Anagrafe della ricerca

The project is articulated in two fields: 1 - Disruptive architectures and open platforms for network innovation. In this field the project will develop and assess a disruptive and open architecture based on networked Digital Twins (DSt), to meet the needs of a future telecommunication system supporting 6G and beyond services. DTs associate a digital counterpart to each network element (router, switch, host, entire subnet or network segment), implement as a composition of distributed microservices to guarantee robustness, resilience and openness to the entrance of new players. To this end, innovative architecture layers will be designed to support the provisioning of new slice types, the definition of a new inter-domain value chain, the development of new automated approaches for inter-domain resource orchestration, monitoring and management automation, and energy efficiency at the RAN, UE-level, core and cloud. Emphasis will be on edge/extreme edge, where network functions are executed following the serverless computing paradigm run on topo of a (shared) network infrastructure (deviceless approach), considering key value indicators 8KVIs) besides HPIs. Advantages are (i) lower network optimization cost, (ii) more intelligent network decision making, (iii) evolved concepts of slicing, and (iv) autonomous behavior through AI associated to DTs. 2- Services & systems for extreme environments and domain – specific scenarios. In this field the project explores new telecommunication solution for extremely challenging scenarios the promise huge societal and economic impact. Examples include underwater environments characterized by very limited radio and light propagation and harsh and time varying acoustic channel; port areas requiring long- range communication to cope with massive reflections and obstructions, health application with communicating implantable devices or injectable nano robots; disaster areas in which infrastructureless communications support first responder squads; permanent monitoring of wide areas or civil infrastructures, where sensors are energy self-sustainable. The project addresses the challenges of communication and networking in extreme environments through a holistic approach that spans from energy scavenging electronics to power the devices, to new coding and modulation schemes coping with harsh propagation conditions as well as access and network management protocols to provide end-to-end connectivity, up to data processing and analytics to extract the most valuable information.