Empowering Transatlantic Platforms for 5G Advanced and 6G Networks.
Tuesday, 7 June 2022, 14:00-15:30/16:00-17:30
(Room to be defined)
Organisers:
- Serge Fdida ()
- Alain Mourad ()
- Stavroula Maglavera ()
- Didier Bourse ()
- Abhimanyu Gosain ()
Motivation and Background
Various countries and regions have already announced formal plans of government support for their research and development efforts that will define 6G. One of the primary missions of this workshop is to bring industry, government, and academia to the table to begin working on testbed requirements much earlier in the innovation lifecycle than has been done for previous generations. The enabling technologies such as separation between the network and the compute, virtualization, distribution and Cloud SaaS afford us the opportunity to define physical and digital platforms for at-scale research and experimentation. This trend is going to impact the telecommunication and computer-based sectors, from design to products to operation and this is where the testbeds meet the network as a fully controllable, programmable virtualized test platform. The science of Digital Infrastructures raises multiple complex challenges to the research
community that already started to explore them in the context of the forthcoming 6G. Experimentation is becoming an even more important methodology to assess and qualify the diverse design assumptions and choices in realistic conditions. It is now timely not only to strengthen existing facilities ready for 5G testing but most importantly start developing early 6G platforms as most components are software-based. This is the motivation for developing a holistic
approach where all resources (compute, storage, network) are associated to continuously design, operate and automate the full life cycle management of applications and services. Experimental platforms should be able to address the end-to-end scenario, integrating all technologies and components. Such platform will allow researcher and industry to question scientific challenges regarding the future technologies and services. They will be based on a technology roadmap that will be consolidated on the basis of the analysis of several inputs provided by the community regarding the wireless technology advances, that are pertinent to the evolution of new radio (NR) and core network (CN) unti-2030. It is important to note that initiatives exist at the international level with ambitious projects and programmes like EU ESFRI SLICES (2021- 2040, 150M€), EC H2020 5G Infrastructure PPP (2015-2023, 700 M€) and forthcoming EC HEU SNS JU (2022-2030, 900 M€), in the US (NSF PAWR 2017-2022 100M$, NSF FABRIC 2019-2024 20M€), BRIDGES (2021-2024, 2.5M$) and China (CENI 018-2022 190M€), and efforts also developing in Japan.
Structure
The European Commission has contractualized the EMPOWER CSA project (2018-2022) in order to foster the collaboration between Europe and USA on Advance Wireless Platforms, which include EC H2020 5G Infrastructure PPP projects, EU ESFRI SLICES project and NSF PAWR projects. EMPOWER reinforced the cooperation between the EU and the US towards establishing a collaborative transatlantic community on the new connectivity frontiers beyond 5G, accelerating the joint development of the associated advanced wireless platforms. This workshop main objective is to further put in contact key persons
on Europe and USA to further develop collaborations and discuss possible joint activities and evolution of the wireless platforms at both sides of the Atlantic towards beyond 5G technologies. In addition, the ongoing work of the EC H2020 5G Infrastructure PPP projects, their NSF PAWR counterparts and the plans for the forthcoming EC HEU SNS JU programme will be presented. Finally, time will be devoted to understand the requirements from users of the sites, in terms of equipment and services. The workshop will be mainly driven by EU EMPOWER and NSF PAWR representatives.
