Exhibitions and Demos

Imec

Imec – EuCNC 2024

The 2024 EuCNC & 6G Summit builds on putting together two successful conferences in the area of telecommunications: EuCNC, in its 33^rd edition of a series, supported by the European Commission; the 6G Summit, in its 6th edition, originated from the 6G Flagship programme in Finland, one of the very first in its area. The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP) and the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) and supported by the European Commission. The conference addresses various aspects of Beyond 5G/6G communications systems and networks. It brings together cutting-edge research and world-renown industries and businesses, globally attracting in the last years more than 700 delegates from more than 40 countries all over the world, to present and discuss the latest results, and an exhibition with more than 50 exhibitors, for demonstrating the technology developed in the area, namely within research projects from EU R&I programmes.

University of Oulu, 6G Flagship

6G Flagship is the world’s first 6G research program, a global leader in 5G adoption, and a preferred research partner in 6G development. We promote high-quality 6G research to create future know-how and sustainable solutions for society’s needs in the 2030s. We operate under the University of Oulu, which also funds us together with the Academy of Finland.

CTTC/ ETSI TeraFlowSDN

In February 2023, ETSI TeraFlowSDN open-source group (TFS) has released second version of cloud-native SDN controller for beyond 5G/6G networks. TFS has had support and contributions from 5GPPP TeraFlow project, but in SNS several projects are studying adoption and eventually, contribution. We are looking for ETSI TeraFlowSDN to create awareness and establish relationship with SNS projects to foster its developments and innovations for upcoming releases. The presented demonstration: “Slice Grouping for Transport Network Slices Using Hierarchical Multi-domain SDN Controllers” showcases how TeraFlowSDN provides support for hierarchical control of multiple heterogeneous SDN domains (through IP, microwave, and optical technologies). Different transport slices are offered with multiple SLAs and grouped to optimize resources. This demo brings multiple innovations tied to the novel release of TeraFlowSDN, both from data and control planes. From the data plane perspective, it is interesting to remark the introduction of whiteboxes that support XR constellation supporting the configuration of optical port bandwidth for point-to-multipoint connections. XR constellations are discovered from Infinera Intelligent Pluggable Manager (IPM) north-bound REST-API using TeraFlowSDN XR driver. Moreover, the support for interfacing to a Microwave SDN controller through the standard ETSI GS mWT 024 REST-based interface is also provided. From the control plane perspective, the TeraFlowSDN acts as a full-featured IP SDN controller which interacts with ADVA NOS based on OpenConfig. We also provide as a novelty the cloud-native end-to-end SDN orchestration architecture via a parent SDN controller (orchestrator) based on TeraFlowSDN. Finally, we introduce the slice grouping concept to transport network slices, by showcasing a clustering algorithm which processes incoming requests to eventually deploy/allocate the transport network slices.

ALLBESMART

Allbesmart is a cutting-edge technology company that was founded in 2015. We specialize in providing expert consultancy services and in-depth knowledge on 3GPP wireless network implementations in OpenAirInterface for customized 5G/6G use cases. As a key contributor to the OpenAirInterface code base and an associated member of the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, we are at the forefront of technological advancements in the industry. Our OAIBOX product line (HW+SW) is the leading open-source 5G SA solution in the world, designed for testing, research, and education. We take pride in being the first team to demonstrate a stable 5G SA connection with an end-to-end OAI solution and COTS UEs, reaching a stable downlink speed of 800 Mbps. We work with prominent industry leaders in 5G/6G topics such as RAN disaggregation, HW acceleration, and NTN.

EurAAP

The European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) is an international not-for-profit Association with a scientific, educational and technical purpose, registered in Brussels, Belgium, under European law. The 4 pillars of EurAAP are the European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), the European School of Antennas (ESoA), the Reviews of Electromagnetics (RoE) and the Working Groups (WG)

CHARITY/Eurescom GmbH

Next-generation Immersive Applications, including advanced AR, VR and Holographic-based applications, sometimes called killer applications for the upcoming 6G, are set to transform how we interact with technology. Indeed, they represent one of the most demanding types of services with (extremely) strict requirements (e.g. low latency, high bandwidth, and reliable connectivity). Considering such immersive application categories, the CHARITY project focuses on developing an intelligent and autonomous framework to facilitate the deployment and orchestration of these immersive applications across the edge/cloud continuum. The framework builds on cutting-edge technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and Cloud-Native OSS enablers to ensure seamless resource provisioning, resource optimization, and improved Quality of Experience (QoE), ultimately paving the way for the widespread adoption of these applications. The demonstration intends to present the CHARITY orchestration capabilities and the CHARITY use cases as part of current research & developments with the primary goal of showcasing and discussing them with a general public audience and experts in the field. By doing that, we aim to communicate and debate the need and benefits of redesigning such services towards distributed cloud-based architectures, the role of the network infrastructure and a cloud-based framework in supporting their orchestration and different requirements, and finally, the key challenges ahead of their full realization. It will cover two key thematics : the concept behind the CHARITY orchestration framework, its capabilities, components and how it helps to address the needs of immersive services considering a challenging but increasingly heterogeneous scenario composed of different edge resources and cloud providers. Finally, the demo will also include showcasing CHARITY use cases, their current capabilities and limitations and how each can take advantage of the CHARITY framework for seamless, intelligent and automated service provisioning and lifecycle management across the edge-continuum space.

CELTIC-NEXT/Xecs

CELTIC-NEXT is the Eureka Cluster labelled for next-generation communications for a secured, trusted, and sustainable digital society. CELTIC-NEXT stimulates and orchestrates international collaborative projects in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) domain. CELTIC-NEXT is an industry-driven initiative involving all the major ICT industry players and many SMEs, service providers, and research institutions. The CELTIC-NEXT activities are open to all organisations that share the CELTIC-NEXT vision of an inclusive digital society and are willing to collaborate to their benefit, aligned with their national priorities, to advance the development and uptake of advanced ICT solutions.
Xecs is a Eureka Cluster specifically designed to accelerate the pace of sustainable industrial innovation in the Electronics Components & Systems (ECS) community. The intent of Xecs is to create an ambitious international collaboration programme that will result in high levels of societal and economic impact for all those who participate in a Xecs project. By engaging with all relevant segments of the industrial landscape – Large Enterprise, SME’s, Research and Technology Organisations and Universities – Xecs projects will go beyond the state-of-the-art, encourage disruptive innovation and enable sustainable competitiveness and growth for all those involved.

RPTU Kaiserslautern

The 6G Platform provides scientific and organizational support for the German 6G program. It provides a platform for networking, manages international liaisons, and supports the processes required to successfully implement the program. In its Working Groups, the 6G Platform Germany addresses societal issues of high relevance for the 6G design. The aim of the project is both to make scientific contributions to the design of the technical content of 6G and to provide scientific and organizational support for the processes required for the successful implementation of the German-European 6G program. To this end, harmonization with international regulation and standardization will be promoted, and opportunities for participation by society and industry will be created. Accordingly, the platform ensures that user groups that are not actively involved in mobile communications research can also contribute to the identification of 6G lead applications and requirements. The focus is on ensuring efficient harmonization of visions and concepts with the aim of defining a uniform German position. The necessary comprehensive and inclusive consideration of as many stakeholders, projects and key parties as possible is part of the accompanying research activities of the 6G platform. This takes into account that the definition of 6G is a dynamic process with currently still dynamically changing agendas.

