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Reinventing Energy Efficiency in Communication Networks

Project description

Creating a new model for communication networks

Throughout the history of communications, critical infrastructure has been based on the foundations laid by the telephone networks of the mid-20th century. However, modern developments and applications have vastly increased data rate demands such that typical infrastructure can no longer deliver the power-efficient, low-latency and high-speed communications required. The EU-funded RENEW project seeks to increase the data rates and efficiency of modern communication networks while mitigating their environmental impact. It will do this by utilising cutting-edge technology to vastly reduce the complexity and energy consumption of current systems, paving the way for advanced, sustainable communications around the world.

Objective

To this day, communications engineering has closely followed the seminal guidelines developed by Claude E. Shannon in 1948, which were mostly influenced by the telephone network of those days. The widespread use of mobile communications and the advent of machine-to-machine communications nowadays entail an exponential increase in data rates and the available models are no longer sufficient to design power-efficient, low-latency, high-speed communication systems. The overarching aim of RENEW is to further increase the data rates of the global telecommunication network while, at the same time, addressing its non-negligible environmental impact. By fundamentally revisiting the transceiver processing algorithms of the core parts of the communication network, RENEW has the potential to overcome the limitations of current design methodologies and to significantly reduce the complexity and energy consumption of the network. Capitalising on cutting-edge results in the fields of machine learning, reinforcement learning, optimisation techniques and neuromorphic computing, RENEW will reinvent the design of communication transmitters and receivers by introducing sparsely connected atomic neural blocks that realise highly parallelisable transceivers guaranteeing high throughputs with low energy consumption. RENEW will explore novel concepts for extremely energy efficient receivers based on spiking neural networks, promising efficiency gains by multiple orders of magnitude. The viability of the RENEW concepts will be demonstrated in applications of high relevance such as high-speed optical communication networks or low-power IoT applications. My industrial experience designing high-speed optical communications, together with my background in coding and communication theory as well as machine learning techniques will be an important enabler for the RENEW concept, which has a transformative potential as it will consequently yield novel energy efficient communication systems.

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2020-COG

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Host institution

KARLSRUHER INSTITUT FUER TECHNOLOGIE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 999 835,00
Address
KAISERSTRASSE 12
76131 Karlsruhe
Germany

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Region
Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Karlsruhe, Stadtkreis
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 999 835,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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