6G DAWN Team at Ericsson Imagine Live Spain
Last Tuesday 26th November, a representation of 6G DAWN team participated in Madrid Imagine Live Event organized by Ericsson Spain.
6G DAWN F2F Meeting at CTTC
Last 17-18 October took place 6G DAWN F2F Meeting at CTTC premises to discuss about results and proof of concepts of the different use cases.
Ericsson y CTTC definen conjuntamente el futuro del 5G privado
Ericsson ha desplegado un sistema 5G privado en el EXTREME Testbed de la unidad de investigación Services as networkS (SaS) del CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya). Este sistema 5G privado constituye una potente plataforma para la investigación, experimentación y validación de nuevos casos de uso y arquitecturas previstas en la evolución de 5G a 6G.
Desde 2023, Ericsson y CTTC colaboran con el objetivo principal de desarrollar nuevas tecnologías que permitan a los proveedores de servicios de comunicaciones (CSP) mejorar y escalar sus capacidades de red privada.
La nueva solución proporcionada por Ericsson incluye un sistema 5G privado y portátil que permite crear fácilmente una red privada para soportar casos de uso novedosos y exigentes de alto rendimiento y un Plano de Control 5G centralizado, una función de la solución 5G core dual de Ericsson para 5G privado, desplegada en 5TONIC e interconectada con el laboratorio del CTTC. La parte de red privada de la solución desplegada consiste en equipos de radio 5G, unidad de banda base y Función de Plano de Usuario local implementada por Ericsson Local Packet Gateway para permitir la coubicación de servidores de aplicaciones que ejecutan las cargas de trabajo de aplicaciones verticales exigentes, garantizando así el alto rendimiento y las latencias reducidas requeridas.
En el marco de esta colaboración, Ericsson y CTTC investigan sobre la optimización de 5G privado hacia la eficiencia energética y la gestión flexible de los recursos radioeléctricos siguiendo dos hilos conductores:
· El potencial de las API abiertas para exponer el funcionamiento y el comportamiento internos de la red a través de las API NEF (Network Exposure Function).
· La construcción de Gemelo Digital de la red que permita realizar pruebas exhaustivas previas al despliegue, aumentar la posibilidad de observar el rendimiento de la red y realizar una optimización continua basada en datos.
La combinación de las API de red con las funcionalidades de Gemelo Digital de la red permite una gran variedad de servicios valiosos para los operadores de redes, como el análisis remoto, la validación y estimación del rendimiento de los KPI o las recomendaciones de configuraciones RAN (Red de Acceso Radioeléctrico) basadas en modelos de tráfico concretos. Como resultado, la evolución prevista del sistema 5G abarca flexibilidad de recursos, eficiencia energética, sostenibilidad, automatización sin intervención y capacidades de resiliencia de la red que permiten su adaptación a las condiciones dinámicas de trabajo de la red y de los servicios verticales.
Esta colaboración entre CTTC y Ericsson se produce en el marco de los proyectos 6G BLUR y 6G DAWN UNICO I+D, ambos apoyados por el Ministerio de Economía y Transformación Digital, y NextGeneration EU.
Manuel Lorenzo, director de Tecnología e Innovación de Ericsson España, comenta: “Gracias a la alianza con CTTC, nuevos paradigmas que podrían convertirse en avances esenciales en el camino hacia 6G, como los Gemelos Digitales de Red y las innovadoras APIs de Exposición de Red, son, día a día, estudiados, implementados y validados conjuntamente en el laboratorio de CTTC sobre la plataforma 5G Privada de Ericsson.”
Josep Mangues-Bafalluy, jefe de la unidad de investigación Services as networkS (SaS), de CTTC, y coinvestigador principal de los proyectos 6G-BLUR y 6G DAWN, comenta: “Estamos realmente entusiasmados con las posibilidades de experimentación que ofrece la solución Private 5G de Ericsson. A través de esta colaboración, estamos avanzando conjuntamente en nuestra investigación sobre redes no públicas automatizadas y eficientes desde el punto de vista energético y de recursos, al tiempo que marcamos el ritmo de las tendencias actuales de la industria sobre API de redes móviles abiertas y gemelos digitales de red.”
