AI-driven inter-domain network control, management, and orchestration innovations

By Pietro Giuseppe Giardina, Nextworks

Network technologies are in continuous evolution. The technological advancements led to more powerful networks characterised by high transport capabilities (large throughputs, reduced latency, etc.). Furthermore, the progressive softwarisation of the network, thanks to new paradigms such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Software Virtualisation (NFV) opened the door to a completely new set of network stakeholders beyond the role of the classical Telco Operator: vertical industries but also specialised software houses, resource providers (e.g., storage, transport, spectrum) service providers, etc.  

All those stakeholders want to exploit the resources and the capabilities of the new networks, driven by different interests. A telco operator may be interested in integrating new technologies to increment the capabilities of its own network while reducing the integration cost and the network devices’ configuration overhead. On the contrary, a vertical service provider may be more interested in consuming network capabilities to deploy vertical services, without dealing with the complexity of the network itself. 

With the advent of 5G, telco operators started studying the adoption of specific technologies i.e., Network Service Orchestrators and SDN Controllers, capable to abstract the network complexity and offer simple and effective interfaces for service orchestration and network management and control, allowing verticals to create their own services across a well-defined dedicated set network resources (e.g., network slices). Nevertheless, with the growing of the network capabilities, the services are becoming more complex accordingly and more demanding in terms of network resources, reliability, and pervasiveness. AR/XR, high-quality video stream services, autonomous driving, etc. are examples of services designed for the last generation of networks.

However, to be truly pervasive, such services cannot be limited to a single network domain (e.g., one Telco Operator), but require to be deployed across multiple network domains, potentially belonging to different network operators, and characterised by different network technologies. 

The lifecycle management and control of services across multiple networks in a transparent manner for the requestor is a challenge for the management plane. The provisioning of a similar service requires a management plane platform capable of coordinating with the different network domains, creating local subservices and stitching them all together for building a unique E2E service. Its architecture should be modular, flexible, and easily extendable to new network domains and technology, while preserving the right level of abstraction.

Research projects and SDOs have widely investigated the problem. In particular, ETSI ZSM ISG (Zero-touch network and Service Management Industrial Specification Group) released a set of standards (GS, Group Specification) which widely discussed the problem of multiple domain networks and service management [1]

The preservation of the requested quality of service (QoS) at runtime is a challenge for the control plane. Again, Research and SDOs have given their contribution over the years, developing the concept of network and service automation (zero-touch) based on control loops (CL). Network and service automation is where AI can play a crucial role. One of the main objectives of the 6G is indeed the integration of AI technologies in network control and management systems by design, for a number of tasks so far accomplished mostly by human operators. The objective is to guarantee a timely reaction to the changes that characterise the network dynamicity and reduce the errors (and the human intervention in general) at the same time.  ETSI ENI and ETSI ZSM [2] [3] propose solutions for network and service automations supporting AI. Hexa-x and Hexa-x-II are the most recent examples of EU-funded research projects incorporating AI-based CLs in 6G architecture.

Similarly, Digital Twinning technologies allow to emulate/simulate the behaviour of the target network (or specific segments) in order to predict its future states when applying a given configuration. ETSI is producing a report in this regard, ZSM-015 [4].

PREDICT-6G tackles the multi-domain service orchestration and automated network and service control in the challenging domain of time-critical services.

When the focus moves towards the orchestration of time-critical services, e.g., the remote control of industrial processes, the challenge for management and control become even more complex. Time-sensitive services require reliable network infrastructure capable of delivering information in a deterministic manner (delivery within a specific timeframe, fixed order of arrival of the messages, etc.).  Several deterministic network technologies are nowadays available (IEEE TSN, IETF DetNet, IETF RAW), with different levels of maturity and very limited interoperability. 

To deal with this heterogeneity, PREDICT-6G applies both SBA (Service-Based Architecture) and ZSM architectural concepts for the orchestration of E2E deterministic services, across multiple technologies whose level of support to the determinism may significantly vary and could be even zero.

AI/ML and Digital twinning technologies are employed at both Management and Control level for optimal deterministic path computation and resource allocation, KPI prediction and QoS preserving at runtime. Both of them are supported by a pervasive monitoring facility providing the data in near real-time.