ITRI

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is one of the world’s leading technology R&D institutions aiming to innovate a better future for society. Founded in 1973, ITRI has played a vital role in transforming Taiwan’s industries from labor-intensive into innovation-driven. To address market needs and global trends, it has launched its 2030 Technology Strategy & Roadmap and focuses on innovation development in Smart Living, Quality Health, and Sustainable Environment. It also strives to strengthen Intelligentization Enabling Technology to support diversified applications. Over the years, ITRI has been dedicated to incubating startups and spinoffs, including well-known names such as UMC and TSMC. In addition to its headquarters in Taiwan, ITRI has branch offices in the U.S., Europe, and Japan in an effort to extend its R&D scope and promote international cooperation across the globe. For more information, please visit https://www.itri.org/eng

Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo S.A.U (EVOLVED-5G // B5G-OPEN)

Founded in 1988, Telefónica I+D is the research and development company of the Telefónica Group. Its mission is to contribute to the competitiveness and modernity of the Telefónica group through technological innovation. With this aim, the company applies new ideas, concepts and practices in addition to developing products and advanced services. Telefónica I+D stands as a pioneering private research and development company in Spain. It boasts a remarkable level of activity and ample resources, positioning it among the forefront of such institutions in the country. Notably, it holds an exceptional record in Europe, actively engaging in numerous European research projects. In terms of participation, few organizations rival its extensive involvement, illustrating its vibrant and dynamic presence in the European research landscape. The main asset of Telefónica I+D is its staff, which is 97% composed of university graduates from over 18 nationalities. It currently collaborates with technological leaders and many organizations from more than 40 countries; among which figure more than 150 universities around the world. It also participates in the most important international forums on technological knowledge of the ICT sector, thus creating one of the largest European innovation ecosystems. In addition to the numerous technical awards it has won since its foundation, the company received the Príncipe Felipe Award for Business Excellence in 2002.Fin ally, our direct connection with a global organization providing Internet services at all levels will ease the collection of knowledge from additional experts, as well as the assessment and evaluation of results in (next-to) real environments.

ARIADNE/Eurescom GmbH – Artificial Intelligence Aided D-band Network for 5G Long Term Evolution

ARIADNE aspires to transform the current 5G wireless thinking from focusing on “local” network improvements to realizing a longer-term vision of pervasive mobile virtual services. The project brought together a novel, high-frequency advanced radio architecture and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) network processing and management approach in a unified system beyond 5G concept. The ARIADNE booth will present, designed & developed, proof-of-concept demonstrator an innovative wireless communications concept addressing networks beyond 5G. In this concept, ultra-high spectral-efficient and reliable communications in the D-band can be dynamically established and reconfigured by Machine Learning (ML)-based design and intelligent network management, in both “Line of Sight” (LOS) and “Non-Line of Sight” (NLOS) environments.

Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy

With every generation of communications technology, the focus of the network changes. The 2G and 3G eras centered on human-to-human communication through voice and text. 4G heralded a fundamental shift to the massive consumption of data, while the 5G era has turned its focus on connecting the Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial automation systems. In the 6G era, the digital, physical and human world will seamlessly fuse to trigger extrasensory experiences. Intelligent knowledge systems will be combined with robust computation capabilities to make humans endlessly more efficient and redefine how we live, work and take care of the planet. At Nokia, we believe 6G will not just build on existing technologies and systems, it will expand and transform what a network can do. It will liberate human potential, inclusively and sustainably. Nokia expects 6G systems to launch commercially by 2030, following the typical 10-year cycle between generations. Meanwhile, 5G will be enhanced by 5GAdvanced, which will be a key focus for 3GPP in Release 18 onwards and power commercial networks starting 2025 onwards, well before 6G arrives at the end of the decade. Powered by world-renowned research from Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia has been the forerunner in defining the fundamental technologies for the 5G era and beyond. To make 6G a reality before 2030, Nokia is leading Hexa-X, the European Commission’s 6G flagship initiative for research into the next generation of wireless networks.

ISEP

6G BRAINS: H2020 ICT-52 research project, 6G BRAINS aims to bring AI-driven multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to perform resource allocation over and beyond massive machine-type communications with new spectrum links including THz and optical wireless communications to enhance the performance with regard to capacity, reliability and latency for future industrial networks. 6G BRAINS will deliver a novel comprehensive cross-layer DRL driven resource allocation solution to support the massive connections over device-to-device (D2D) assisted highly dynamic cell-free network enabled by Sub-6 GHz/mmWave/THz/OWC and high-resolution 3D Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) of up to 1 mm accuracy.

Technology Innovation Institute

Technology Innovation Institute, the dedicated ‘applied research’ pillar of Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), is a pioneering global research and development center that focuses on applied research and new-age technology capabilities. The institute has seven initial dedicated research centers in quantum, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy, and secure systems. By working with exceptional talent, universities, research institutions, and industry partners from all over the world, the Institute connects an intellectual community and contributes to building an R&D ecosystem in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. The Institute reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge- based economy.

Ericsson

Ericsson is a world leader in the rapidly changing environment of communications technology. From 5G research and standardization to today’s fully operational networks, Ericsson has been a key player in making 5G networks a reality. With pioneering research and early collaborations with academia and other industries, Ericsson has developed and contributed to a standard that meets the needs of different industries and the society. Now we are well underway on the journey towards 6G. Together with partners, we explore what the network will be able to deliver in 2030 and beyond, and the technology components that will make it possible. We are a trusted partner to academic institutions, industry, and service providers globally. Ericsson collaborates with top universities, innovative companies, and research institutions. Ericsson provides hardware, software, and services to mobile operators, to enable the full value of connectivity. About 40% of the world’s mobile traffic is carried through our networks. For more than 140 years, our ideas, technology and people have changed the world: real turning points that have transformed lives, industries and society as a whole. Our vision is a world where limitless connectivity improves lives, redefines business and pioneers a sustainable future. By creating connections that make the unimaginable possible, we are helping to shape an exciting and positive future. In this vision of the future, limitless connectivity enables Holographic communication, Digital twins, Immersive experiences, achieving Net Zero targets, and much more. https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/new-world-of-possibilities/imagine-possible-perspectives/industry5-0-human-centric-manufacturing/
For more information, please visit www.ericsson.com/en/6G
We look forward to meeting you in Gothenburg at this year’s EuCNC&6G Summit. Proud to be Diamond Patron of the event, we are eager to share research results and discuss the shaping of future 6G networks with you.

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES Düsseldorf GmbH

Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have 207,000 employees and operate in over 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world. We are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.
https://www.huawei.com/en/corporate-information

Keysight Technologies BV

Accelerate 6G Innovation with Keysight
Keysight enables innovators to create the best wireless communication experiences by quickly solving design, emulation, and test challenges. Enable 6G design with AI, improve energy efficiency, and explore future technologies. Keysight accelerates innovation with an end-to-end portfolio of precise measurement hardware and software-driven insights that reduce risk and speed time to market.
About Keysight Technologies
At Keysight (NYSE: KEYS), we inspire and empower innovators to bring world-changing technologies to life. As an S&P 500 company, we’re delivering market-leading design, emulation, and test solutions to help engineers develop and deploy faster, with less risk, throughout the entire product lifecycle. We’re a global innovation partner enabling customers in communications, industrial automation, aerospace and defense, automotive, semiconductor, and general electronics markets to accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. Learn more at Keysight Newsroom and www.keysight.com.

