The OPTI-6G project develops a Photonic near IR Cell Free 5G Network, which does not suffer from interference because of the propagation characteristics of EM waves in this part of the spectrum and provides universal broadband coverage within buildings from pervasively located OWC access points. The benefits of applying cell free near IR networks in buildings are (1) multi-connectivity can be configured with cell free network thereby improving link quality and reliability; (2) there is no longer the need for building owners to subdivide their non-public mobile building network into cellular areas; (3) building owners no longer need to request permission from MNOs to use their licensed spectrum since the system operates at the optical unlicensed bands; (4) interference between inside and outside access is managed by an AI Based Distributed Scheduler; (5) position and orientation of end user equipment can be measured very accurately. It provides solutions to two main barriers to develop this challenge: (i) Brings together a select multi-disciplinary team of research institutions and industries in a collaborative project to develop and demonstrate this vision, who otherwise would not have assembled to achieve this goal; (ii) Develops a proof of concept demonstrator in OLEDCOMM and RUNEL; (ii) Performs experiments to measure position and orientation of end user equipment at UVSQ and UBRU. The starting point is (1) state-of-the-art cell free 5G RAN solution and very high accuracy sub cm accuracy localisation measurement system developed by RUNEL; (2) the state of the art VCSEL infrared source and high-speed PIN photodiodes receivers and that supports 1 Gbps data rates up to 5 m over a field of emission of 25° developed by OLEDCOMM. The project brings together these technologies to produce an easy installation and operation, License Free broadband Network for indoor buildings. The outcome will be low-cost commercially attractive broadband cellular access within buildings

BeGREEN will take a holistic view to propose evolving radio networks that not only accommodate increasing traffic and services but also consider power consumption as a factor. Determining the metrics by which power consumption should be included is a key feature which will be studied as first stage of the project. This will include not only the cost of the energy but also societal factors. BeGREEN will evaluate different mechanisms by which power consumption could be reduced based on the following pillars: At the architecture level, planning and evaluation of a massive MIMO included RAN design to achieve flexible and energy efficient connectivity considering spectrum utilisation, interference mitigation and architecture/processing complexity. At the hardware and infrastructure level, radio-unit controlling schemes will be used in power amplifiers energy optimisation. Also, an offloading engine for hardware acceleration will be employed to achieve energy efficiency when performing radio access functions and network function virtualisation. At the link level, the integrated sensing techniques are used to provide a better estimate of the impact of the radio channel toward improvements in spectral efficiency against the increased power consumption associated with the resulting calculations. At the system level, the project pursues the development and evaluation of AI-based procedures to adapt the energy consumption of softwarised network functions, aiming to minimize the overall consumed energy according to the utilisation patterns of network. BeGREEN proposes an “Intelligent Plane”, as an additional plane along with user plane and data plane, that allows the data, model and inference to be seamlessly exchanged between network functions. BeGREEN will use O-RAN as the baseline architecture, due to new/suitable interfaces and protocols it can provide, to be used for the movement of data around the network to the appropriate location for performance and efficiency assessments. In addition, the disaggregation, virtualisation and network and service management capabilities inherent in O-RAN provide the mechanisms to realise many of the infrastructure changes and techniques for energy optimisation pursued in BeGREEN. BeGREEN will use AI/ML techniques to provide solutions for reducing the required calculations and to recognise patterns in the system level data associated with the behaviour of the user-base and to learn the most appropriate response to this behaviour in terms of both network performance and energy consumption. In this scheme, impact of the location of the AI/ML operations within the network on the performance of the approach, the consumption of power and the ability to share resources between different operations will be considered. BeGREEN technologies will be showcased in three demonstrations. At IHP premises, the joint communications and sensing techniques toward efficient resource allocation and optimised power consumption. The project targets using reconfigurable intelligent surfaces for energy saving scenarios in the demonstrations. Furthermore, two major project demonstrations will be performed at BT premises in Adastral park. First, the ‘Intelligent Plane’ implemented using ORAN rApps and xApps will be demonstrated on a network emulator. Then, the project final integrated demonstrator using the Adastral testbed facilities to showcase BeGREEN technology innovations.

