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HEDoctoral network2023–2028

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

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-10-01 → 2028-03-31
EU contribution
€3,738,524
Participants
13
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-ID

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

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

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

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

EMPOWER-6G proposes a novel converged optical-wireless architecture that realizes an efficient 6G Cell-Free (CF)-based access network for high-density and high-coverage deployments. The proposed architecture takes full advantage of the distributed processing CF concept, as well as of wireless mmWave solutions, while being in-line with the O-RAN Alliance. Specifically, the EMPOWER-6G vision is based on the development of novel solutions at the radio access domain by enabling emerging CF technologies, while also contributing innovations at the optical transport domain and significantly evolving the MEC system towards fully elastic Edge Computing. The EMPOWER-6G network configuration deploys a distributed Edge infrastructure with Data Centres (DCs) structured in 2 tiers, featuring Radio Edge Regional Edge nodes, where the former DCs hosts the Network Functions of the (virtualized) RAN fully aligned with the O-RAN specifications, while the latter DCs host non-real-time network functions. Thus, EMPOWER-6G will shape a novel 6G network configuration by addressing challenges at the radio-edge, the regional-edge, and the network-management domains. At the radio-edge domain, EMPOWER-6G aims at designing novel CF networking mechanisms that will allow the significant scaling up of Radio Unit (RU) deployment in a cost-effective manner, by exploiting the application of the distributed processing CF concept, based on the disaggregation of the traditional CF Central Processing Unit (CPU) into Distributed Units (DUs) and a Central Unit (CU), in line with the 3GPP NG-RAN architecture. In parallel, EMPOWER-6G proposes an innovative mmWave Hybrid MIMO solution, with beam-steering and beam-sharing support. At the regional-edge domain, EMPOWER-6G aims at providing a new design for an optical regional edge network with FTTH support in order to achieve optimum functional splitting options, while also supporting novel control-plane protocols for CF networking support.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • IQUADRAT INFORMATICA SL · BarcelonaCoordinatorSpain
  • ATHINA-EREVNITIKO KENTRO KAINOTOMIAS STIS TECHNOLOGIES TIS PLIROFORIAS, TON EPIKOINONION KAI TIS GNOSIS · MAROUSSIGreece
  • CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOGSKOLA AB · GoteborgSweden
  • CORIANT R&D GMBH · StuttgartGermany
  • EREVNITIKO PANEPISTIMIAKO INSTITOUTO SYSTIMATON EPIKOINONION KAI YPOLOGISTON · ATHINAGreece
  • FUNDACIO PER A LA UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA · BARCELONASpain
  • IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE · LondonUnited Kingdom
  • ISRD SP Z O.O. · PiasecznoPoland
  • KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · LeuvenBelgium
  • NVIDIA DENMARK APS · RoskildeDenmark
  • NVIDIA GREECE MONOPROSOPI ANONYMI ETAIREIA · AthensGreece
  • PIKEI NEES TECHNOLOGIES OE · PATRASGreece
  • SIAE MICROELETTRONICA SPA · MilanoItaly

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union