Chalmers University of Technology

Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg on the beautiful Swedish west coast, conducts research and education in engineering and natural sciences at the highest international level. Chalmers has 3100 employees and 10,000 students, and offers education in engineering, science, shipping and architecture. With scientific excellence as a basis, Chalmers promotes knowledge and technical solutions for a sustainable world. Through global commitment and entrepreneurship, we foster an innovative spirit, in close collaboration with industry and society. We coordinate EU’s biggest research initiative – the Graphene Flagship and lead the development of a Swedish quantum computer. Chalmers was founded in 1829 and our motto is Avancez – forward.

CONNECT, SFI Research Centre for Future Networks & Communications

CONNECT, the SFI Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications, comprises a consortium of Irish academic institutes undertaking world-leading research, development and innovation in future communications networks with a unified purpose and mission: “CONNECT envisions and researches a future of sustainably deployed dependable networks that foster innovation in services and customer experience to empower citizens and improve quality of life”. Over 250 CONNECT researchers across 10 Higher Education Institutes are supported by €90 million of funding from the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centres Programme, the European Regional Development Fund and industry partners. Communications networks are now part of our critical infrastructure, enabling a vast range of applications that we have all come to rely on. These networks must now evolve to enable services that one day will also become ubiquitous, from augmented reality to autonomous vehicles. At CONNECT, we design the next generation of networks that automatically respond to the services that run on them.
Research Areas
CONNECT focuses on ten research themes looking to the next generation of networks:
• Dependable Networks
• Sustainable IoT
• Link Performance
• Customised Networks
• AI-driven Network Customisation
• Network Ecologies
• Smart Cities
• Connected Autonomous Vehicles
• Cybersecurity
• Quantum & Satellite Communications

Public Safety Communication Europé

Long-term towards Evolved 5G and 6G research needs mobilization of massive volumes of ideas, from which the best can emerge and be adopted for standardization. With the extremely low latency and huge data capacity of Beyond 5G and 6G networks, the cyber and physical worlds could converge, allowing for the development of services like digital twins and internet of senses applications. This future ecosystem is on track to be more collaborative and inclusive than previous generations of networks. FIDAL seeks to set the standard by fostering open architectures, large experimentation sites, and adopting a multi-stakeholder approach, thus it steps in, targeting the augmentation of human capabilities, enabling Media & PPDR vertical industry players to carry out advanced technological and business validation in large-scale trial facilities of highly innovative and advanced applications, that take full advantage of Evolved 5G technologies. This will provide significantly beneficial feedback to the broader industry, academia, innovators and community before wide commercial deployments of Evolved 5G networks throughout Europe.

Bayern Innovativ GmbH — Thinknet 6G

Thinknet 6G To ensure that all relevant stakeholders in Bavaria are involved in the research and development of 6G early in this cycle, the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy founded Thinknet 6G to create an agile ecosystem of industry players, research institutions, associations, innovators, start-ups and incubators. Thinknet 6G is both a think tank and an agile community for all organisations and stakeholders who are interested in any aspect of 6G development. Thinknet 6G is hosted by the Centre for Digitalisation Bavaria at Bayern Innovativ and will pursue the following main goals and activities:
• Establish a vibrant ecosystem of 6G stakeholders in Bavaria, Germany, Europe, and internationally
• Act as a central point-of-contact and point-of-information for 6G topics and questions
• Stimulate networking and exchange between the relevant stakeholders, to enable collaboration, cooperation and knowledge transfer
• Cooperate and network with 6G organisations in other states and countries
• Support pre-competitive consensus building and reciprocal exchange
• Promote Thinknet 6G and its activities, for example via an annual 6G summit
• Provide expert input and support to define calls for research funding

Hexa-X

• Hexa-X is the European flagship research initiative to develop the foundation and contribute to industry consensus leading to 6G
• 25 partners
  • NW vendors
  • Operators
  • Industry
  • Academia
  • SMEs
• Nokia is overall leader
• Ericsson is technical manager

Hexa-X vision on 6G
2030 and beyond the world will face tremendous opportunities and challenges of sustainable growth. The Hexa-X vision is to Connect human, physical and
digital worlds with a fabric of 6G key enablers.
Key enabler areas
• Fundamentally new radio access technologies at high frequencies and high-resolution localization and sensing
• Connected intelligence through AI-driven air interface and governance for future networks
• 6G architectural enablers for network disaggregation and dynamic dependability.
Objectives
• Foundation for an end-to-end system architecture towards 6G
• Radio performance towards 6G
• Connecting intelligence towards 6G
• Network evolution and expansion towards 6G
• Impact creation towards 6G
Actions
• Organisation of public workshops
• Preparation of joint whitepapers
• Active participation in major events
• Development of the foundation and contribution to industry consensus leading to 6G

Read more: hexa-x.eu/about

EC/Smart Networks and Services JU, Eurescom

The European Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) is a Public-Private Partnership that aims to facilitate and develop industrial leadership in Europe in 5G and 6G networks and services. The SNS JU funds projects that shape a solid research and innovation (R&I) roadmap and deployment agenda by engaging a critical mass of European stakeholders and facilitating international cooperation on various 6G initiatives. The SNS JU has two main missions:
1 – Fostering Europe’s technology sovereignty in 6G by implementing the related research and innovation (R&I) programme leading to the conception and standardisation around 2025. It encourages preparation for early market adoption of 6G technologies by the end of the decade. Mobilising a broad set of stakeholders is key to address strategic areas of the networks and services value chain. This ranges from edge- and cloud-based service provisioning to market opportunities in new components and devices beyond smartphones.
2 – Boosting 5G deployment in Europe in view of developing digital lead markets and enabling the digital and green transition of the economy and society. For this objective, the SNS JU coordinates strategic guidance for the relevant programmes under the Connecting Europe Facility, in particular 5G Corridors. It also contributes to the coordination of national programmes, including under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and other European programmes and facilities such as Digital Europe Programme (DEP) and InvestEU.

DEDICAT 6G/ WINGS ICT Solutions

The vision of the H2020 DEDICAT 6G project is to enhance the offering of future networks by further improving latency, adaptability, flexibility and security to support innovative, human-centric applications. In this direction develop a smart connectivity platform using artificial intelligence and blockchain techniques that will enable 6G networks to combine the existing communication infrastructure with coverage extension schemes and novel distribution of intelligence (data, computation, and storage) at the edge and to allow not only flexible, but also energy efficient ealization of the envisaged real-time experience. DEDICAT 6G focuses on four use cases: Smart warehousing, Enhanced experiences, Public Safety and Smart Highway. The use cases pilot the developed solutions via simulations and demonstrations in laboratory environments, and larger field evaluations. The DEDICAT 6G exhibition aims to provide delegates with insights into the concepts and vision of DEDICAT 6G, and how the usage of intelligence distribution, dynamic coverage extension, enhanced security, privacy and trust, human-centric applications and robots, and connected cars can help in building a smart connectivity platform for B5G/6G.