References:

[1] ETSI GS ZSM 002 V1.1.1 (2019-08). Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM); Reference Architecture

[2] ETSI GS ENI 005 V2.1.1 (2021-12). Experiential Networked Intelligence (ENI); System Architecture

[3] ETSI GS ZSM 009-1 V1.1.1 (2021-06). Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM); Closed-Loop Automation; Part 1: Enablers

[4] ETSI GR ZSM 015 Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM); Network Digital Twin Stable draft available here: https://portal.etsi.org/webapp/workProgram/Report_Schedule.asp?WKI_ID=64372


Enabling Native Localisation and Sensing Support in Future Mobile Networks

Dr Sebastian Robitzsch, member of the Consortium on behalf of InterDigital Europe Ltd, was invited to speak at the industry track on sensors and devices at IEEE World Forum on the Internet of Things (WFIOT). 

With the new ETSI Industry Specification Group for Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISG ISAC) officially launched, the talk first motivated the content covered with "sensing" as one of the core IMT research areas for 2030 and beyond. It then dives into 3GPP's work on a feasibility study to natively support sensing use cases and to offer sensing results to verticals, such as IoT applications. The 3GPP use cases considered for standardisation in Rel.19 and beyond were mapped to why sensing relies on deterministic communications and how to achieve that using IEEE (TSN) and/or 3GPP data plane technologies in the advent of 6G. 

The work that underpins the presentation is InterDigital's contribution to PREDICT-6G on an IP header-based solution on packet grouping (aka Data Unit Groups) to perform deterministic action in intermediate switches and routers, e.g. 5G User Plane nodes such as UE, gNB and UPF or TSN switches in- and outside a 3GPP domain.

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PREDICT-6G and DESIRE6G co-organise the “6G-PDN Workshop” at MobiHoc 2023

We are pleased to announce that PREDICT-6G and DESIRE6G successfully co-organised the "6G Programmable Deterministic Networking with AI" workshop (6G-PDN)” on the 23 of October 2023, at the prestigious 24th International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing (MobiHoc 2023) held in Washington  DC, United States.

The '6G-PDN Workshop' served as a platform for leading researchers, industry experts, and academics to come together and discuss the roadmap and challenges of the technological areas within deterministic communications and deep network programmability in the context of 6G technology to support future end-to- end time-critical applications.

Hosted by the project coordinators of PREDICT-6G and DESIRE6G, Dr. Antonio de la Oliva and Dr. Chrysa Papagianni, respectively, the workshop spanned an entire day. It featured two keynote presentations delivered by Professor John Baras from the University of Maryland and Professor Kaushik Chowdhury from Northeastern University, along with three sessions dedicated to discussing academic papers around the following key topics:

  1. Deterministic Communications:

Exploring cutting-edge research on deterministic communication technologies that can provide ultra-reliable, low-latency communication links for critical applications such as autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, healthcare systems, and more. This is particularly relevant for PREDICT-6G, which focuses on creating a secure, modular, interoperable, and extensible deterministic network and management framework that automates the definition, provisioning, monitoring, fulfillment, and life-cycle management of end-to-end deterministic services over multiple network domains.

  1. Deep Network Programmability:

Delving into the advancements in deep network programmability, the ability to program the network fabric both vertically (control and data plane) and horizontally (end to end), that is expected to characterise the new generation of mobile networks, towards supporting extreme performance requirements and service-specific operations. DESIRE6G is in fact introducing deep programmability to the mobile network with the adoption of an end-to-end programmable data plane that supports multi-tenancy, using an abstraction layer to interact with the heterogeneous devices e.g., ASICs, CPUs, GPUS, DPUs etc.

  1. Transforming networking with AI

Native integration of AI is considered an integral feature of envisioned 6G systems both as a means for designing flexible, less complex, reconfigurable networks, as well as an intrinsic in-network intelligence feature.  This is relevant to DESIRE6G that aspires to natively integrate AI in the 6G system architecture to support adaptive decision-making at different time scales with expected impact on energy and performance efficiency gains.

The workshop's key findings include the definition of digital twins, AI and sensing as key areas where deterministic and programmable networks can work together to achieve extreme KPIs.

