FUTEBOL: Federated Union of Telecommunications Research Facilities for an EU-Brasil Open Laboratory

Project Information

FUTEBOL

Grant agreement ID: 688941

DOI

10.3030/688941

Project closed

EC signature date 11 November 2015

Start date 1 March 2016

End date 28 February 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 1 499 446,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 446,00

Coordinated by

THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD, OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - FUTEBOL (FUTEBOL: Federated Union of Telecommunications Research Facilities for an EU-Brasil Open Laboratory)

Reporting period: 2018-03-01 to 2019-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The research infrastructure created by FUTEBOL will enable experimentation with wireless/optical convergence to support future traffic growth and new mobile services, allowing academic and industrial researchers in Europe and Brazil to experiment at the convergence points between wireless and optical networks.
The FUTEBOL approach is to deploy experimental research infrastructure, with open access for external experimenters; conduct experimental research on optical/wireless convergence using this infrastructure; and exploit this research for the evolution of optical/wireless networks. Through this FUTEBOL will achieve impact, both scientific and on industry in Brazil and Europe, and enable sustainable collaboration between researchers and industry in both continents.
Specific objectives are:
- To deploy facilities in Europe and Brazil that can be accessed by external experimenters for experimentation that requires integration of wireless and optical technologies
- To develop and deploy a converged control framework for experimentation at the optical/wireless boundary
- To conduct industry-informed experimental research using the optical/wireless facilities
- To create a sustainable ecosystem of collaborative research and industrial/academic partnerships between Brazil and Europe
- To create education and outreach materials for a broad audience interested in experimental issues in wireless and optical networks FUTEBOL envisions three main use cases related to the new requirements faced by the optical network to support substantial changes in the wireless service requirements. These use cases will be explored through five experiments:
- UC1: The impact of broadband wireless on optical backhauling
-- Exp1: Licensed Shared Access for extended LTE capacity with end-to-end QoE
- UC2: The design of SDN infrastructure for wireless-optical integration
-- Exp2.1: Heterogeneous wireless-optical network management with SDN and virtualization
-- Exp2.2: Real-time remote control of robots over a wireless-optical SDN infrastructure
- UC3: The interplay between IoT wireless and optical networks
-- Exp3.1: Adaptive converged wireless-optical infrastructure for IoT
-- Exp3.2: Radio-over-fiber for IoT environment monitoring

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

FUTEBOL has established federated, distributed research infrastructure in Europe and Brazil suited for integrated optical/wireless/cloud network experimentation, allowing local and remote experimenters to access facilities in a unified manner, and to make use of a heterogeneous set of computing, wireless, and optical resources in distributed testbeds. FUTEBOL has successfully adopted the Fed4FIRE approach towards the federation of the testbeds located on both sides of the Atlantic, enabling local and remote access to such testbeds. These include three testbeds in Europe (at TCD, University of Bristol, and VTT), and three new testbeds established in Brazil (at UFRGS, UFES, and UFMG). Data from Fed4FIRE indicates that these testbeds have been accessed by external experimenters through Fed4FIRE more than 7,000 times since their federation. The project also developed a converged control framework that enables the control and orchestration of optical, wireless, and cloud resources for experiments that involve multiple network domains. The software components that comprise the FUTEBOL control framework are available under open source licenses through the project’s GitLab repository. We have showcased the FUTEBOL research infrastructure and control framework through five experiments that focus on issues of direct relevance to 5G and beyond, including spectrum sharing, virtualisation and orchestration wireless and optical network resources, low-latency services for robot control over wireless-optical infrastructures, the use of cloud and fog computing for the Internet of Things (IoT), and radio-over-fibre technology for IoT devices. This work was disseminated through 78 peer-reviewed publications, numerous demonstrations in public events, discussions with telecommunications regulators in Brazil and Europe, and contributions to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The project’s open call and open access process has led to the participation of academic institutions and SMEs in Europe and Latin America in the use of the infrastructure and software tools developed in the project.

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’s progress beyond the state of the art has included:
- Deploying cutting edge testbed facilities in Europe and Brazil that enable research and experimentation across wireless, optical, and cloud domains, federating and supporting worldwide access to those facilities.
- Developing a control framework that offers the ability to control and orchestrate optical, wireless, and cloud resources across multiple testbeds deployed across two continents and enabling experiments that involve end-to-end services established across long distances.
- Producing research results in topics including end-to-end slicing across optical and wireless domains, dynamic use of shared spectrum, Internet of Things services using radio-over-fiber and cloud and edge computing, and creation of low-latency services for robotics applications. These research results are produced experimentally using the FUTEBOL testbeds and control framework and have been reported in 92 peer-reviewed papers and numerous public demonstrations and keynote and invited presentations.

The public policy impact of the work is achieved through the project’s engagement with regulators in Brazil and Europe, as well as an international standardisation body. Social impact is shown through the establishment of lasting research collaborations between academics in Europe and Brazil, personnel exchanges (in particular 8 long-term visits by Brazilian academics and post-graduate students to European research groups), and the establishment of joint PhD programmes in Brazilian and European universities. Lasting social impact also comes from the use of the facilities and software developed in the project for undergraduate and graduate education, in particular in Brazil. Economic impact is expected through the involvement of SMEs in the two continents in the use of the research infrastructure and in the participation by the project partner Intel.

FUTEBOL Consortium

FUTEBOL defined experiments and some of the enabling technologies used.