National Instruments Sweden AB

At NI, we understand that cellular technology evolves quickly—5G rollouts and enhancements are progressing in parallel with early 6G research. Engineers are tasked with innovating and bringing new products to market with more capabilities. From research and prototyping to high-speed automated test, rapidly generating results is key to making next-generation wireless systems and networks a reality. With promising technologies like AI, machine learning, sub-THz frequencies, MIMO, and RADAR sensing, the next generation of cellular standards is well under way. NI’s 5G and 6G solutions enable researchers to quickly move from mathematical models to over-the-air testbeds—going beyond simulation to real-world experiments. Our Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology combines flexibility and performance to enable researchers to experiment with new concepts and quickly iterate. Co-processing and FPGA acceleration pair with highly capable RF front ends to deliver real-time systems that are ideal for wireless research and prototyping. Our modular, open architectures allow system extensions to adapt to changing needs as wireless networks evolve beyond 5G. At NI, we provide the foundation to ensure quality and results that are backed by data. Through integration of hardware and software, NI provides flexible solutions for engineers to rapidly prototype and deploy real-time wireless communications systems.Our offerings and network of support resources ensure that not only are we speaking to our customers, but learning and innovating with them as well. That’s what it means to Engineer Ambitiously.

Rohde & Schwarz

The Rohde & Schwarz technology group is among the trailblazers when it comes to paving the way for a safer and connected world with its leading solutions in test & measurement, technology systems, and networks & cybersecurity. Founded nearly 90 years ago, the group is a reliable partner for industry and government customers around the globe. On June 30, 2022, Rohde & Schwarz had around 13,000 employees worldwide. The independent group achieved a net revenue of EUR 2.53 billion in the 2021/2022 fiscal year (July to June). The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

5G-VICTORI

As deploying 5G solutions for vertical industries in Europe is a well-defined objective, there is a clear need to develop future proof 5G infrastructures to address a wide range of vertical applications adopting a flexible architecture, offering converged services across heterogeneous technology domains deploying unified software control. It is true to say that despite the European strategy to support verticals through 5G solutions, verticals face the problem that they can only practically verify their use cases in small scales in commercially relevant environments before investing in large scale deployments. Through ICT-17 projects, EU has invested in the development of 5G ICT infrastructures that will become available to verticals to test their applications. ICT-17 projects provide small scale testbed infrastructures that in some cases need suitable extensions to enable integration of verticals and allow a small scale testing environment for vertical commercially relevant infrastructures. However, large scale trials are not possible with the current ICT-17 facilities. In view of this, 5G-VICTORI aims at conducting large scale trials for advanced use case verification in a commercially relevant 5G environment for a number of verticals including Transportation, Energy, Media and Factories of the Future as well as some specific use cases involving cross-vertical interaction (Figure 1). The specific use cases that 5G VICTORI will concentrate on include:

• “Enhanced Mobile broadband under high speed mobility”, Vertical: Transportation – Rail,
• “Digital Mobility”, Cross-Vertical – Transportation and Media,
• “Critical services for railway systems”, Vertical: Rail,
• “Smart Energy Metering”, Cross-Vertical: Energy and Rail,
• “Digitization of Power Plants”, Vertical: Smart Factory, and
• “CDN services in dense, static and mobile environments”, Vertical: Media

5G-Blueprint

The 5G-Blueprint project is focused on creating, testing, and validating, a comprehensive 5G-based system for seamless cross-border teleoperated transport. The main outcomes of the project will be a technical blueprint, as well as business and governance models, for operational pan-European deployment of teleoperated transport solutions in the transport and logistics sector, which will be used as a baseline for future collaboration between public and (semi)private parties that are enhancing their business and operation with 5G technology.
In the 5G-Blueprint project, the seamless teleoperation over 5G Standalone (SA) based on 3GPP Release 16 technology is tackling cross-border challenges in terms of advancements in 5G network design and implementation that minimize the service interruption time while teleoperated vehicles/barges are crossing the Dutch-Belgian border. To validate effective teleoperation mechanisms on vehicles, trucks, and skid steers, over the 5G SA, 5G-Blueprint offers two in-country pilot sites located in port environments (Vlissingen in NL, Antwerp in BE), and to achieve seamless cross-border teleoperation, 5G-Blueprint created Zelzate pilot site (BE-NL).
The 5G-Blueprint project defines four use cases in total, which are aiming at developing safe (inter-)harbor teleoperated transport enabled by 5G technology. The selected use cases are: (1) Automated Barge Control, focused on improving the port entry efficiency by reducing crew requirements for barging in busy port environments, (2) Automated driver-in-loop docking, providing the yard tractors and skid steers with optimized docking and maneuvering operation in safety critical situations, (3) CACC based platooning, leveraging 5G connectivity on the highways to combine platooning with teleoperation and full automation, and (4) Remote take-over, which is entirely focused on the teleoperation mechanisms that are later applied to other use cases. The aforementioned use cases are furthered enhanced with the help of so-called enabling functions, whose objective is to improve safety and efficiency of tele-operated transport, thereby increasing awareness of vulnerable road users, enhancing distributed perception, and enabling intelligent traffic lights, among others.

IQUADRAT INFORMATICA SL

5GMEDIAHUB- 5G experimentation environment for 3rd party media services

5GMed5GMediaHUB aims to help EU to achieve the goal of becoming a world leader in 5G, by accelerating the testing and validation of innovative 5G-empowered media applications and NetApps from 3rd party experimenters and NetApps developers, through an open, integrated and fully featured Experimentation Facility. This will significantly reduce not only the service creation lifecycle but also the time to market barrier, thus providing such actors that are primarily from SMEs, with a competitive advantage against their rivals outside EU. In particular, 5GMediaHUB will build and operate an elastic, secure and trusted multi-tenant service execution and NetApps development environment based on an open cloud-based architecture and APIs, by developing and integrating a testing and validation system with two existing well-established 5G testbeds (by CTTC and Telenor) for enabling the fast prototyping, testing and validation of novel 5G services and NetApps. 5GMediaHUB will offer: (i) a DevOps environment for Testing as a Service; (ii) a rich set of Experimentation Tools that offer scheduling, validation, verification, analytics and QoS/QoE monitoring mechanisms; (iii) A set of re-usable vertical specific and verticalagnostic NetApps with easy to use APIs that can be consumed by application developers, reducing the complexity and risk of integrations and operations; (iv) a re-usable open-source NetApps Repository; (v) an umbrella crossdomain service orchestrator to deliver cross-domain orchestration of NetApps; (vi) an innovative security framework offering software defined perimeter protection and isolation of NetApps; (vii) incremental validation capabilities of the Experimental Facility evidenced through 3 novel media use cases with 2 scenarios each, over 3GPP R.16 and R.17 5G testbed releases. Our 17-partner consortium (9 SMEs) from 9 countries has extremely rich 5G-PPP experience, since 13 partners have participated in previous 5G-PPP projects and in several 5G-PPP WGs.