The standout aspect of the workshop was without any doubt the excellent quality of our keynotes: “Extreme Reconfigurability for 6G: From Programmable Wireless Networks to Programmable Environments” by Professor Kaushik Chowdhury and “Next Generation Hybrid Network (core, 5G/6G, non-terrestrial) Automation: Integrated Model-Based and Data-Driven Systems Engineering” by Professor Baras, which attracted top researchers attending the MobiHoc conference. 

The papers that were selected to be part of the workshop are listed below:

We extend our gratitude to all participants and to the esteemed keynotes, Professor John Baras and Professor Kaushik Chowdhury, for their invaluable contributions and insights shared during the event. Their expertise and perspectives significantly enriched our discussions, and we anticipate that they will continue to ignite further stimulating conversations in the future.

Stay tuned for future updates and events as we continue to strive towards shaping the future of 6G.

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PREDICT-6G's third plenary meeting in Bucharest

On the 17th and 18th of October, the PREDICT-6G Consortium gathered for its third plenary meeting in Bucharest, Romania. 

Over the course of these two days, the team looked back at the accomplishments achieved during the first 10 months of the project and set the roadmap to continue working towards the project’s main goal: to create a secure, modular, interoperable, and deterministic 6G network

During the meeting, the partners presented the current status of each work package, as well as the action plan for the next quarter of the project.  There was also room for fun - who said it was incompatible with research? - at the innovation session hosted by Dr. Valerio Frascolla (INTEL), PREDICT-6G innovation manager and WP5 “Impact creation” leader. 

Provided with simple premises and clear objectives, the team was challenged to think out of the box to complete a number of tasks. Afterwards, Dr Frascolla helped all participants to reflect on their different approaches and to extract some valuable lessons to implement when working on a new topic

Hosted by SIMAVI, the Consortium also enjoyed a traditional Romanian dinner where there was time for more informal exchanges that, without a doubt, strengthened the team bond.

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How will PREDICT-6G contribute to the European Digital Decade?

“Europe aims to empower businesses and people in a human-centred, sustainable and more prosperous digital future.

A Europe fit for the digital age is one of the six European Commission priorities for 2019-2024. It addresses the need to prepare European citizens and businesses for the digitisation of the society and economy, while contributing to a climate-neutral Europe.

The 2030 Digital Compass reflects this common vision for the EU, highlighting the importance of securing Europe's digital sovereignty and resilience. The Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 sets a governance framework for a structured multi-country cooperation that guides Europe´s digital transformation, while the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles, in alignment with the EU core values and fundamental rights, outlines the human-centred approach and the focus on sustainability of the digital transformation.

Digital Compass (European Commission)

Empowering people, businesses and public services with a new generation of technologies that expand their capabilities is crucial to seize the potential of digital transformation. Underpinned by science, research and innovation, and focusing on data, technology, and connectivity, Europe should set the path of the global digital revolution.

PREDICT-6G spearheads the creation of a secure, modular, interoperable, and extensible deterministic network and management framework that automates the definition, provisioning, monitoring, fulfillment, and life-cycle management of end-to-end (E2E) deterministic services spanning through multiple network domains. 

This new architecture will allow large E2E deterministic paths across domains and technologies, through networks transporting a mix of deterministic and non-deterministic traffic. It will be managed by a novel AI-based multi-stakeholder interdomain control-plane framework. The network will be reliable, time sensitive and will behave in a predictable way, anticipating possible congestion issues, so the application and network control mechanisms are never compromised.

The design of new deterministic approaches is addressed by all major Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs). However, while there are ongoing efforts to create data-plane enablers for deterministic networking in specific technology domains, there is no holistic E2E programmable service architecture that can deliver deterministic services over multiple technologies and traversing multiple domains. PREDICT-6G will contribute to bridge that gap.

The solution will be tested in use cases focused on smart manufacturing and critical communications, but it is foreseen that audio and video streaming, industrial automation, cloud robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twins (DT), and connected vehicles, among others, will benefit from these networking capabilities. A deterministic 6G will change the networking paradigm, fostering new business cases and applications that will help to accelerate the digitisation of the industry. 

PREDICT-6G aim to create a tangible impact in the standardisation community and overall, supporting Europe's role in global standards, is reflected in the project´ standardisation roadmap and the establishment of a Standardisation Advisory Committee (SAC), responsible for overseeing the implementation of the roadmap and monitoring the work being developed at different SDOs and Working Groups. International cooperation on standards is one of the priorities of the EU.