Ubiquitous smart wireless connectivity is critical for future large-scale industrial tasks, services, assets and devices. Very significantly improved connectivity needs to be unlocked through novel spectrum combinations and the fully autonomous management of the underlying network resources by applying online AI at multiple decision layers. 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 (OWC) to enhance the performance with regard to capacity, reliability and latency for future industrial networks. We propose 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. The enabling technologies in 6G BRAINS focus on four major aspects including disruptive new spectral links, highly dynamic D2D cell-free network modelling, intelligent end-to-end network architecture integrating the multi-agent DRL scheme and AI-enhanced high-resolution 3D SLAM data fusion. The proposed solution will be validated by proof-of-concept trials. The primary and secondary applications of THz and OWC technologies for a very broad spectrum of scenarios will be validated at BOSCH’s self-contained smart factory. The developed technologies will be widely applicable to various vertical sectors such as Industry 4.0, intelligent transportation, eHealth, etc. In particular, new business opportunities emerging in 6G BRAINS will be identified for follow-up exploitation activities. The results of 6G BRAINS are expected to create a solid basis for future projects and global standardisation for B5G and 6G technologies in areas relevant to industrial environments.

The large-scale rollout of 5G networks has started becoming a reality, with big vendors deploying 5G network equipment and MNOs being on the verge of its commercialization. However, in parallel to the deployment of such 5G high-performing network, there is an unprecedented urge to support solutions tailored to specific types of networks, capable of offering ubiquitous coverage with high data rate availability, densification and high capillarity of access points to enhance 5G system capacity. Affordable5G aims at creating a 5G network that will deliver a complete and affordable solution covering the needs of private and enterprise networks through technical innovation that span across all parts of 5G network, leveraging cell densification, RU/DU/CU split, hardware acceleration, edge computing and core network virtualization, seamlessly combined with the adoption of open source RAN, MEC and MANO solutions, for cloud-native, micro-service based deployments. To achieve its innovative and ambitious goal, the consortium brings together ten European SMEs, supported by MVNOs, system integrators and research institutes, grasping the opportunity to enhance their products, according to each company’s roadmap, while fostering collaboration among them. In this way, Affordable5G will offer a first-class opportunity to European SMEs to become frontrunners in the global 5G competition, facilitating them in their commercialization paths and strategies in niche market cases of neutral hosting, private networks and MVNOs with new entrant actors. The innovative solution will be evaluated and validated in two vertical pilots related to emergency communications and smart cities, which have been properly selected as being highly representative in terms of system performance, scalability, mobility patterns, slice types, deployment requirements and impact in the future 5G market.

Wireless networks in buildings suffer from congestion, interference, security and safety concerns, restricted propagation and poor in-door location accuracy. The Internet of Radio-Light (IoRL) project develops a safer, more secure, customizable and intelligent building network that reliably delivers increased throughput (greater than 10Gbps) from access points pervasively located within buildings, whilst minimizing interference and harmful EM exposure and providing location accuracy of less than 10 cm. It thereby shows how to solve the problem of broadband wireless access in buildings and promotes the establishment of a global standard in ITU. Building landlords will be incentivized to find funding to realize this solution for their properties to increase their value resulting in a stimulated market for broadband networking products in buildings, benefiting society and stimulating the world Gross Domestic Product. IoRL project provides solutions to the two main barriers to develop this broadband networking solution in buildings because it: (i) Brings together a multi-disciplinary team of research institutions and industries in a collaborative project to develop and demonstrate this vision, who otherwise would not have assembled to achieve this goal; (ii) Develops a proof of concept demonstrator, which will act as the basis for standardization of a global solution. The starting point is the joint VLC demonstrator at Tsinghua University & ISEP, the mmWave at Cobham Wireless and the NFV/SDN at NCSR-Democratos. The challenges are to (i) Develop broadband communication solutions for buildings by integrating these technologies to exploit the pervasiveness and accessibility of the existing electric light access points, the broadband capacities of mmWave and VLC technologies and the flexibility of SDN/NFV; (ii) Industrially design a radio-light solution that can be integrated into the myriad of form factors of existing electric light systems and consumer products.