IQUADRAT INFORMATICA SL

6GBRICKS: Building Reusable testbed Infrastructures for validating Cloudto- device breaKthrough technologieS

6G networks, currently only existing as concepts, are envisioned as portals to a fully digitized society, where the physical and virtual world are blended via boundless Extended Reality (XR), and also as an enabler for the Digital and Green transformation of the European Industries. To support this vision, the network capacity must be increased at least by an order of magnitude, while infrastructures must be transformed into a very dense continuum. Thus, academia and industry have shifted their attention to the investigation of a new generation of Smart Networks and infrastructures. It is clear that to win this race towards shaping the next-generation communication ecosystem, a new generation of testbed infrastructures and breakthrough research and technology development is needed needed, as well as a new generation of testbeds to support future research initiative. To this end, 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. All enablers will be delivered in the form of reusable components with open APIs, termed “bricks“. Finally, initial integrations with O-RAN are performed, aiming for the future-proofing and interoperability of 6G-BRICKS outcomes.

Adtran/ADVA

Digital transformation is ongoing in many areas of today’s society, which will impact many aspects of people’s lives via means such as smart cities, robotic, transportation, and next-generation industries. At the same time, the current centralized cloud infrastructure is not adequate to serve the transformation’s requirements. We believe that three technologies can come together to shape a new secure service and application platform; 5G, edge-centric compute & artificial intelligence. In this context, European industry has a good position in 5G networks, transportation and industrial applications, but need to strengthen the position in a secure cloud, data centre and artificial intelligence technologies to be at the front of the development.The primary objective of the AI-NET project is to provide enablers and solutions for high-performance services deployed and operated at the network edge. To manage complexity, we need to take advantage of artificial intelligence to complement traditional optimisation algorithms. Currently, deep edge network nodes will be deployed at locations not prepared for the power requirements of edge-centric compute. To answer this, we need to analyse requirements and develop methods to minimize energy consumption.

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A.

The Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation S.A. (OTE), member of the Deutsche Telekom (DT) Group of Companies, is the incumbent telecommunications provider in Greece. OTE as the leading company of the OTE Group of Companies, offers its customers a wide range of technologically advanced services such as high‐speed data communications, mobile telephony, internet access, infrastructure provision, multimedia services, TV services, leased lines, maritime and satellite communications, telex and directories. OTE’s R&D Department is involved in almost all technological and infrastructural issues and is an active participant in many EU and international collaborative projects. OTE’s current R&D activities include broadband technologies and services, next generation network architectures, infrastructure development etc., following to the actual challenges for the development of a fully competitive network infrastructure & a portfolio of innovative services/facilities.

Airbus DS SLC

5G ExPerimentation Infrastructure hosting
Cloud-nativE Netapps for public proTection and disaster RElief

5G-EPICENTRE concept and objectives

European SMEs that seek to conduct rigorous experimentation of their solutions that target the public safety market often face several challenges. The 5G-EPICENTRE project intends to minimise barriers to 5G adoption and market entry for by providing an open, federated, end-to-end experimentation facility for such SMEs. When concluded, the 5G-EPICENTRE will offer an open, end-to-end 5G experimentation platform that focuses on software solutions for PPDR. The platform will offer developers access to the most recent 5G applications, good practices for first responders, crisis management approaches as well as the ability to create and test their own solutions.  The 5G-EPICENTRE platform will be based on an open Service oriented Architecture, adhere to the most recent best DevOps practices, and be able to provide open access to 5G networks’ resources, acting as a 5G open-source repository for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) Network Applications.

The 5G-EPICENTRE key-objectives are:

1. Build an end-to-end 5G experimentation platform specifically tailored to the needs of the public safety and emergency response market players.
2. Pilot 5G systems in PPDR-based trials, successfully demonstrating 5G-EPICENTRE onboarded apps as a crucial communications accompaniment to public safety mission critical communications technologies.
3. Cultivate a ‘5G Experiments as a Service’ model, which will enable developers and SMEs to experiment with PPDR applications in parameterized, easily repeatable, and shareable environments.
4. Facilitate automation, continuous deployment and multi-access edge computing supported by containerized network functions, so as to reduce service creation time and time-to-market for 5G solutions.
5. Leverage Artificial Intelligence for achieving cognitive experiment coordination and lifecycle management, including dynamic 5G slicing, application awareness and insightful ML-driven analytics.
6. Implement impact-driven dissemination, standardisation, and exploitation.

Experimentation in the context of several first-party experiments (e.g., experiments implemented by consortium partners) is anticipated for the evaluation of the 5G-EPICENTRE platform and will be realized as a PPDR vertical. This pilot studies’ target is to broaden over all three of the 3 ITU-defined service types (i.e., eMBB, mMTC and URLLC), while offering the means to monitor the platform’s secure interoperability capabilities outside the scope of vendor-specific implementations. In the light of this, 5G-EPICENTRE has engaged SMEs and organizations, that will take part in the implementation of the use cases and are active participants in the public security and disaster management markets, serving as crucial facilitators for the evaluation of 5G-EPICENTRE with regard to the actual needs that should be addressed. Last, but not lease, KPIs related to 5G will be measured through the execution of these first-party experiments, particularly those that relate to the creation time of services.

Tektronix

Tektronix are the measurement insight company committed to performance and compelled by possibilities. Tektronix designs and manufactures test and measurement solutions to break through the walls of complexity and accelerate global innovation. Together we empower engineers to create and realize technological advances with ever greater ease, speed, and accuracy. Tektronix solutions have supported many of humankind’s greatest advances of the past 70 years. Health. Communication. Mobility. Space. With offices in 21 countries, we are committed to the scientists, engineers and technicians around the world who will define the future. Tektronix has a history in supporting innovation in communications standards for wired, optical, and wireless being at the forefront of the development of coherent optical measurement techniques, IEEE and OIF optical communication standards, and real time RF signal analysis hardware technologies for digital communications. Tektronix is committed to supporting the research and development of critical technologies for that will enable B5G and 6G applications. Tektronix has 3 core technologies that are helping enable 6G research:

• ultra-wideband signal generation and acquisition hardware supporting the generation of 28Gbaud signal and up to D-Band frequencies.
• Real time sampling technologies researching 200GS/s on multiple channels simultaneously.
• precision multichannel synchronization architecture allowing for the generation and acquisition of up to 16 channels simultaneously.
• Advanced DSP and measurement algorithms/software

This technology allows for precision measurement of IQ modulated signaling at IF and CF frequencies. It also allows users to test and evaluate the signal integrity of different signal attributes including (but not limited to) modulation rates and schemes, IQ impairments, channel losses and equalization, and jitter/phase noise/EVM/BER performance.