Beyond its potential impact in the industry and the general digital capabilities of the networks and, as an innovation and research project, PREDICT-6G is committed to open science practices. The dissemination and communication of the knowledge created within PREDICT-6G is helping the project to reach a broad audience and engage relevant stakeholders. Likewise, the active involvement of PhD and PostDoc students in the project work is directly contributing to training highly skilled digital professionals that will reinforce the European workforce. 

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D3.1 - Release 1 of AI-driven inter-domain network control, management, and orchestration innovations

The PREDICT-6G deliverable 3.1 - Release 1 of AI-driven Inter-domain Network Control, Management, and Orchestration Innovations, is now available in Zenodo for public reading.

The document discusses the initial functional design of the AI-driven multi-stakeholder inter-domain control plane (AICP), the PREDICT-6G control plane solutions to seamlessly integrate a data plane building of a set of multi-technology deterministic domains. 

AICP relies on 4 key technological enablers:

  1. AI/ML, for smart resource allocation.
  2. Digital Twins, for system and (deterministic) service KPI predictably.
  3. Data Collection and Management, for continuous monitoring of the services.
  4. Inter-domain orchestration for the management of E2E deterministic service lifecycle.

The issue of how to represent the different technologies, by constructing the underlying networks, within the AICP is also discussed, as it is an issue that can be considered crucial for the proper lifecycle management of deterministic E2E services.

As part of PREDICT-6G’s commitment to open science, the project uses the Zenodo repository to contain and make publicly available all the information and data related to its development.

You can read and download the Deliverable 3.1 - Release 1 of AI-driven inter-domain network control, management, and orchestration innovations here.

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Join PREDICT-6G at the MobiHoc2023

The 24th International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing (MobiHoc 2023) will be held on the 23-26 of October 2023 in Washington DC, USA.  

In this scope, DESIRE6G and PREDICT-6G will co-organise the “6G Programmable Deterministic Networking with AI” (6G-PDN) workshop, which will take place on the 23 of October. The aim is to discuss the roadmap and challenges in the technological areas of deterministic communications and deep network programmability in 6G to support future end-to- end time-critical applications, bringing together academic and industry researchers. 

The programme features Kaushik Chowdhury, Professor and Vice Chair of Research at Northeastern University College of Engineering, and John Baras, Professor and Lockheed Martin Chair in Systems Engineering at the University of Maryland, as keynote speakers. Following an open call for papers, the selected authors will discuss in-depth various aspects of deterministic networks. These are organised in three sessions:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Read the workshop programme here.

Register and join us!

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Deliverable 2.1 - Release 1 of PREDICT-6G MDP innovations

The PREDICT-6G deliverable 2.1 - Release 1 of PREDICT-6G MDP innovations, is now available in Zenodo for public reading.

One of the pillars of PREDICT-6G is the Deterministic Data Plane, which provides the determinism as a combination of three key concepts: Time sensitiveness, Reliability and Predictability. In this document, the PREDICT-6G consortium defines how it understands the determinism in the data plane and how it plans to enhance the determinism in different domains. It also includes the first achievements of the PREDICT-6G project and the short- and long-term plans for the WP2 -Multi-technology multi-domain Data-Plane (MDP)-. 

As part of PREDICT-6G’s commitment to open science, the project uses the Zenodo repository to contain and make publicly available all the information and data related to its development.

You can read and download the Deliverable 2.1 - Release 1 of PREDICT-6G MDP innovations here.

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PREDICT-6G attends the first SNS JU Steering Board meeting

On the 5 of September 2023, the first SNS JU Steering Board (SB) meeting took place in Athens, Greece, hosted by Space Hellas. Antonio de la Oliva, coordinator of PREDICT-6G, joined the meeting alongside the other SNS project´s coordinators comprising the SB. 

During this initial encounter, the SB set the foundations for its work, discussing its responsibilities as well as different suggestions to successfully fulfil its duties and respond to the needs of the community.  The SB is instrumental to coordinate the research efforts and set the guidelines for advancing the SNS objectives. 

