Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PREDICT-6G (PRogrammable AI-Enabled DeterminIstiC neTworking for 6G)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30
PREDICT-6G’s mission is set towards the development of an end-to-end 6G solution including architecture and protocols that can guarantee seamless provisioning of services for vertical Use Cases (UC) requiring extremely tight timing and reliability constraints. To succeed, the solution will target determinism network infrastructures at large, including wired and wireless segments and their interconnections. PREDICT-6G will develop a novel multi-technology multi-domain data-plane (MDP) overhauling the reliability and time sensitiveness design features existing in current wired and wireless standards. The ambition is for the MDP design to be inherently deterministic. To achieve this, PREDICT-6G will develop an artificial intelligence -driven multi-stakeholder inter-domain control-plane (AICP) for the provisioning of deterministic network paths to support time sensitive services as requested by end-customers and with different scaling ambitions, e.g. from the network in a single vehicle to a large, geographically dispersed network. This requires timely monitoring and prediction of the behaviour of the complete network, including identifying potential sources of quality violations and analysing various routes of the traffic flows. These capabilities will be delivered through the PREDICT-6G artificial intelligence-powered digital twin framework, allowing the prediction of the behaviour of the end-to-end network infrastructure, and enabling anticipative control and validation of the network provisions to meet the real-world time-sensitive and reliability requirements of the running services.
The identified project objectives are listed below:
- O1: Define a deterministic (i.e. reliable, time sensitive, and predictable) multi-technology, multi-stakeholder network. Provide the PREDICT-6G network architecture based on the analysis of relevant UCs, evaluating their potential business impact.
- O2: Design the PREDICT-6G multi-technology, multi-domain data-plane.
- O3: Provide a novel AICP to enable determinism in multi-stakeholder multi-technology 6G environments.
- O4: Integration, experimentation, and UC verification.
- O5: Disseminate and communicate project results to the broadest audience using Open Science practices, impact standards and European Research and Innovation ecosystems, and exploit project outcomes
The identified project objectives are listed below:
- O1: Define a deterministic (i.e. reliable, time sensitive, and predictable) multi-technology, multi-stakeholder network. Provide the PREDICT-6G network architecture based on the analysis of relevant UCs, evaluating their potential business impact.
- O2: Design the PREDICT-6G multi-technology, multi-domain data-plane.
- O3: Provide a novel AICP to enable determinism in multi-stakeholder multi-technology 6G environments.
- O4: Integration, experimentation, and UC verification.
- O5: Disseminate and communicate project results to the broadest audience using Open Science practices, impact standards and European Research and Innovation ecosystems, and exploit project outcomes
During the second period of the project, we have focused on the development, implementation, integration and validation of the technology in the 3 use cases identified. The technology developed within the project, mainly selected modules of AICP and MDP, have been implemented in three different demostrators. The first one, corresponding to the manufacturing use case, has shown how a vPLC can be connected to the controlled robot through 3GPP TSN technology. The second use case, corresponding to the mission critical applications, have shown how through semi-deterministic services can be provided in networks without native deterministic support (Figures NOK_MDP and NOK_Chess). Finally, the third use case, corresponding to the Multi-domain, multi-technology data plane, has shown how 3GPP, IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.1TSN can be integrated in a single data plane through detnet routers and provide deterministic services end to end (Figures AICP_MDP).
In addition, we have provided more than 30 contributions to standards and 9 IPRs at the end of the project.
In addition, we have provided more than 30 contributions to standards and 9 IPRs at the end of the project.
System Architecture, Use cases and Business Impact Work Package (WP1), has focused on the architecture definition part and use cases analysis. During the second period, WP1 has produced the following key achievements: (1) finalization of the architecture, considering the feedback from the EAB, ii) security analysis of the new threads coming from the multi-domain aspect of the project, iii) business model analysis, providing key figures towards the commercialization of the project results.
The key results beyond the state of the art regarding the Multi-technology multi-domain Data-Plane (MDP, WP2) during the second year have been: i) developed the key L2 enablements in 3GPP, non-deterministic networks and WiFi to support deterministic services, ii) implemented the different enhancements in real life scenarios, iii) integrated all solutions in a multi-domain, multi-technology data-plane and validate the solution.
Regarding the work on the AI-driven Multi-stakeholder Inter-domain Control-Plane (AICP, WP3), during the second year the following beyond of the state of the art results have been achieved: i) Finalization of the AICP design and each of its modules, ii) analyse in deep the configuration and creation of the MDP workflow, considering the resource bookkeeping and management, iii) largely work in the AI framework and the DTs for each technology.
The key results beyond the state of the art regarding the Multi-technology multi-domain Data-Plane (MDP, WP2) during the second year have been: i) developed the key L2 enablements in 3GPP, non-deterministic networks and WiFi to support deterministic services, ii) implemented the different enhancements in real life scenarios, iii) integrated all solutions in a multi-domain, multi-technology data-plane and validate the solution.
Regarding the work on the AI-driven Multi-stakeholder Inter-domain Control-Plane (AICP, WP3), during the second year the following beyond of the state of the art results have been achieved: i) Finalization of the AICP design and each of its modules, ii) analyse in deep the configuration and creation of the MDP workflow, considering the resource bookkeeping and management, iii) largely work in the AI framework and the DTs for each technology.