TRials supported by Smart Networks beyond 5G

Project Information

TrialsNet

Grant agreement ID: 101095871

DOI

10.3030/101095871

Project closed

EC signature date 1 December 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 16 740 054,04

EU contribution

€ 14 587 452,25

Coordinated by

ERICSSON TELECOMUNICAZIONI SPA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TrialsNet (TRials supported by Smart Networks beyond 5G)

Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Smart Cities have attracted attention as one of the possible solutions to improve “livability” and people’s quality of life. In this context, beyond 5G and 6G are candidate technologies to positively impact aspects of immense social value as sustainability, resilience, inclusion, trust, security, etc. Starting from such basis, TrialsNet vision is to enable the realization of compelling societal values through the implementation of 5G and beyond applications, which are propaedeutic for the transition towards the next generation of mobile network. Based on a set of well-defined objectives covering technical, performance, productivity aspects, TrialsNet aims at deploying full large-scale trials to implement a heterogenous and comprehensive set of innovative 6G applications based on various technologies such as Cobots, metaverse, massive twinning, Internet of Senses, and others, covering three relevant domains of the urban ecosystems in Europe identified as (i) Infrastructure, Transportation, Security & Safety, (ii) eHealth & Emergency, and (iii) Culture, Tourism & Entertainment.
In the context of these three domains, TrialsNet designs and implements 13 use cases (Figure 1) developed over wide coverage areas and involving real users in the 4 geographical clusters of Italy, Spain, Greece and Romania. The use cases are transversal, as different implementations of the same use case are developed in more than one cluster; this approach allows for a holistic evaluation of the KPIs and KVIs of the use cases in different contexts and scenarios (e.g. commercial, private, or experimental, including advanced functionalities), as well as various sets of users.
Through its extensive trials activity, TrialsNet collected a relevant amount of data in terms of network performances (KPIs) as well as feedback from real users (KVIs); the results were analyzed and evaluated, with both quantitative and qualitative tasks, to capture the user value perception of the applications, to find product/market fits, to identify what is critical to consider in terms of requirements and functionalities for the products and services of the next generation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project deployed and integrated a wide range of platform and network solutions, from commercial 5G infrastructures to advanced private and experimental systems—including the Rel 16 mmWave network in Pisa and the Rel 17 SA mmWave setup in Madrid—supporting high capacity, low latency performance in real environments.
The 13 project use cases were fully implemented with complete technical architectures, devices, and supporting infrastructures. Unified KPI and KVI frameworks - covering capacity, latency, compute, availability/reliability, and localization - were applied consistently across all trials, feeding a shared KPI data lake with more than 700 validated measurements. In addition, 24 use cases from Open Calls were implemented and validated with results fully integrated in project framework, adding further 150 KPI measurements.
Trial activities progressed from early demonstrations to full scale field experiments, with 22 project trials and 56 Open Call trials conducted in diverse settings such as parks, museums, stadiums, airports, hospitals, ambulances, stadium and urban areas. Thousands of users participated, leveraging heterogeneous devices - XR headsets, drones, sensors, and medical equipment—enabling thorough validation of network and application performance under realistic load.
The results showed that commercial networks still face limitations for uplink intensive and latency critical applications, while private and experimental setups—thanks to standalone operation, flexible spectrum use, and advanced orchestration—better supported demanding services. These findings emphasize the need for 6G systems with stronger uplink performance, predictable end to end behavior, tighter compute–network integration, and greater automation. They also highlight the growing importance of edge intelligence and energy aware mechanisms for real time XR, large scale sensing, e health, and safety critical applications with strict reliability and responsiveness requirements.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project achieved several advancements beyond the state of the art, particularly through innovative network and platform solutions expected to impact the 6G definition. A key result is the Zerotouch Service Management (ZSM) framework, an autonomous cross domain orchestration system that optimizes multiservice scenarios and dynamically reconfigures services under congestion.
The project also introduced a B5G Edge Application Framework enabling energy aware, cross domain, real time application adaptation through platform agnostic packaging, dynamic resource allocation, and automatic QoS adjustments, demonstrating practical compute–network convergence.
Another major outcome is the ER Innovative Orchestrator, which supports fine grained 5QI/DSCP mapping, admission control, and real time service aware routing. Trials in Pisa confirmed its ability to ensure differentiated QoS for concurrent mission critical services, paving the way for deterministic service delivery in future 6G architectures.
Sustainability was also advanced through long term self sustaining sensor deployments and an energy optimization model combining edge cloud allocation, power aware application design, and orchestration logic. Validated KPIs such as battery depletion probability and grid energy reduction show how environmental constraints can become key optimization targets for future networks.
Across multiple verticals, the project validated additional cutting edge results. XR experiences operated stable across large areas, robotics and crowd monitoring solutions were tested in live urban and stadium environments, and advanced eHealth applications—such as telepresence and adaptive prosthetics—were deployed over private mmWave infrastructures. Cross domain KPI/KVI validation confirmed that demanding verticals can operate at scale and identified essential 6G capabilities such as enhanced uplink, deterministic latency, and dynamic compute placement.

Figure 2. TrialsNet Methodology

Figure 1. TrialsNet Use Cases