED, CY
- UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA, ES
- SCUOLA SUPERIORE DI STUDI UNIVERSITARI E DI PERFEZIONAMENTO S ANNA, IT
- METAMIND INNOVATIONS IKE, EL
Project Mission
The goal of the SEASON project is to design and validate a sustainable transport network infrastructure able to support 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. A critical objective of such architecture is to ensure energy efficiency. SEASON will rely on power-efficient Digital Signal Processing (DSP), MBoverSDM optical switching, point-to-multipoint transceivers allowing traffic aggregation/router bypassing, and converged packet-optical solutions reducing the number of O/E/O conversions. Such complex infrastructure requires rethinking the control and orchestration systems towards autonomous optical networks, addressing not only the integration – in overarching control systems – of the Radio Access Network (RAN), access and transport segments but also adopting more agile DevOps methodologies. SEASON will leverage on cognitive networks powered by streaming telemetry, real-time network measurements and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML)-aided service management and orchestration for near-real time network operation, moving intelligence as close as possible to the data plane, and devising a distributed system based on multiple communicating agents and data-driven closed control loops.
SEASON will have a clear impact on the society, in a context with increased needs of connectivity and higher capacity demand required for services such as VR/ATRh.e SEASON consortium includes major European telecom operators (Telefonica, TIM), major vendors (ADVA, Infinera P/G, Ericsson), three consolidated SMEs (Accelleran, Wings and WestAquila) and four top-reputed research centres and academia (CNIT, CTTC, Fraunhofer HHI, and UPC).
Contact Details
Website: https://www.season-project.eu/ Social Media:
General Contact: info.season@upc.edu
Contact person – Coordinator: Filippo Cugin
Participants
1. CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI, IT
1.1. SCUOLA SUPERIORE DI STUDI UNIVERSITARI E DI PERFEZIONAMENTO S ANNA, IT
2. CENTRE TECNOLOGIC DE TELECOMUNICACIONS DE CATALUNYA, ES
3. ADVA OPTICAL NETWORKING SE, DE
4. TELEFONICA INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO SA, ES
5. FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV, DE
6. TELECOM ITALIA SPA, IT
7. UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA, ES
8. CORIANT R&D GMBH, DE
9. INFINERA UNIPESSOAL LDA, PT
10. WEST AQUILA SRL, IT
11. ACCELLERAN, BE
12. WINGS ICT SOLUTIONS INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IKE, EL
13. ERICSSON TELECOMUNICAZIONI SPA, IT
Project Mission
VERGE will tackle 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. This is achieved by unifying lifecycle management and closed-loop automation for cloud-native applications, MEC and network services, while fully exploiting multi-core and multi-accelerator capabilities for ultra-high computational performance. “AI for Edge” enables dynamic function placement by managing and orchestrating the underlying physical, network, and compute resources. Application-specific network and computational KPIs will be assured in an efficient and collision-free manner, taking Edge resource constraints in to account. Security, privacy and trustworthiness of AI for Edge are addressed to ensure security of the AI-based models against adversarial attacks, privacy of data and models, and transparency in training and execution by providing explanations for model decisions improving trust in models.
VERGE will verify the three perspectives through delivery of 7 demonstrations across two use cases – XR-driven Edge-enabled industrial B5G applications across two separate Arçelik sites in Turkey, and Edge-assisted Autonomous Tram operation in Florence. VERGE will disseminate results to academia, industry and the wider stakeholder community through liaisons and contributions to relevant standardization bodies and open sources, a series of demonstrations showing progression through TRLs and by creating an open dataspace for enabling public access to the datasets generated by the project.
Contact Details
Website: https://verge-project.eu Social Media:
General Contact: info.verge@upc.edu
Contact person – Coordinator: Oriol Sallent
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA, ES
- CENTRE TECNOLOGIC DE TELECOMUNICACIONS DE CATALUNYA, ES
- OULUN YLIOPISTO, FI
- BARCELONA SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER CENTRO NACIONAL DE SUPERCOMPUTACION, ES
- INTEL DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, DE
- ERICSSON ARASTIRMA GELISTIRME VE BILISIM HIZMETLERI ANONIM SIRKETI, TR
- ERICSSON AB, SE
- TURKCELL TEKNOLOJI ARASTIRMA VE GELISTIRME ANONIM SIRKETI, TR
- NEARBY COMPUTING SL, ES
- HIRO MICRODATACENTERS B.V., NL
- ARCELIK A.S., TR
- HOLO-INDUSTRIE 4.0 SOFTWARE GMBH, DE
- GROUND TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS ITALIA SRL, IT
- KING’S COLLEGE LONDON, UK
- SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS (UK) LIMITED, UK