Future (5G) services will impose stringent requirements in the design and operation of transport networks: increased capacity, low latency, high availability and dynamicity, reduced service provisioning with lower OpEx, while considering end-to-end service objectives (QoS and QoT). To cope with traffic growth in a cost-effective way, an appealing strategy focuses on deploying elastic and programmable commodity optical hardware via disaggregation (white boxes) combined with transmission technologies. To address both end-to-end service objectives and traffic dynamicity, an interesting approach leverages the benefits provided by SDN/NFV control and the automated decisions and re-configuration opportunities enabled by cognitive algorithms. For this, SDN/NFV provides unified control on top of systems’/devices’ programmability, regardless of the data infrastructure (packet, optical, IT), while exploiting the large real-time monitored information dynamically to adopt actions leading to attain service end-to-end objectives and more optimal network operation and resource utilization. Those hardware and software solutions constitute ONFIRE R&D goals which basically target the design, deployment and experimental evaluation of disaggregated optical transport hardware automatically articulated by novel cognitive algorithms supported by a SDN/NFV architecture. To do so, ONFIRE proposes a three-year research programme centred on two European industrial PhDs. PhD candidates will benefit from an intensive training process combining the strengths of both: i) CTTC as research institution to acquire research tools and methodology, with UPC as associated partner offering its PhD programme; ii) ALUD as a vendor delivering a highly valuable view of research activities and its impact on industrial ecosystem. Targeted PhD training programme is devised to maximize the synergy between the collaborators and promote career opportunities of ONFIRE researchers in the European ICT Research Area.

The rapid growth in mobile network data traffic contributed to the unprecedented speed of 4G LTE adoption, creating the need of sustainable capacity growth in next generation of wireless systems, namely 5G. A key success factor of 5G is network and management system design for flexibility by prediction and adaptation. To this end, anticipation is a promising new approach. By predicting and adapting to upcoming events at various time scales, an anticipatory network improving the operation quality and efficiency. First, network resources ranging from spectrum and buffers can be managed optimally to meet users’ requirements. Second, network operators can jointly plan how to share infrastructures and resources to meet their demands at lower costs and better energy efficiency. The ACT5G project addresses these challenges by two parallel research thrusts which we identify as Network Prediction and Reaction Mechanisms. The research in these thrusts ranges from analytic methods and models for anticipatory networks, to optimization in resource management and infrastructure sharing. To achieve the objectives, ACT5G engages in a four-year research program centered around four industrial PhDs. Half of the duration of the involvement of the early stage researchers (ESRs) in the program will be spent at the site of Alcatel Lucent Bell-Labs, giving the core industrial aspect of the ACT5G project. ACT5G brings together a consortium of complementary research skills, ensuring that the involved ESRs conduct top-level beyond-state-of-the-art research, while enjoying a well-structured program for industrial-oriented doctoral studies. The added value of ACT5G is the creation of a critical mass of trained researchers, working together under joint industrial/academic supervision. The outcomes of the project are have a direct impact on the evolution towards 5G networks, the career perspectives of the ESRs, and the human capital of the European Research Area.

The rapid increase in data traffic in the past years and traffic forecasts will lead to capacity exhaust in the optical fibre communications infrastructure which carries over 95% of all data services. The optical fibre channel is nonlinear, that is, its properties, namely its refractive index, is dependent on optical intensity, and at high power densities, the combination of nonlinear effects and dispersion leads to nonlinear distortion, limiting both achievable capacities, spectral efficiencies and distances. A key research area requiring investigation is nonlinear coding and detection, tailored to the nonlinear channel to dramatically improve the data throughput of future optical networks. New R&D is critically needed not only for finding new native nonlinear communication techniques but also transferring them into practical, error-resilient systems. The COIN objective is, thus, the development of a new area of nonlinear communications including forward error correction, essential for reliable communication. Specifically, COIN will investigate the application of nonlinear Fourier transforms and nonlinearity-tailored coding and detection by effectively integrating the scientific expertise of the key academic research groups in information theory, coding, coherent optical communication and high-speed transmission with the industrial know-how of the consortium. The COIN R&D goals will be to focus on the development of new, native communication schemes and waveforms alongside with the development of coding schemes for these and existing non-linear Fourier transform based transceivers. The R&D tasks will be carried out along with researcher training in the leading scientific centres in Europe. The PhD training programme is designed to maximize the unique synergy between the collaborators to promote career opportunities of the COIN researchers in ICT, generating new types of key expertise and and human capital for the European Research Area.

Fibre-optic communication systems form the backbone of the world’s communication infrastructure as they provide for lion fraction (more than 99%) of the global data traffic. The ongoing exponential growth in network traffic, however, is pushing current technology, whose data rates had increased over several decades, towards its limits. It is widely accepted that the nonlinear transmission effects in optical fibre are now a major limiting factor in modern fibre-optic communication systems. Nonlinear properties of the optical fibre medium limit the conventional techniques to increase capacity by simply increasing signal power. Most of the transmission technologies utilized today have been originally developed for linear (wired or wireless) communication channels. Over the past several decades, significant improvements in data rates were obtained by improvements and modifications within the overall linear transmission paradigm. However, there is much evidence that this trend is going to end within the next decade due to fibre nonlinearity. There is a clear need for radically different approaches to the coding, transmission, and processing of information that take the nonlinear properties of the optical fibre into account. This also requires education and training of a new generation of optical communication engineers and specialists with knowledge on nonlinear methods and techniques. The EID FONTE R&D goals will be focused on development of disruptive nonlinear techniques and approaches to fibre-optic communications beyond the limits of current technology. The project will make important innovative steps in development of the technique of the nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT) and its implementation in the practical communication systems. The R&D tasks will be carried out along with training of PhD students in the leading research centres in Europe with industry focused projects with 50% of time spent in the world leading telecom centre - Nokia Bell Labs Germany.

6G is expected to trigger a total rethink of network architecture design, adopting the new Network of Networks vision which promotes the integration of multi-stakeholder, multi-technology infrastructures. To this end, future 6G systems will tightly integrate upcoming satellite systems and Low-Earth Orbit constellations (e.g., OneWeb) as well as High-Altitude Platforms (HAPs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a concept termed as integrated Terrestrial and Non-terrestrial Networking (TNTN). However, the sheer scale and heterogeneity of future TNTN infrastructures is expected to create a unique set of challenges. To this end, 6G-TERRAIN adopts Integrated Communication and Sensing (ICAS) as a key enabler of TNTNs, allowing to perceive the complex and dynamic TNTNs through sensing the physical environment. Moreover, 6G-TERRAIN aims to propose, design, and validate a novel Native AI automation architecture and its associated enabling technologies and theoretical frameworks, aiming for an intent 6G System with seamlessly integrated multi-stakeholder & multi-technology (e.g., terrestrial and non-terrestrial) nodes. Natural Language intents are adopted, exploiting the breakthrough capabilities of emerging LLMs to automatically plan the optimal decompositions of intents into tasks and prioritise their downstream execution. Finally, 6G-TERRAIN will build a training network to conduct top-notch research towards the development and experimental evaluation of a gamut of techniques, methodological frameworks and tools that will break the barriers currently impeding the realisation of the 6G “Network of Networks” vision.