Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TrialsNet (TRials supported by Smart Networks beyond 5G)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-01-01 al 2024-06-30
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) that are going to be developed over wide coverage areas and with the involvement of extended sets of real users in 4 geographical clusters, located in Italy, Spain, Greece and Romania. The use cases are transversal, meaning that different implementations of the same use case can be 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, including different platform and network solution deployments (e.g. commercial, private, or experimental, including advanced functionalities), as well as various typology of users.
Through its extensive trials activity, TrialsNet will collect a relevant amount of data in terms of network performances (KPIs) as well as feedback from the real users (KVIs); the results will be analyzed and evaluated, with both quantitative and qualitative tasks, to capture the user value perception of the proposed applications, to find product/market fits, to identify what demand is still not covered and what it is critical to consider for future network evolution in terms of requirements and functionalities for the products and services of the next generation.
In the context of these three domains, TrialsNet designs and implements 13 use cases (Figure 1) that are going to be developed over wide coverage areas and with the involvement of extended sets of real users in 4 geographical clusters, located in Italy, Spain, Greece and Romania. The use cases are transversal, meaning that different implementations of the same use case can be 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, including different platform and network solution deployments (e.g. commercial, private, or experimental, including advanced functionalities), as well as various typology of users.
Through its extensive trials activity, TrialsNet will collect a relevant amount of data in terms of network performances (KPIs) as well as feedback from the real users (KVIs); the results will be analyzed and evaluated, with both quantitative and qualitative tasks, to capture the user value perception of the proposed applications, to find product/market fits, to identify what demand is still not covered and what it is critical to consider for future network evolution in terms of requirements and functionalities for the products and services of the next generation.
The main performed activities and achievements are summarized hereafter:
- Definition of a common project methodology (Figure 2) consisting of an iterative approach based on the four main phases of Deployment, Trials, Evaluation and Optimize, covering the platform and network solutions deployment (and their functionalities), the design and implementation of different applications, and the trials actuation including KPIs/KVIs measurement and evaluation.
- Use cases definition in terms of their description, implementation aspects (including the application design), equipment and devices, supporting infrastructure, and a high-level trials description; for each use case the preliminary technical requirements have been defined together with the KPIs and KVIs as well as the measurement methodologies.
- Each cluster started to work on the design and first deployment of the platform and network solutions in terms of infrastructure components and functionalities, how these will support the implementation of the use cases, and the possible enhancements to improve the network performances (if needed).
- Definition of a common terminology by means of 18 different KPIs divided in 5 categories (i.e. capacity, latency, compute, availability/reliability, and localization) that will be used as reference in the prosecution of the project’s activities especially for the testing activities and trials execution. In addition, a common framework to define and analyze the KVIs has been also elaborated; this is required to identify a coherent validation approach in the whole project, considering the link between business, value and technology, and highlighting the relation with economical, societal, and environmental values.
- Preliminary integration and testing activities in terms of laboratory tests, on field tests, and early demonstrations have been performed for all the use cases shedding light on the current performances (measured at both network and/or application levels) and the challenges encountered during these activities. From the collected measurement results, it emerges that the main limitation of the current mobile technology might be related to uplink performances and in some cases to latency (depending also on the applications).
- Definition of a common project methodology (Figure 2) consisting of an iterative approach based on the four main phases of Deployment, Trials, Evaluation and Optimize, covering the platform and network solutions deployment (and their functionalities), the design and implementation of different applications, and the trials actuation including KPIs/KVIs measurement and evaluation.
- Use cases definition in terms of their description, implementation aspects (including the application design), equipment and devices, supporting infrastructure, and a high-level trials description; for each use case the preliminary technical requirements have been defined together with the KPIs and KVIs as well as the measurement methodologies.
- Each cluster started to work on the design and first deployment of the platform and network solutions in terms of infrastructure components and functionalities, how these will support the implementation of the use cases, and the possible enhancements to improve the network performances (if needed).