UBITECH

UBITECH (www.ubitech.eu) is a leading, highly innovative software house, systems integrator and technology provider, established to provide leading edge intelligent technical solutions and consulting services to businesses, organizations and government to allow the efficient and effective secure access and communication with various heterogeneous information resources and services, anytime and anywhere. UBITECH enables real-time valid information processing and decision-making, the realization of intelligent business environments, and B2B and B2C transactions by providing high added-value business –oriented and –based solutions. UBITECH LIMITED is the youngest member of UBITECH Group that has been established in 2005, concentrated initially in the Balkan market and acquiring several EC and national grants for novel R&D initiatives. Currently, UBITECH Group has extended its operations with targeted international activities through its subsidiaries, representation offices, business partners and affiliated companies in Limassol (UBITECH LIMITED), Madrid (Business Development Office), Buenos Aires (UBITECH SRL targeting mainly Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia) and Guayaquil (Business Partner and Representation Office for Ecuador and Panama), concentrating mainly in the Spanish-speaking countries of Central and Latin America.
Technology innovation constitutes the lifeblood of UBITECH. We are continuously seeking and validating new, emerging technologies, developing new ideas, concepts, and solutions, and improving existing software applications and products for vertical markets or for addressing specific end-user’s needs. UBITECH R&D team – that spans across all group’s companies, collaborating and exchanging experiences and technological know-how, reinforcing the group’s research capacity – is engaged in developing, integrating, deploying, piloting, demonstrating, and evaluating innovative technologies, utilities, features and processes, transferring technological know-how to end-user organizations and adapting breakthrough solutions to end-user’s demands. UBITECH R&D team participates in large, multidisciplinary consortiums in complex and highly innovative projects, including experts from universities, research institutes and industry across the enlarged Europe, which partner to provide research, technology integration and skilled project management. UBITECH R&D team members can demonstrate strong involvement in EC and National co-funded research programmes, through the design, development and implementation of research and technological development instruments.
Based on group’s strategy for research and innovation, every group member participates actively into the research and development of cutting-edge tools and methodologies to improve the solutions and services of the group. Thus, UBITECH LIMITED (Cyprus) researchers, depending on their expertise and the local exploitation potential, perform applied research in the areas of Cloud Computing, Software and Services; 5G Technologies; Digital Security, Big Data and Analytics; Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things; Energy Efficiency; Factories of the Future; e/m-Health. UBITECH has a strong a focus on the integration and interoperability of information technology solutions and applies its research results to solve problems in various application-oriented projects in several domains (included but not limited to Life Sciences and e-Health, Ambient Assisted and Independent Living, e-Government and Policy Modelling, Lifelong Education and Technology-enhanced Learning, e-Culture, e-Business and Networked Enterprise, Digital Factories, Security and Environmental Management).

University of Bedfordshire

We are a vibrant, ambitious academic community celebrating diversity and the transformative power of education. We are the University of Bedfordshire.

ICT-53 projects: 5GRAIL, 5G-ROUTES, and 5GMED

This is a consortium of three 5GPPP projects addressing the challenges of sustainable deployments of 5G technologies critical to support the future Connected Automated Mobility (CAM) services along European transport corridors.
5GRAIL: The Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) will be the 5G worldwide standard for railway operational communications, conforming to European regulation as well as responding to the needs and obligations of rail organisations outside of Europe. The work on functional & technical requirements, specification & standardisation in 3GPP as well as regarding harmonised spectrum solutions is currently led by UIC, in cooperation with the whole railway sector. A major challenge is the update by European Railway Agency of the Technical Specifications for Interoperability of Control Command and Signalling (CCS TSI) by the end of 2022 with a full description of FRMCS with respect to interoperability functions. Therefore, the 5GRAIL project aims to verify the first set of FRMCS specifications and standards (FRMCS V1) by developing and testing prototypes of the FRMCS ecosystem.
Visit https://5grail.eu/
5G-ROUTES is a 5G-PPP Phase 3 project whose aim is to validate through robust evidence the latest 5G features and 3GPP specifications (R.16 & R.17) of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) under realistic conditions in digitised motorways, railways and shipways throughout Europe. In particular, it will conduct advanced large-scale field trials of most representative CAM applications to demonstrate seamless functionality across a prominent 5G cross-border corridor (Via Baltica-North), traversing Latvia, Estonia and Finland.
Visit https://www.5g-routes.eu/
5GMED will demonstrate advanced Cooperative Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) and Future Railway Mobile Communications System services (FRMCS) along the “Figueres Perpignan” cross-border corridor between Spain and France, enabled by a multi-stakeholder compute and network infrastructure deployed by MNOs, neutral hosts, and road and rail operators, based on 5G and offering support for AI functions.
Visit https://5gmed.eu/

TERAWAY

TERAWAY is a 5G-PPP, Research and Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 programme, launched on November 1st, 2019. Aligned with 5G/B5G vision for a fully mobile and connected society, TERAWAY comes as a technology-intensive project aiming at developing a new generation of THz transceivers able to overcome current limitations in Terahertz wireless communication and challenge the commercial uptake and industrialization of THz technology. The core objective of the project is the development of a photonic-enabled technology base that combines the generation, emission and detection of wireless signals with selectable symbol rate and bandwidth within an ultra-wide range of carrier frequencies covering the W-, D- and THz bands. By leveraging optical concepts and photonic integration techniques, TERAWAY is in the process of developing ground-breaking multi-channel transceivers, operating at the frequency range from 92 up to 322 GHz, with multi-beam optical beamforming capabilities. In parallel, a new software defined networking (SDN) controller and radio-based network slicing tools are under development for the management of the network together with the appropriate SDN mediators and algorithms for the incorporation of the THz transceivers into the network. All in all, upon its completion, TERAWAY project aims to provide a common pool of potential radio resources that can ensure high-throughput network connectivity in a flexible manner.

ICCS/NTUA

The Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) was founded in 1992. It was founded in order to support the performance of top-quality research, development activities and the provision of scientific service to private and public bodies. Essentially the mission of ICCS was to support the deployment, the realization, and the growth of the research priorities of ECE mainly through seeking, pursuing, and acquiring research funding via the competitive calls for research proposals that the European Commission had instigated. In turn its purpose has been to build a research personnel base alongside ECE’s faculty so as to conduct state-of-the-art research and at the same time improve the research laboratory equipment base and infrastructures of the school.
ICCS has adopted a gender equality plan for addressing gender equality, to identify gender related activities and monitoring plans. Equality of opportunity is core to ICCS mission and gender balance is a critical component for the Institute to ensure fair access and equity for our research, managerial and support staff. ICCS following international, community and internal standards, commits to the promotion of equality of opportunities between women and men in its principles and priorities.
Furthermore, ICCS has been organized so as to host and to provide research stipends to postgraduate students and post-doctoral researchers. Since its foundation and up to date, ICCS has been growing and maturing within the complex context of the Greek law governing research, innovation, and higher education affairs in a country where research resources and funding has been maintained at low levels, in comparison to the majority of the developed European countries.

WINGS ICT Solutions S.A.