Ericsson and Telcaria unlock new approaches for 5G Energy Efficiency optimization
Ericsson collaborates with Telcaria, a Spanish SME specialized in the research and development of new telecommunication solutions and official collaborator of 5TONIC, for identifying innovative solutions for enhancing energy efficiency of end-to-end vertical applications relying on 5G Advanced technologies.
The collaboration has been forged in the context of 6G-DAWN project coordinated by CTTC, a research and innovation project running since 2022 until end of 2024, being funded by the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Government via the UNICO 6G I+D programme.
Ericsson and Telcaria are jointly researching novel mechanisms for evaluating, recommending, and enforcing alternative configurations of that may enhance energy efficiency indicators for Private 5G Advanced Networks. The intent of this initiative is, on the one hand, securing the minimum energy consumption levels of 5G Private Networks without impacting other network performance parameters, and, on the other hand, assessing and optimizing network energy consumption for delivering traffic at speeds up to 1 Gbps over 5G mid-range bands.
The strategy followed entails adopting a PNI-NPN (Public-Network Integrated Non-Public Networks) approach for offloading and reducing the energy consumption of the Control Plane, and improving the predictability of both network performance and end-user service patterns in the actual field for further reducing the energy consumption of the RAN.
The exposure of energy-consumption information can help CSPs and Enterprises in understanding where and when energy is consumed, and which factors are influencing this consumption. This, together with the inclusion of enhanced mechanisms to optimize the network configuration, both statically and dynamically, can help companies operating and leveraging private cellular networks in manufacturing, logistics and transportation industries, among others, to reduce their operational expenses and their carbon footprint.
For enabling the experimentation and validation activities in this context advanced technologies like Network Digital Twin and Network Exposure have been integrated at 5TONIC lab, and a Private 5G Advanced Network system has been deployed at the EXTREME Testbed of CTTC.
Maria Felisa Sedano, CEO at Telcaria, adds: "This collaboration represents a great opportunity for us to explore new challenges in energy efficiency within the future of cellular networks, ultimately unlocking new possibilities and strengthening our cooperation with Ericsson."
“Ericsson and Telcaria are opening new avenues for enhancing 5G network energy efficiency, enabled by the application of instrumental technologies such as PNI-NPN, Network Digital Twin and Exposure for Private Network capabilities.” - indicates Manuel Lorenzo, Head of Technology & Innovation at Ericsson Spain.
6G DAWN F2F Meeting
14-15 March
6G DAWN team joined at CTTC for a productive F2F meeting during 14-15 March 2023.
6G DAWN at MWC24
Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2024
6G DAWN was present at MWC24 in CTTC and TELECO RENTA booths.
Decentralized AI-native 6G network management for resilience and sustainability
Press Release
The expected growth and scale of 6G networks shall demand crafting new and smarter network management paradigms. Multiple stakeholders will jointly define the ecosystem, and this poses several administrative and technical challenges. Natively embedding AI-based cycles while delegating decisions throughout the network offers the required resilience and sustainability at scale. A consortium of four industrial partners (ERICSSON Spain, EVIDEN, Software Radio Systems and Telcaria) representing the 5G and beyond value chain and led by the CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya) are investigating these challenges within the framework of the UNICO R+D project 6G DAWN.
6G DAWN is a 2.6M€ research and innovation project funded by the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Government via the UNICO I+D programme, which fosters the creation of a Spanish industry-academia 6G ecosystem.
6G DAWN proposes a zero-touch distributed 6G network management plane to handle the deployment of a massive number of network slices (virtual networks built over the same shared physical infrastructure) covering all network segments (i.e., RAN, Transport, Core, Cloud, Extreme Edge). The main challenges are elasticity (the capacity to adapt to varying demands and network conditions to improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of the network) and resilience (guaranteeing secure and continuous operation among the multiple stakeholders). Furthermore, given the increasing scale, automated energy-aware decision-making appears as a transversal component of any sustainable 6G network. In this respect, AI is natively embedded in the architecture at the various decision levels by enabling the support of techniques such as federated learning, graph neural networks, and explainable AI, which are coordinated towards a global network-wide goal. Provided these essential characteristics, 6G networks will be well-equipped to address a wide range of vertical requirements, enabling them to become the foundational infrastructure for diverse industries, including automotive, industry 4.0, extended reality (XR), energy, eHealth, and emergency response systems, hence will become the backbone of society.
