CTTC boosts the Spanish 6G industry ecosystem through its UNICO I+D Projects.
The Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya is making substantial advancements in its UNICO I+D Projects, which were awarded by December 2021 and endowed with a budget of 23 M€, the largest among the beneficiaries of this program. These 9 projects, which include 6GBLUR, 6GDAWN, 6GMICROSDN, 6G-OASIS, 6G-OPENSEC, 6G-OPTRAN, AROMA3D, FREE-6G, and SUCCESS-6G, are aimed at building the sixth generation, 6G, of communication networks and are now incorporating 21 new partners. These new partners from the industry sector, whose total budget is 16 M€, include representatives ranging from large industry (mobile network operators, equipment vendors, and service integrators) to local deep tech SMEs. Together with CTTC they will create a robust research and innovation ecosystem in Spain.
Dr. Miquel Payaró, Director of Open Innovation and Science at CTTC, stated, “The strength of the research and innovation ecosystem being built through these projects is crucial in driving technological advancements and shaping the future of 6G communication networks. We are thrilled to have new top partners from the industry joining us on this journey and are confident that these collaborations will result in significant progress and impactful outcomes.”
The 9 projects are already working on a number of technological advancements, related to the development of new 6G network technologies, which promise to revolutionize the way we communicate and interact with the world around us. Some of these advancements include:
- 6GBLUR project focuses on the development of efficient end-to-end resource management procedures and smart decision-making control mechanisms for virtualized, adaptive, and blurring mobile network architectures.
- 6GDAWN project focuses on scalable and distributed management plane design to support massive deployment of network slices to enable services like XR applications.
- 6GMICROSDN project aims to promote the deployment of layer-3 whiteboxes in future 6G transport networks paving the road for smarter SDN and MANO integration (see picture).
- 6G-OASIS project will deliver a fully open and secured RAN framework with control programmability powered by an AI native environment that third-party can capitalize on to build their applications for vertical industries.
- 6G-OPENSEC project aims to provide security, trust, and quantum key distribution (QKD) solutions for 6G transport networks through an open and flexible architecture.
- 6G-OPTRAN project focuses on the design, prototyping and demonstration of new optical transport technologies based on whitebox deployments to support the massive bandwidth requirements of 6G networks.
- AROMA3D project aims to develop the foreseen 3D network, which encompasses the air-space segment, by designing air interface, antenna solutions and resource management techniques suited for the 3D network.
- FREE-6G project proposes a new paradigm of elastic virtual infrastructures that integrate in a transparent manner a variety of novel radio access (including cell-free), networking, management and security technologies.
- SUCCESS-6G project will deliver novel technological advancements in the ability to transmit, process and analyze vast amounts of vehicular data and the realization of unprecedented vehicular services.
The new partnerships and collaborations in these projects will contribute to the continued growth of the Spanish research and innovation ecosystem around 6G technologies, ensuring that the future of 6G communication networks is shaped by the Spanish leading players.
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