TRIALSNET: Trials Supported By Smart Networks Beyond 5G

TrialsNet, a 6G SNS STREAM D project co-funded by the European Union under the grand agreement number 101095871, is a pioneering initiative focusing on Large Scale Trials and Pilots (LST&Ps) with Verticals. The TrialsNet vision is to enable the realization of compelling societal values and to improve the “liveability” of the urban environment through the implementation of 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.
TrialsNet will deploy full large-scale trials with verticals by means of 13 representative use cases developed over wide coverage areas with the involvement of extended sets of real users in 4 geographical clusters, in Italy, Spain, Greece and Romania. To achieve this, TrialsNet will design and deploy platforms and network solutions with advanced functionalities based on dynamic slicing management, E2E orchestration, NFV, MEC and AI/ML methods to be trialled on 3GPP and O-RAN network architectures. Through its activities, TrialsNet will pursue the objective to i) understand where current networks are not sufficient to assure the performance needed by the use cases, and to ii) derive the new requirements for next generation mobile networks.
At EuCNC 23, visitors to the TrialsNet booth will present 6G-oriented applications in the three aforementioned domains. Alongside general information about the project, the demonstrations will introduce the benefits provided by the applications that will developed by TrialsNet, the required network features and envisaged 6G enablers for the implementation towards large scale-trials involving a consistent number of users. In particular, the limitations of the current technology will be highlighted in terms of network performances and functionalities, illustrating how TrialsNet activities will address such issues and propose its innovative solutions to them.. More in detail, the demonstrations will be on:

• Smart traffic monitoring and infrastructure management platforms (both with video and demo setup), with a particular focus on the advanced functionalities that will be provided by TrialsNet’s solutions.
• Remote eHealth monitoring system based on massive twining and XR, leveraging on a currently available digital health and wellness platform (STARLIT); explanation on how the legacy platforms work and description of the innovative elements that will be introduced by TrialsNet to enhance them will be presented.
• Immersive fan engagement in which visitors of the booth will be provided with tablets and/or headsets to watch a sport event in an immersive manner through AR and VR technologies, which will be enhanced through B5G network enablers for being offered at larger scale.

IMDEA Networks Institute

The success of Beyond 5G (B5G) systems will largely depend on the quality of the Network Intelligence (NI) that will fully automate network management. Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are commonly regarded as the cornerstone for NI design; indeed, AI models have proven extremely successful at solving hard problems that require inferring complex relationships from entangled and massive (e.g., traffic) data. However, AI is not the best solution for every NI task; and, when it is, the dominating trend of plugging ‘vanilla’ AI into network controllers and orchestrators is not a sensible choice. Departing from the current hype around AI, DAEMON will set forth a pragmatic approach to NI design. The project will carry out a systematic analysis of which NI tasks are appropriately solved with AI models, providing a solid set of guidelines for the use of machine learning in network functions. For those problems where AI is a suitable tool, DAEMON will design tailored AI models that respond to the specific needs of network functions, taking advantage of the most recent advances in machine learning. Building on these models, DAEMON will design an end-to-end NI-native architecture for B5G that fully coordinates NI-assisted functionalities. The advances to NI devised by DAEMON will be applied in practical network settings to: (i) deliver extremely high performance while making an efficient use of the underlying radio and computational resources; (ii) reduce the energy footprint of mobile networks; and (iii) provide extremely high reliability beyond that of 5G systems. To achieve this, DAEMON will design practical algorithms for eight concrete NI-assisted functionalities, carefully selected to achieve the objectives above. The performance of the DAEMON algorithms will be evaluated in real-world conditions via four experimental sites, and at scale with data-driven approaches based on two nationwide traffic measurement datasets, against nine ambitious yet feasible KPI targets.

Experimentation with distributed Post-5G architectures within SLICES-RI

SLICES is defined and planned as a distributed research infrastructure (RI), with 15 national nodes and centralised governance and a central hub. SLICES is a flexible platform designed to support large-scale, experimental research focused on networking protocols, radio technologies, services, data collection, parallel and distributed computing and in particular cloud and edge-based computing architectures and services. SLICES-RI entered the ESFRI Roadmap in 2021. The design phase of SLICES ended in 2022, and the preparation phase started in September 2022 and will run up to December 2025. The underpinning of SLICES is based on the scientific excellence of our community and presents the articulation of the required technologies, services and the foreseen components including the reference architecture that will rule them all. The identified technologies are evolving around the latest trends in research in digital infrastructures, as well as the services that can be offered over the top. The starting point of SLICES has been identified as a mixture of the most mature research infrastructures in Digital Infrastructures covering different resources, including advanced programmable radios, mature off-the-shelf radios, configurable wired/optical multi-Gbps transnational links, and a wide range of IoT devices backed by special purpose processors and vast computing resources.
Objectives of the exhibition: The key objective of the exhibition is to demonstrate the latest achievements of the SLICES consortium in providing a first version of the SLICES infrastructure available to external researchers. The exhibition will assist towards raising awareness and extending the SLICES community, by targeted dissemination to all relevant researchers and industrial stakeholders who can take advantage of SLICES. The exhibition will feature besides the demonstration, a separate section on informing on tools available under the SLICES ecosystem, including the portal for accessing resources, Transnational and Virtual Access activities, services offered for enabling access, scheme on funded researcher mobility (long and short mobilities), as well as the integration of the data dimension, with datasets that can be exposed through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Details will be offered on how the SLICES consortium is organized, and the process on including new potential nodes during the implementation phase of SLICES.

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A.

MARSAL: Machine Learning-Based, Networking and Computing Infrastructure Resource Management of 5G and Beyond Intelligent Networks
5G mobile networks will be soon available to handle all types of applications and to provide service to massive numbers of users. In this complex and dynamic network ecosystem, an end-to-end performance analysis and optimization will be the key features, in order to effectively manage the diverse requirements imposed by multiple vertical industries over the same shared infrastructure. To enable such a vision, the MARSAL project targets the development and evaluation of a complete framework for the management and orchestration of network resources in 5G and beyond, by utilizing a converged optical-wireless network infrastructure in the access and fronthaul/midhaul segments.
At the network design domain, MARSAL targets the development of novel cell-free based solutions that allow significant scaling up of the wireless Access Points in a cost-effective manner, by exploiting the application of the distributed cell-free concept and of the serial fronthaul approach, while contributing innovative functionalities to the O-RAN project. In parallel, in the fronthaul/midhaul segments MARSAL aims to radically increase the flexibility of optical access architectures for beyond-5G Cell Site connectivity via different levels of fixed-mobile convergence.
At the network and service management domain, the design philosophy of MARSAL is to provide a comprehensive framework for the management of the entire set of communication and computational network resources by exploiting novel Machine Learning (ML) based algorithms of both edge and midhaul Data Centres by incorporating the Virtual Elastic Data Centres/Infrastructures paradigm.
Finally, at the network security domain, MARSAL aims to introduce mechanisms that provide privacy and security to application workload and data, targeting to allow applications and users to maintain control over their data when relying on the deployed shared infrastructures, while Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies will be developed in order to guarantee a secured multi-tenant slicing environment.
NANCY – An Artificial Intelligent Aided Unified Network for Secure Beyond 5G Long Term Evolution (Grant Agreement No.101096456) (Duration: January 01, 2023 – December 31, 2025)
Aim: To introduce a secure and intelligent architecture for the beyond the fifth generation (B5G) wireless network. 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, multitenant and perpetual protection. Finally, in order to accommodate the particularities of the new RAN that are generated due to the use of novel building blocks, such as blockchain, multi-access edge computing, and AI, a new experimentally-verified information-theoretic framework will be designed and presented.
For more information: https://nancy-project.eu/