Multiple proof-of-concepts (PoCs) are being built to experimentally validate the potential of such an AI-native decentralized management architecture in a variety of close-to-real scenarios. This includes dynamically adjusting radio access network (RAN) parameters in open RANs, energy optimization of non-public networks (NPN), the integration of the extreme edge in the network management framework, intrusion detection and mitigation, and QoS and network resiliency optimization. The PoCs are deployed having the EXTREME Testbed® of the CTTC as a central experiment-as-a-service facility, with some of the components distributed in labs of the industrial partners.
6G DAWN SECOND F2F MEETING
28th-29th November 2023
6G DAWN plenary face to face meeting took place at CTTC premises in Castelldefels. Project architecture, use cases and proof of concepts were discussed.
SRS Workshop
11th October 2023
Last 11th October 2023 was held at CTTC a SRS Workshop, that aimed to provide a general overview of the srsRAN Project by SRS, its architecture and main features, and its applications, as well as to guide new users through the building/installation process and all the steps required for a successful UE (either virtual or COTS) attachment.
Ericsson and CTTC join forces to tackle massive network slicing challenges in advanced 5G and 6G networks
This collaboration is part of the UNICO I+D program, supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation and NextGeneration EU, with the goal of establishing a sustainable Spanish 5G/6G innovation ecosystem through collaborative research.
The collaboration centers on two significant research projects, 6G-DAWN and 6G-BLUR, which address technological challenges in implementing and scaling what it terms "massive" network slicing - network slicing at a scale that matches the size and scope of what the industry envisions for 6G. The research will develop design principles and technical implementations, including Proofs of Concept (PoCs), to be shared with Spanish and European 5G/6G research communities.
The primary objective of these projects is to empower communication service providers (CSPs) to seamlessly enhance their network slicing capabilities, transitioning from early-stage deployments to future scenarios. This focus is particularly relevant for non-public networks (NPNs) interconnected with public networks.
In simple terms, the research revolves around four key technological areas:
- Resource flexibility: Optimizing network performance by distributing resources flexibly, especially for massive network slicing. This includes efficient distribution of 5G network functions and leveraging edge computing.
- Energy efficiency and sustainability: Reducing energy consumption across the entire network, from core to edge, RAN and user equipment, with a focus on sustainability.
- Zero-touch automation: Speeding up the launch of new NPN services through automatic adaptation and self-configuration within the public network and edge environment.
- Network resiliency: Ensuring network integrity and reliability using advanced machine learning algorithms to detect and prevent potential service disruptions.
Manuel Lorenzo, Head of Technology and Innovation, Ericsson Spain, says: “5G is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous technology with the potential to connect every person, business, and machine worldwide. Looking ahead, the expected demand for the expansion and enhancement of advanced 5G deployments demands new research and innovation across all aspects of the architectural evolution from 5G to 6G. That's why Ericsson and CTTC are collaborating in the 6G-BLUR and 6G-DAWN projects, sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation.”
Josep Mangues-Bafalluy, Head of the Services as networkS (SaS) research unit, CTTC, and co-Principal Investigator, 6G-BLUR and 6G-DAWN projects, says: The 6G-DAWN and 6G-BLUR projects focus on network slicing, NPN integration, energy efficiency, and zero-touch network automation, utilizing various artificial intelligence techniques, and sow the seeds for the creation of an advanced 5G and 6G industry-academia ecosystem. This ecosystem will be cultivated through research collaborations, such as the one between Ericsson and CTTC. This new collaboration will further strengthen our relationship in areas with high potential to transform the way mobile networks are managed at scale. The outcomes of these projects will have a lasting impact on the research and industrial communities of 5G and 6G."
6G DAWN F2F Meeting
17-18 May 2023
6G DAWN partners celebrated a first face to face meeting during 17-18 May, hosted by CTTC in Castelldefels.