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PREDICT-6G & StandICT.eu - Collaboration to Endorse Contributions to Standardisation in 6G

PISA – Italy, 01/08/2023 - StandICT.eu & PREDICT-6G announce their collaboration with the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

StandICT.eu fosters the participation of European experts in international ICT standardisation. To reach this goal, it has three main axes:  firstly, it will fund 400+ European standardisation experts in a series of nine Open calls providing a total of almost EUR 3 million of funding. Secondly, it manages the European Observatory for ICT Standardisation (EUOS), which is an interactive online ecosystem including an up-to-date standards repository as well as working groups sharing insights about ongoing standardisation efforts across different initiatives. Thirdly, via its Academy, it trains future experts in ICT standardisation. StandICT.eu focuses on horizontal and vertical ICT fields as defined in the Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation [1]; 5G and 6G technologies are the key focus areas.

PREDICT-6G aims to change the networking paradigm creating a deterministic 6G network: time sensitive, reliable and predictable. The creation of a secure, modular, interoperable, and extensible deterministic network and management framework will enable to automate the definition, provisioning, monitoring, fulfilment, and life-cycle management of end-to-end (E2E) deterministic services over multiple network domains, ultimately advancing the industry digitalisation.

Standardisation is essential to PREDICT-6G objectives. The project’s ambition is to participate in and contribute to different Standards Development Organisations (SDOs), thus creating a tangible impact in the standardisation community and overall, supporting Europe`s role in global standards. To achieve this, a PREDICT-6G Standardisation Advisory Committee (SAC) was established to oversee the standardisation roadmap of the project, ensuring its timely execution, to steer and advise the project on technical opportunities within relevant SDOs Working Groups (WGs), and to recommend new opportunities to the project in pre-standard and industry fora, and SDOs to increase the standardisation of PREDICT-6G’s innovations.

The MoU can consolidate even further both project’s commitments to the international standardisation in 6G.

“Standardisation is one of the cornerstones to build a future 6G network that is secure and reliable.  In StandICT.eu, 5G and beyond is one of the most funded areas in our fellowship programme, supporting the standardisation efforts engaged across different standardisation bodies. Now, we warmly welcome the collaboration with PREDICT-6G, and we aim to connect the standardisation experts of the two communities to leverage the contributions of both projects in 5G/6G related standardisation”, reflects Mona Marill, Project Manager in the StandICT.eu programme.

“PREDICT-6G embraces this collaboration as a way of further increasing the standards outreach of the technical proposals of the project while helping StandICT.eu to reach more researchers in the European ecosystem”, states Antonio de la Oliva, PREDICT-6G Coordinator.

In the coming autumn, StandICT.eu will launch a technical working group that drafting a landscape of the existing 5G/ 6G standards and PREDICT-6G experts are invited to contribute.  Moreover, this effort is a follow-up of the already published EUOS landscape reports that are published and shared with thousands of readers across ICT standardisation stakeholder organisations (The European Commission, MultiSakeholder Platform, International Standardization Organisations, European Standardisation Organisations, National Standardisation Bodies, Research projects etc.).


StandICT.eu 2026

Consortium: Dublin City University (IE) - Financial and Administrative Coordinator, Trust-IT Srl (IT) - Technical Coordinator, OpenForum Europe (BE), AUSTRALO (ES), European Digital SME Alliance (BE), and Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI (DE).

For more information on StandICT.eu 2026, contact us at info@standict.eu and follow us on our social media channels: Twitter | Linkedin | YouTube

PREDICT-6G Project

Consortium: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (ES)–Coordinator, Nokia Solutions and Networks KFT (ES), Ericsson España SA (ES), Intel Deustchland GmBH (DE), Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo SA (ES), ATOS IT Solutions and Services Iberia SL (ES), ATOS SPAIN SA (ES), Gestamp Servicios SA (ES), Nextworks (IT), Cognitive Innovations Private Company (EL), Software Imagination & Vision SRL (RO), MTU AUSTRALO ALPHA LAB (EE), Politecnico di Torino (IT), Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IT), Universita degli Studi di Padova (IT), InterDigital Europe Ltd (UK).

For more information on PREDICT-6G, contact us at info@predict-6g.eu and follow us on our social media channels: Twitter | Linkedin