Smart grid represents a significant new technology of improving the efficiency, reliability, and economics of the production, transmission, and distribution of electricity. It is crucial to exchange and use information for performing smart grid applications. However, in reality the exchange of information over multiple networks is unreliable, leading to unpredictable network Quality-of-Service and thus unreliable smart grid applications. What’s worse, there are massive data, including metering data and measurement data, structured or unstructured, making it challenging to exploit useful information. Hence, there is an urgent need to solve the research problem: how to coordinate multiple networks to reliably transmit data, and then manage ICT system resources to efficiently extract useful information for supporting smart grid applications? TESTBED is a major interdisciplinary project that combines wisdoms in three academic disciplines - Electronics Engineering, Power Engineering and Computing Sciences, to address the aforesaid problem. The main focus is on improving the communication layer interoperability and the efficiency of data analytic. Regarding the communication layer interoperability, this project intends to develop and evaluate function-driven communication frameworks. Moreover, this project will develop and verify new data integration and analytic techniques for enhancing power grid operations. These developed frameworks and methods will be extensively tested and evaluated in 4 well-equipped Laboratories at HWU, EPRI, ICCS, and CAS. They will not only support the SGAM Framework, but also complement and enhance International Standards. Overall, the main objective of this project is to coordinate the action of 5 Universities and 3 enterprises, working in the field of ICT and smart grid from both EU and China, to build and test sophisticated ICT, thereby facilitating the successful implementation of smart grid applications.

The exponential demand on global wireless data streaming services is pushing current communication network technologies to their limits. To respond to this demand, future 6G networks will depend on Tbit/sec data rate transmission via easily deployable and energy-efficient wireless links. Current 5G wireless systems, characterized by their small spectral bandwidths and high power electronics are fundamentally limited in terms of achievable data rates vs energy consumption. TeraGreen develops a new disruptive technology path for sustainable and scalable commercial exploitation of the THz spectrum for energy-efficient and Tbit/sec wireless communication links enabled by a unique combination of: • Quasi-optical MIMO antennas where a record number of wide-band data signals are being transmitted in parallel through a point-to-point wireless link with an unpresented low level of radiated energy. • Low-energy consumption and record wideband THz transmitters and receivers, in one of the most advanced silicon process in the world with great commercialization potential. • A novel baseband with zero-crossing modulation enabling energy-efficient wideband communication using 1-bit A/D conversion with temporal oversampling. TeraGreen is expected to reduce the power consumption in future 6G base stations by a factor of at least 1000 in terms of energy per bit, while increasing the aggregated data rates by a factor of at least 10. TeraGreen will perform several wireless link demonstrations to showcase its commercial use for wireless backhaul and fixed wireless access. The partners of TeraGreen form a unique European value chain of scientific and technology leadership in their respective fields. The success of TeraGreen will help Europe to be on the foremost frontier in the evolution of mobile networks towards 6G and beyond.

AEOLUS, leveraging on the experience of its partners on novel photonic components (e.g. broadband thermal emitter, graphene photodetector), will demonstrate in an operational environment (TRL 7) an affordable, miniaturised, multi-gas (10 - 15 gases) sensor based on highly integrated photonic chips in the mid-IR (3 μm - 10 μm). AEOLUS sensors will be cloud connected, deployed in an existing IoT testbed, while the plethora of data acquired will be used to develop deep learning algorithms for chemometric analysis. AEOLUS sensing system will demonstrate the calculation and accurate prediction of indoor and outdoor air quality, greenhouse gases concentration, and toxic gas leakages detection. The sensing system will provide many functionalities for the end-user such as real-time alerts, notifications, visualized reports and overlays while it will allow taking automatic actions where they are needed. AEOLUS will also demonstrate how user engagement can be promoted through its system, employing gamification concepts and incentivise the end users. AEOLUS targets for a cheap portable sensor, tested for its interoperability, with many functionalities and quality of life services, targeting a very wide range of applications to ensure its widespread deployment. The proliferation of the AEOLUS sensor in the community acts in an exponential manner (leveraging Big Data techniques and Deep Learning algorithms), further enhancing the system’s accuracy and speed. AEOLUS sensing system is completely in line with its industrial partners' roadmaps and exploitation plans and it is foreseen to have a product in the market 0-2 years from the end of the project. Ultimately, the acquired data and analysis will be made available to policy-makers and stakeholders, so that AEOLUS has a far-reaching impact in EU’s citizens life.

The aim of SANSA project is to boost the performance of mobile wireless backhaul networks in terms of capacity and resilience while assuring an efficient use of the spectrum. Recently, a global mobile traffic increase of 11-fold between 2013 and 2018 was predicted, so novel solutions are required to avoid backhaul becoming the bottle neck of future mobile networks. The solution envisaged in SANSA is a spectrum efficient self-reconfigurable hybrid terrestrial-satellite backhaul network based on three key principles: (i) a seamless integration of the satellite segment into terrestrial backhaul networks; (ii) a terrestrial wireless network capable of reconfiguring its topology according to traffic demands; (iii) a shared spectrum between satellite and terrestrial segments. This combination will result in a flexible solution capable of efficiently routing the mobile traffic in terms of capacity and energy efficiency, while providing resilience against link failures or congestion and easy deployment in rural areas. Therefore, we will develop novel smart antennas, dynamic radio resource management and data-based shared access techniques for enabling the spectrum sharing among both segments, as well as efficient management and routing solutions for the hybrid network. These studies will yield to the implementation and demonstration of the two key components proof of concepts: (i) low-cost smart antennas (to be deployed in terrestrial nodes) with beam and null-steering capabilities for interference mitigation between satellite and terrestrial transceivers and network topology reconfiguration; (ii) hybrid network manager capable of controlling the resources of the hybrid network. Besides indirectly allowing the traffic increase to the mobile users, the SANSA project will set the path for a win-win collaboration between satellite and terrestrial operators that will strengthen both European sectors and also their related industries such as equipment manufacturers.

The ECO-eNET project will perform foundational research on emerging transmission technologies, to form a new confluent edge network that brings together optical and radio transport to scale to new levels of efficiency and capacity for 6G, by integrating confluent front-/mid-/back-haul (xhaul) with cell-free and distributed multiple-input multiple-output based access networks. The combination of photonic radio fixed wireless and free space optical transmission is used for fixed wireless connections, enabling the creation of an edge mesh network. New monitoring and slice-aware control protocols will unify the radio intelligent controllers with the transport software defined networking to efficiently deliver high-capacity flex grid wavelength multiplexed signals over standard single mode fibre and the fixed wireless links. Radio signals can be flexibly processed at different split phy points throughout the network or remain in analog radio over fibre format end-to-end. The unique ECO-eNET combination of wired and wireless transport is further exploited for wireless control of the wired network segments, enhanced clock synchronization, and optical space and wavelength switching, groomed over FlexE ethernet. AI layer controls are added to orchestrate the federation of edge processing and splitting of AI models for optimum efficiency in executing user applications and smart network control functions. The ECO-eNET project brings together an interdisciplinary team of industry and academic partners to explore the full potential of these important emerging technologies to support the capacity, ultra-high energy efficiency, low latency, and robustness needed in 6G networks.