Optical 6G Cell Free Networks

Project Information

Opti-6G

Grant agreement ID: 101139292

DOI

10.3030/101139292

EC signature date 1 December 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 2 238 125,00

EU contribution

€ 2 062 937,50

Coordinated by

EURESCOM-EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND STRATEGIC STUDIES IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Opti-6G (Optical 6G Cell Free Networks)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The OPTI-6G project develops a low total cost of ownership, Photonic near IR Cell Free 5G Network, which does not suffer from interference because of propagation characteristics of EM waves in this part of spectrum and provides universal and cyber secure broadband coverage within buildings from pervasively located OWC access points.

The benefits of applying cell free near IR networks in buildings are
1) multi-connectivity can be configured with cell free network thereby improving link quality & reliability;
2) there is no need for building owners to subdivide their non-public mobile building network into cellular areas;
3) building owners no longer need to request permission from MNOs to use their licensed spectrum since system operates at unlicensed optical bands;
4) interference between in/outside access is managed by an AI Based Distributed Scheduler; 5) position and orientation of end user equipment can be measured very accurately; 6) Substantially reduces MW Radiation and Power Consumption

It provides solutions to two main barriers to develop this challenge:
i) Brings together a select multi-disciplinary team of research institutions & industries in a collaborative project to develop & demonstrates this vision, who otherwise would not have assembled to achieve this goal;
ii) Develops proof of concept demonstrators in OLEDCOMM & RUNEL;
ii) Performs experiments to measure position and orientation of end user equipment at UVSQ & UBRU.

The starting point is state-of-the-art
1) cell free 5G RAN solution and very high accuracy sub cm accuracy localisation measurement system developed by RUNEL;
2) VCSEL infrared source and high-speed PIN photodiodes receivers and that supports 1 Gbps data rates up to 5 m over a field of emission of 25° or 3 Gbps with 15° developed by OLEDCOMM.
The project brings together these technologies to produce an easy to install and operate, License Free broadband Network for indoor buildings. The outcome will be low-cost commercially attractive broadband cellular access within buildings, in particular within Industry 4.0 factories for providing the required Key Performance Indicators and Key Value Indicators.

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 OPTI-6G project provides a broadband optical wireless communications (OWC) Vcsels phase array solution that operates in near Infrared (IR) 1550nm wavelength which does not suffer from interference because of the propagation characteristics of EM waves in this part of the spectrum and provides universal and cyber secure broadband coverage within buildings from a cell free network of OWC access points that are pervasively located within buildings. This broadband system will provide 1 Gbps data rates up to 5 m over a field of emission of 25° or 3 Gbps with an angle of 15° up to 5 m and pave the way towards a beamsteered OWC system, which will ultimately produce much wider access angles.

This system will be supplemented with a sub cm location measurement and sensing solution, whose accuracy has already been proven at 3.5 GHz. The performance of near IR OWC solution will be compared with the alternative 3.5 GHz 5G radio solution.
Cell free near IR networks can be configured to implement multi-connectivity with cell free network thereby improving link quality and reliability, whilst obviating the need for building owners to subdivide their non-public mobile building network into cellular areas, and obviating the need for building owners to request permission from MNOs to use their licensed spectrum since the system operates at the optical unlicensed bands and its AI Based Distributed Scheduler manages any interference between inside and outside access. The novelty of using Vcsel phase array is that it prepares the way towards beamsteering the near IR waveform, the novelty of using 1550 nm Vcsels instead of 940 nm Vcsels is that the former will be much less interfered from natural visible light emissions, so will be much more robust.

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)

In the OPTI-6G project, we propose to develop an OWC cell-free topology for LiFi applications by developing compact, fast and wide range optical antennas. Such a light source would thus ensure a high SNR link that would be hard to eavesdrop for an attacker who would not be in the line of sight and would thus be more secure than in the usual cell-based topology. A UE could in turn be served by several APs simultaneously, thus making its connection more robust to obstacles. Each AP could also provide several parallel links through wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to support MIMO modes of operation and thus provide an even greater QoS. OPTI-6G team will produce:
· Actual lab implementation of a Cell-Free network at a lab environment with the ability to perform and meet critical KPIs measurements such as throughput, latency, coverage, robustness, UE location accuracy, etc;
· Implementation of the Cell-Free network in near IR optical domain to demonstrate the potential use in indoor applications and services and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of such implementations.
· Taking advantage of the Cell-Free network architecture that simultaneously and synchronously connects the UEs to multiple APs to facilitate sub cm accurate UE location measurements.
· Upgrade the DU central scheduler in the Network in the Box (NIB) Module into a disruptive Artificial Intelligence (AI) based cell-free scheduler, responsible of user-centric cluster formation and dynamic optimal packet scheduling in the presence of user mobility, and implementing multi-connectivity using near IR multipoint transmissions.
In the OPTI-6G project, we propose to aim sub centimetre accuracy in 3D including the information of orientation angle of the target, based on several improvements: a) develop a combined method with RSS and RT TOA, which, to our knowledge, has not been addressed yet; b) combine this first sensing approach with AOA measurements.
In the OPTI-6G project, we propose to test if more accurate localization of UEs can be obtained using Time of Arrival (ToA) from near IR OWC because of the greater system bandwidth that can be used to lower the levels of noise which are expected.