Wishful

The WiSHFUL project (Wireless Software and Hardware platforms for Flexible and Unified radio and network controL) will reduce the threshold for experimentation in view of wireless innovation creation and by increasing the realism of experimentation. More specifically, the WiSHFUL objectives are:

• To offer open, flexible & adaptive software and hardware platforms for radio control and network protocol development allowing rapid prototyping of innovative end-to-end wireless solutions and systems in different vertical markets (manufacturing, smart cities, home, office, healthcare, transportation, logistics, environmental monitoring...). Key features of such platforms are:
  • Unified radio control allowing full radio control without the need for deep knowledge of the hardware specifics of the radio hardware platform
  • Unified network control, allowing rapid prototyping and adaptations of network protocol stacks, without the need for deep knowledge of network protocols and software architectures, but also allowing the implementation of novel protocols (e.g. cooperative protocols which require time synchronization and coordination of a subset of nodes)
  • Support for experimentation with intelligent control of radio and network settings, enabling intelligent, node-level and network-wide decisions, on radio and network operation modes and according settings, driven by higher-level domain-specific application demands and taking into account external policies (for example policies for dynamic spectrum access).
• To offer advanced wireless test facilities that:
  • follow the current de facto standards in FIRE, set by the FED4FIRE project, for testbed interoperability
    • adopting and extending standardized tools for discovery and reservation, experiment control, measurements & monitoring
    • supporting federated identity management and access control
  • To support diverse wireless (access) technologies and platforms:
    • Create generic and open interfaces for control of the existing devices for technologies like Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1), WPAN (IEEE 802.15.4), LTE, WiMAX that are already available in current facilities
    • Extend these interfaces to more open ended experimental radio platforms covering software defined radio platforms, embedded devices and non-commercial grade hardware, so as to enable 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine-to-Machine (M2M), tactile internet
• To offer portable facilities that can be deployed at any location allowing validation of innovative wireless solutions in the real world (with realistic channel propagation and interference characteristics) and involving real users.
• To extend the WiSHFUL facilities with additional facilities or wireless hardware, offering complementary or novel radio hardware/software platforms, supporting experimentation with new technologies such as mmWave (WiGig 60GHz and IEEE802.11ad), full duplex radio, IoT testbeds, smart antennas, etc.
• To attract and support experimenters for wireless innovation creation targeting different classes of experimenters via different open call mechanisms tailored to the specific classes (industrial relevance for SME versus level of innovation for academia).

The WiSHFUL project is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement n645274.

Project's lifetime: 01/2015 and will last for 36 months, University of Thessaly is participating as an Open Caller

Project's Website: www.wishful-project.eu

Chic

ChiC is the Coordination and Support Action, amplifying and coordinating CAPS-driven efforts in a broad perspective, contributing to shaping and refining how digital, sustainable and social innovation can penetrate our society. Specifically, CHiC:

• builds and grows a strong community of active players by providing CAPS stakeholders with effective tools supporting coordination of efforts, communication and dissemination, knowledge transfer, collaborative learning, best practices identification and promotion of outcomes for broad impact in the society.
• connects CAPS players among them and with related initiatives growing in Europe and elsewhere through active participation and direct involvement of key players all across the community is key to understand how digital social innovation is at the core of a Next Generation Internet.
• impacts the society and allow for digital social transformation to effectively change citizens’ lives through coordinated CAPS efforts rooted in a number of actions and events that are involving students, hackers, grassroots initiatives, policy makers and all digital social innovators.

Project's lifetime: 01/07/2016 to 31/12/2018

Project's website: www.capssi.eu

5GXHaul

Small Cells, Cloud-Radio Access Networks (C-RAN), Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NVF) are key enablers to address the demand for broadband connectivity with low cost and flexible implementations. Small Cells, in conjunction with C-RAN, SDN, NVF pose very stringent requirements on the transport network. Here flexible wireless solutions are required for dynamic backhaul and fronthaul architectures alongside very high capacity optical interconnects. However, there is no consensus on how both technologies can be most efficiently combined.5G-XHaul proposes a converged optical and wireless network solution able to flexibly connect Small Cells to the core network. Exploiting user mobility, our solution allows the dynamic allocation of network resources to predicted and actual hotspots. To support these novel concepts, we will develop:1) Dynamically programmable, high capacity, low latency, point-to-multipoint mm-Wave transceivers, cooperating with sub-6-GHz systems;2) A Time Shared Optical Network offering elastic and fine granular bandwidth allocation, cooperating with advanced passive optical networks;3) A software-defined cognitive control plane, able to forecast traffic demand in time and space, and the ability to reconfigure network components.The well balanced 5G-XHaul consortium of industrial and research partners with unique expertise and skills across the constituent domains of communication systems and networks will create impact through:a) Developing novel converged optical/wireless architectures and network management algorithms for mobile scenarios;b) Introduce advanced mm-Wave and optical transceivers and control functions;c) Support the development of international standards through technical and techno-economic contributions.5G-XHaul technologies will be integrated in a city-wide testbed in Bristol (UK). This will uniquely support the evaluation of novel optical and wireless elements and end-to-end performance.

Project's website: www.5g-xhaul-project.eu/