energy-autonomous Portable Access points for INfrastructure-LESS networks

Project Information

PAINLESS

Grant agreement ID: 812991

DOI

10.3030/812991

Project closed

EC signature date 20 August 2018

Start date 1 October 2018

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 4 162 393,24

EU contribution

€ 4 162 393,24

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PAINLESS (energy-autonomous Portable Access points for INfrastructure-LESS networks)

Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The explosive growth of applications that rely on broadband connectivity is set to stretch the demand for wireless networks beyond the reach of the power grid infrastructure. In line with the UN’s sustainable development goals, net-zero emissions operation is highly desirable in many key sectors including ICT.
PAINLESS has established a visionary training and research platform to pioneer green, energy-autonomous portable network nodes which are self-subsistent and limitlessly-scalable, to satisfy future demands with minimal infrastructure. It promises a paradigm shift by into-grating and jointly optimising wireless networks with renewable energy sources, radiated energy harvesting and airborne access points, as well as establishing disruptive performance benchmarks for the combined wireless power-and-information distribution. PAINLESS project aims to extend the energy-autonomy of communication networks towards de-coupling the wireless network from the power grid. Apart from the energy savings for the wireless network, this enables a novel functionality of the network that makes it a critical solution for cases where the power grid is unavailable such as emergency/disaster communication, remote connectivity, and connectivity in developing countries. This functionality is also applicable to special events (such as e.g. con-certs, games, and other types of large, open-air gatherings) which may take place in areas that are not sufficiently provisioned for satisfying the required wireless capacity. In developing countries, the booming of mobile networks and digital services cannot be accommodated due to the limited power grid infrastructure.
PAINLESS has produced a first generation of experts in net-zero energy networks that will revo-lutionise the wireless networking technology landscape and the plethora of associated vertical business sectors.

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

Our ESRs have successfully pushed the boundaries of the state of the art, with more than 45 publications, 7 standards contributions, 2 best paper awards. They have broken ground against the following technical aims of the project:
• We have developed game-changing performance metrics to motivate the adoption of ener-gy-autonomous infrastructure-less networks, such as data rates per energy, coverage per power, data per charge, energy cost per data. These metrics have been used throughout the performance evaluation of our work, to evaluate the energy autonomy of our novel tech-niques, towards net-zero network operation.
• We have developed algorithms to radicalize the management of energy generation, storage and consumption to enable the design of future self-powered networks. Part of our 4 de-monstrators, we have developed the software tool DRONESS and shared it on our website for anyone to use, that optimises a drone-based wireless network to operate in net zero emissions. This has been used to design communication schemes constrained on balancing the energy generated through harvesting, stored in the batteries of the access points, and the energy consumed.
• Our research outputs demonstrate significant gains in the energy efficiency of the underly-ing networks compared to the state-of-the-art. The off-grid access point studies through UAV-based networks demonstrate autonomy from the power grid. Compared to conven-tional access points that need to be connected to the grid, this represents orders of magni-tude improvement.
• We have developed radiated energy harvesting and wireless power transfer (WPT) solutions, together with low-power network solutions involving backscatter communications, relaying and intelligent reflected surfaces (IRS). This is complemented by a system-level study of communication systems employing WPT in terms of energy autonomy, and by developing network-level solutions to optimize WPT-enabled networks towards energy autonomy.
• Finally, we have delivered 4 hardware and software demonstrators for the project, that demonstrate aspects of the portability of the base stations and their net-zero energy opera-tion.

Within PAINLESS we have organised five summer schools over the duration of the project and produced individual training and career development plans tailored to the specific needs of each ESR. In addition, each ESR received one-on-one supervision at their home university from lead-ing academics in their field, received feedback from other academics in the consortium, and also undertook a period of secondment with a non-academic partner organisation in a bid to ac-quire and enhance their practical skills. We have completed 27 secondments in total.

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 work in PAINLESS has already demonstrated progress beyond the state of the art in energy autonomous networks. We have introduced game-changing performance metrics to motivate the adoption of energy-autonomous, net-zero emissions infrastructure-less networks; radicalized the management of energy generation, storage and consumption to enable the design of future self-powered networks; broken ground in access provision through flexible, off-the-grid, UAV-based access points, by placing special attention to their energy requirements; conducted tech-nical surveys for key next-generation wireless technologies such as intelligent reflecting surfac-es (IRS), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications, sensor networks and IoT applica-tions, and integrated sensing and communication systems. Our results have been demonstrated over 4 hardware and software demonstrators for the project, that illustrate aspects of the porta-bility of the base stations and their net-zero energy operation.

Our results have led to more than 40 publications in top international journals and conferences, 7 standard contributions relating to the IEEE 802.11 standard, and 2 best paper awards. We have also organised 5 PAINLESS summer schools (2 of which together with ITNs WINDMILL and TeamUp5G), 7 workshops and 10 tutorials in flagship IEEE conferences in our area.
PAINLESS has created enabling technologies to facilitate portable, energy-neutral networks with wide reaching social, economic impact, fostering sustainability, ethical technology use and in-clusivity:
• The net-zero emissions operation is a key EU goal and one of the core elements of sus-tainability agenda of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). They are essen-tial for a sustainable ICT provision, and work towards a green wireless network with minimal CO2 footprint and contribution to climate change.
• Off-the-grid networks are the only solution for ICT provision in rural areas especially in developing countries where there is intermittent access to the power grid, or no power grid at all. By providing network connectivity in remote communities, PAINLESS con-tributes to bridging the digital divide, and providing economical prosperity to these communities.
• Portable, on-demand networks are an essential facility in emergency and disasters, where the power grid infrastructure may be damaged or unavailable. Providing such connectivity through portable access points mounted on drones or UAVs is essential for connectivity, casualty discovery, rescue and many more.
• Out cost-analysis studies dedicated to net-zero emissions networks, provide a first step in assessing the viability of such network provisioning and will provide a stepping stone in developing business models to bring the climate-friendly ICT solutions to the market.

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