- Definition of a common terminology by means of 18 different KPIs divided in 5 categories (i.e. capacity, latency, compute, availability/reliability, and localization) that will be used as reference in the prosecution of the project’s activities especially for the testing activities and trials execution. In addition, a common framework to define and analyze the KVIs has been also elaborated; this is required to identify a coherent validation approach in the whole project, considering the link between business, value and technology, and highlighting the relation with economical, societal, and environmental values.
- Preliminary integration and testing activities in terms of laboratory tests, on field tests, and early demonstrations have been performed for all the use cases shedding light on the current performances (measured at both network and/or application levels) and the challenges encountered during these activities. From the collected measurement results, it emerges that the main limitation of the current mobile technology might be related to uplink performances and in some cases to latency (depending also on the applications).
Besides its trial activities, TrialsNet is also working on various innovations addressing sustainability aspects. From the platform and network solutions perspective, these have been categorized into (i) horizontal innovations (covering transversal aspects of B5G systems) such as Zero-touch Service Management (ZSM) and Edge Network Applications, and (ii) vertical innovations (related to specific use cases) such as automatic orchestration of slice resources to ensure Quality of Service in mobility, and the usage of cellular network information for crowd and traffic monitoring. Such innovations are expected to be part in the definition of the next generation mobile networks, taking advantage of the possibility to have an initial evaluation of their performances and impacts in the context of trials activities.
On the other side, through its use cases, TrialsNet aims also at improving the quality of life in the cities by contributing to the following societal challenges and innovations:
- Infrastructure: proactive management of buildings and roads through robots and drones, thus reducing human-consuming tasks for the workers
- Transportation: reduction of the number of congestion and accidents situations through the analysis of data provided by sensors and cameras and the use of predictive models to derive proper traffic rules
- Security & Safety: (i) increase the security of citizens by identifying hazardous situations using smart robots, LIDARs, and cameras, and (ii) enable coordinated intervention of the emergency responders through metaverse based solutions
- eHealth: (i) use of AR/VR and telepresence technologies to be assisted by the specialized medical doctors’ even in areas without departments for certain medical specializations, and (ii) use of smart prothesis with AI technologies to reduce the need for explicit control by the user and thus alleviate the impact on their cognitive load
- Emergency: increase the efficiency of patient rescuing thanks to real-time emergency action plans using drones and exploiting the information retrieved by smartphone and wearables
- Culture: enhance the cultural experience and thus increase the attractiveness to visitors and tourists, by developing XR applications that provide an immersive and interactive means to visit museums
- Tourism: provide airport passengers with additional services and support while travelling in the airport through the interaction with service robots
- Entertainment: provide new ways to watch live sport events using XR applications and high-definition wireless camera installed in the venue
The trials activity performed by the project will be useful to understand the level of impact that such technologies may have on the final users and, in case, support the early adoption of the 6G applications by the society.
On the other side, through its use cases, TrialsNet aims also at improving the quality of life in the cities by contributing to the following societal challenges and innovations:
- Infrastructure: proactive management of buildings and roads through robots and drones, thus reducing human-consuming tasks for the workers
- Transportation: reduction of the number of congestion and accidents situations through the analysis of data provided by sensors and cameras and the use of predictive models to derive proper traffic rules
- Security & Safety: (i) increase the security of citizens by identifying hazardous situations using smart robots, LIDARs, and cameras, and (ii) enable coordinated intervention of the emergency responders through metaverse based solutions
- eHealth: (i) use of AR/VR and telepresence technologies to be assisted by the specialized medical doctors’ even in areas without departments for certain medical specializations, and (ii) use of smart prothesis with AI technologies to reduce the need for explicit control by the user and thus alleviate the impact on their cognitive load
- Emergency: increase the efficiency of patient rescuing thanks to real-time emergency action plans using drones and exploiting the information retrieved by smartphone and wearables
- Culture: enhance the cultural experience and thus increase the attractiveness to visitors and tourists, by developing XR applications that provide an immersive and interactive means to visit museums
- Tourism: provide airport passengers with additional services and support while travelling in the airport through the interaction with service robots
- Entertainment: provide new ways to watch live sport events using XR applications and high-definition wireless camera installed in the venue
The trials activity performed by the project will be useful to understand the level of impact that such technologies may have on the final users and, in case, support the early adoption of the 6G applications by the society.