5TONIC involved in major European strategic telecommunications research projects

May 8th, 2024. Mobile technologies are experiencing an accelerated and constant development and it is expected that both, at European as well as national level, the growth of mobile network connections will rise even more in the coming years.

In fact, with the aim of facilitating the universalization of access to ultra-fast broadband and the extension of 5G, financed by the European Union Recovery Fund – NextGenerationEU, the Program for the Universalization of Digital Infrastructures for Cohesion (UNICO) has been launched in Spain. The objective is to promote a regulatory framework for the different funding rounds for the development of research and innovation projects.

In this sense, research spaces such as 5TONIC, the open laboratory for research and innovation in new technologies, founded by Telefónica and IMDEA Networks, is involved in several projects in collaboration with its members and collaborators. «5TONIC’s participation in these European-level projects strengthens the laboratory position and consolidates its capacity to host all the technological components needed to showcase all the opportunities offered by 5G and 6G technologies in different vertical industries,» explains Carlos J. Bernardos, 5TONIC vice-president and UC3M full professor. 

Among the projects included in the UNICO program, 5TONIC in collaboration with members of the laboratory, Ericsson, Telefónica, Telcaria, ABB and Capgemini Engineering, as well as led by University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M), are working on the development and evaluation of the technologies that will shape future 6G networks through the 6G-DATADRIVEN project. One of its main lines of research is to maximize data optimization, using industrial manufacturing processes and emergency support as application areas. On the other hand, 6G-EDGEDT, also headed by UC3M, focuses on developing massive digital twins at the hyper-distributed edge of the network. 

Carrying out these 6G technology precursor projects at national and international level would not be possible without playing a key role in the SNS JU (Small Network and Services Joint Undertaking), a major European public-private initiative to research and develop advanced 5G and 6G technologies. In fact, this year it has launched the second round of projects with a financial boost of €130 million. 

During the first phase of European projects within the SNS JU not only focus on network advancement and applications, but also seek to reduce carbon emissions as in the case of the 6Green protect, conduct full large-scale trials for new applications and enable next-generation XR services and infrastructure in 6GXR project. In addition, the project PRIVATEER seeks to develop privacy- sensitive security enablers for 6G networks and Predict 6G to provide deterministic network paths to support time-sensitive services requested by end customers.  This phase also includes other projects in which 5TONIC participates, such as DESIRE 6G, HEXA-X-II or TrialsNet. 

On the other hand, this year has marked the beginning of a new round of research projects within the SNS JU on this type of networks in search of a more detailed design and optimization of the systems. 5TONIC is involved in EXIGENCE which seeks to strengthen the underlying structure of 6G networks towards greater resilience, adaptability and efficiency, PROTEUS-6G to develop new technologies and multi-layer SDN architectures for energy efficiency, iTrust6G which investigates the application of advanced multi-tenant control in security orchestration and ROBUST-6G that makes use of data fabric and capability exposure approaches to enhance network security.

«At 5TONIC we are very proud to be able to participate together with our members and collaborators in the validation tests of these projects and to be part of the progress towards 6G, a milestone that will mark a before and after worldwide, opening new frontiers in communications,» says Bernardos.