EMPOWER CONVERGED OPTICAL WIRELESS CONFIGURATIONS WITH CELL-FREE TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGH-DENSITY 6G NETWORKS

Información del proyecto

EMPOWER-6G

Identificador del acuerdo de subvención: 101120332

DOI

10.3030/101120332

Fecha de la firma de la CE 14 Julio 2023

Fecha de inicio 1 Octubre 2023

Fecha de finalización 30 Septiembre 2027

Financiado con arreglo a

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Coste total

Sin datos

Aportación de la UE

€ 3 821 918,40

Coordinado por

IQUADRAT INFORMATICA SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMPOWER-6G (EMPOWER CONVERGED OPTICAL WIRELESS CONFIGURATIONS WITH CELL-FREE TECHNOLOGIES FOR HIGH-DENSITY 6G NETWORKS)

Período documentado: 2023-10-01 hasta 2025-09-30

Resumen del contexto y de los objetivos generales del proyecto

EMPOWER-6G proposes a break-through converged optical-wireless architecture that makes reality an efficient 6G Cell-Free (CF)-based access network for enabling the requested 1 Tb/s peak data rate and deployments with over 10 million devices/km2 and for supporting new advanced user-services (e.g. holographic telepresence, advanced AR/VR, massive digital twinning, flying networks, etc.). The EMPOWER-6G efforts are channeled towards three ambitious objectives, corresponding to three inter-disciplinary but inter-connected research areas that are further decomposed to 9 specific research challenges:

At the radio edge network level, EMPOWER-6G aims to develop:
1. a scalable CF architecture that offers best-in-class Spectral Efficiency (SE) (within 1dB of the optimum), improved throughput, security, and latency, while maximally exploiting all available distributed resources;
2. a flexible wireless point-to-multipoint mmWave fronthaul solution based on novel hybrid beamforming and beam multicasting schemes, achieving at least double SE due to network densification,
3. a virtualized CF RAN that is aligned with the O-RAN alliance, by considering joint radio and computing resource optimization at the radio edge network, thus achieving at least double per-user UL throughput compared to traditional CF networks

At the regional-edge network level, EMPOWER-6G aims to develop:
1. an optical regional edge network with FTTH support with a significant reduction of the fronthaul cost,
2. regional network configurations based on optimum functional splitting options, that maximize energy efficiency,
3. control-plane protocols at the regional edge for CF networking support that are aligned with the O-RAN, that achieve 20% OPEX reduction

At the network management level, EMPOWER-6G aims to develop solutions for:
1.the orchestration and management of multiple DUs through the design of an efficient resource scheduler, targeting improved user data-rate by a factor of 3,
2. SDN-enabled intelligent traffic management methods and ML-based slice reconfiguration mechanisms, targeting at least 20% energy savings via traffic aggregation;
3. a self-driven virtual elastic infrastructure, based on a novel ETSI-compliant MEC platform and a blockchain-enabled multi-tenant orchestration system¸ targeting zero perceived latency due to multi-domain disaggregation of MEC apps

Trabajo realizado desde el comienzo del proyecto hasta el final del período abarcado por el informe y los principales resultados hasta la fecha

During the first period of the project,the following main activities were performed:
• the EMPOWER-6G website is up and accessible.
• the project's data management plan has been defined
• execution of EMPOWER-6G's school 1, 2, 3, 5
• a video prepared by the project’s DCs and disseminated
• Organization of frequent meetings among beneficiaries and the DCs
• Continuous updates of the project’s website and social media accounts with project’s news, updates, etc.
• Green open access for all scientific publications of the project
• Submission of all relevant deliverables

At the technical level, during the second reported period the DCs worked on the development of the beyond state-of-the-art approaches, as it was designed during the first reporting period; The new developments are listed in Deliverables D4.1 D5.1 D6.1 while they are presented in papers published in journals and conference proceedings.

Avances que van más allá del estado de la técnica e impacto potencial esperado (incluida la repercusión socioeconómica y las implicaciones sociales más amplias del proyecto hasta la fecha)

The beyond state-of-the-art research contributions of EMPOWER-6G were obtained through the 3 technical WPs (WP4, WP5, WP6):
WP4: Radio-edge infrastructures for 6G networks. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the first reported period are listed below:
• exploring stochastic-based AP switching strategies for improving the energy efficiency of cell-free MIMO systems,
• developing AI-based precoding mechanisms for distributed MIMO systems
• developing a novel Reinforcement Learning (RL)-driven framework for adaptive computational load offloading in converged Software-Defined Networking (SDN) control planes, specifically addressing the ultra-low latency and high-capacity requirements of 6G
• designing and developing a novel O-RAN compatible CF RAN architecture with integrated Physical Layer Security (PLS)

WP5: Regional-edge infrastructures for 6G networks. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the first reported period are listed below:
• designing single-fiber optical networks for bi-di communication,
• designing a a user-centric, intelligent clustered approach for delivers high spectral efficiency cell-free systems
• developing an analytical software tool to determine optimal transmission using XR optics combined with an interlacer filter, with special attention on the correctness and speed of the model.
• developing a first solution for a hierarchical SDN control plane solution that disaggregates control functions to Regional Edge nodes, enabling sub-second decision-making enhanced by machine learning-based traffic prediction and decentralised coordination across network tiers
• developing a network simulation platform capable of emulating realistic environments, simulating the ORAN framework, for testing

WP6: 6G network management and control. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the first reported period are listed below:
• developing a a seamless handover technique which utilizes the inter DU interface in O-RANs
• developing a a multi-agent RL framework that jointly allocates uplink power, offload ratio, and MEC CPU shares under deadline constraints, trained with dynamic traffic and variable CU compute to emulate slicing
• developing solutions for elastic resource allocation to address the scalability and flexibility required by edge computing environments
• developing a a FastAPI-based decision engine with a background anomaly detection loop, packaged with ML libraries for future algorithmic integration
• developing a unified framework for dynamic and adaptive SLA decomposition across multi-domain network architectures, targeting the RAN, transmission-network, and core-network layers.

The scientific outcomes of the three technical WPs have already produced 1 journal and 4 conference publications. This number will be significantly increased in the second period of the project.