ETRI

Established in 1976, ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute and has played a leading role in advancing ICT research and development in Korea. As of the end of 2022, ETRI had about 2,270 employees of which about 1,980 are researchers, and 480 million USD for the average R&D budget over the past five years. ETRI aims to contribute to the nation’s economic and social development through research, development, and distribution of industrial core technologies in AI, Telecommunications & Media, Convergence technologies, and ICT Materials & Components.
Standing at the new era of cutting edge, ETRI is challenged to secure original technologies and parts and material technologies in advance for ICT and convergence strategic technologies which is expected to be a new growth engine in the near future. 5G+/6G, AI·SW, AI semiconductor and system semiconductor, meta verse, cyber-security, supercomputer and quantum computer, and material/device technology will be a priority for us as we recognized the importance of securing original technologies. Building a global network through various partnerships, ETRI shares its technological innovation throughout the world, helping humanity realize its dreams.

eBOS Technologies Ltd.

eBOS is an established and innovative high-tech Cypriot owned SME headquartered in Nicosia, with 20 years of presence in the national and international market, providing advanced, e-business software solutions for the enterprise market. eBOS is characterized for its passion for Research, Development and Innovation (R&D&I), with a vast experience in R&D&I from their participation in 6 FP7, 23 H2020, 1 EDIDP, 1 CEF and 24 Horizon Europe projects. Based on the latest data published by the European Commission, eBOS is the best performing SME in Cyprus in EU funded R&D&I projects during the past 15 years under the EU FP7, H2020 and Horizon Europe framework research programmes, participating so far in 55 EU funded projects, out of which 42 are ongoing and collaborating with more than 2.500 partners throughout Europe. eBOS is the second-best performing SME in the Mediterranean region and amongst the top 8 SMEs in Europe on the number of Horizon Europe projects participation. eBOS has been awarded several awards and certificates, including the 2012/13 European Business Award for being a beacon of best practice in Cyprus, the Innovative SME certificate by the Ministry of Finance since 2019, the certificate of Truly Innovative SME by the Innovation Radar of the European Commission, the certificate for the implementation of good practices on gender equality in the working environment by the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance of the Republic of Cyprus since 2022, and the ISO 27001:2013 for information security. eBOS has also been awarded with 2 patents plus 5 more with a patent pending status. eBOS expertise and core competencies leveraged in the EU funded projects, include back-end and front-end software, intuitive dashboards, APIs, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning algorithms design and development, blockchain solutions and cybersecurity, 5G and beyond, and hardware IoT sensors. In addition to the technical roles, eBOS has also successfully undertaken the leadership of non-technical tasks in numerous EU funded projects, leading the Quality Assurance and Risk Management, and impact maximisation activities, such as Dissemination, Communication, Exploitation, Commercialisation, Innovation, IPR, data management, and ethics. eBOS also widely disseminates and presents the key outputs of the projects to international conferences and exhibitions, and is a member of national and international technology clusters and key associations, such as the 6G-IA, AIOTI, BDVA/DAIRO, NGI, NESSI, NetWorld Europe, CARIE, etc.

CERTH/ITI

The Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) is the only research centre in Northern Greece and one of the largest in the country founded in 2000 (www.certh.gr). Its mission is to promote the triplet Research – Development – Innovation by conducting high quality research and developing innovative products and services while building strong partnerships with industry and strategic collaborations with academia and other research and technology organisations in Greece and abroad. CERTH is essentially a self-supported Research Centre generating an average annual turnover of ~ € 50 Million coming from: 77% from competitive research projects, 13% from bilateral industrial research contracts and 10% as government institutional funding. More than 1150 people work at CERTH with the majority being scientists. CERTH has received numerous awards and distinctions such as the European Descartes Prize, the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, Microsoft International Contest Prize, the Trading Agents Competition Award and many more and is listed among the Top-25 of the EU’s Organisations with the highest participation in H2020 competitive research grants. CERTH has participated successfully in more than 1.200 competitive research projects (with a total budget exceeding 450 M€ and involving more than 4.894 international partner organizations) financed by the European Union (EU), leading industries from USA, Japan and Europe and the Greek Government via the GSRI.
The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) was founded in 1998 as a non-profit organisation under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Greek Ministry of Development, with its head office located in Thessaloniki, Greece (www.iti.gr). CERTH/ITI is one of the leading Institutions of Greece in the fields of Informatics, Telematics and Telecommunications, with long experience in numerous European and national R&D projects. It is active in a large number of application sectors (telecommunications (5G/6G, V2X, RIS), anti-drone, (cyber)security, transport, energy, buildings and construction, health, manufacturing, robotics, smart cities, space, agri-food, marine and blue growth, water, etc.) and technology areas such as data and visual analytics, data mining, machine and deep learning, virtual and augmented reality, image processing, computer and cognitive vision, human computer interaction, IoT and communication technologies, navigation technologies, cloud and computing technologies, distributed ledger technologies (blockchain), (semantic) interoperability, system integration, mobile and web applications, hardware design and development, smart grid technologies/solutions and social media analysis. In the last 3 years (2020 – 2022), CERTH/ITI has participated in more than 428 research projects and R&D contracts with the Private Sector (Industry). More specifically, it has been involved in 239 EU funded H2020 research projects (EU funding: 63.15 M€) and in 189 projects (88 National; 7 Interreg and 94 R&D contracts) funded by Greek National Research Programmes and Consulting Subcontracts with the industry (National projects funding: 8.63 M€; R&D contracts: 4.14 M€). For the last 10 years, the publication record of ITI includes more than 330 scientific publications in international journals, 780 publications in conferences and 100 books and book chapters. These works have been cited in more than 7.500 times.
The Visual analytics lab (VALab) was established in 2015 (https://valab.iti.gr/). Its main purpose is to conduct basic and applied research in topics related to: Cybersecurity solutions such as Cryptographic systems, penetration testing, Intrusion Detection solutions, Cloud Security, Computer Forensics, IoT Security, Cloud Security, Software Security, 5G/6G Security, AI security, Automotive Security. Deployment of machine learning and artificial intelligence methods, pattern identification through deep neural networks, multimodal optimization, in various domains such as healthcare, energy, cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), transport, telecommunications (5G/6G). Self-training algorithms for predictive analytics and Blockchain. Human machine interaction interfaces. Adaptive intelligent systems. Voice-based Interaction Technologies, Personal Health Systems and Personalized Care Delivery. VALab has deployed a 5G-Testbed Infrastructure as an end-to-end 5G/MEC testbed and is actively maintained at CERTH premises. The scope of the testbed is to promote the growth of 5G/SDN/NFV/Cloud-Edge-Fog computing as key technologies of network softwarization by allowing the experimentation of indoor, data center and small-scale office scenarios. The testbed offers a 5G Core Network, a multi-access edge computing (MEC) cloud and fully virtualized 5G RAN, deployed along 8 nodes (2 VNF management/orchestration nodes, 3 computing nodes, 3 MEC nodes). For VNF orchestration and management OSM is utilized with an Openstack and Kubernetes deployment as virtualized infrastructure managers (VIM). For the 5G components, whitebox servers are used to implement all the CN and 5G RAN functionalities (5G gNBs deployed on Gigabyte BRIX connected to USRP B210s SDRs) utilizing the Open Air Interface (OAI) 5G software stack.