The PREDICT-6Guse cases.

This use case provides a challenging multi-modal mobility scenario coupled with deterministic needs that serves as a good test for the multi-domain autonomous deterministic network architecture proposed by PREDICT-6G.

Devices requiring deterministic group communication over a distance is a pattern followed by scenarios such as cooperative cloud robotics, cyber-physical system automation or long-range vehicular communication. In these scenarios, devices may run local Application Functions (AF) connected to cloud applications. Mobile devices may also engage in collaborative tasks, which require that the network provides deterministic communication for a group of equipment where groups may dynamically evolve as devices are joining and leaving according to their interest or mobility.

In all these cases, it is important that the devices and the cloud applications participating in the same collaborative relation stay synchronized with regards to their shared application state and thus need to exchange information, data, commands, and contextual information through deterministic and reliable communication services.

One example of deterministic group communication is composed of vehicular applications, on-board cameras or ones installed at fixed road-side locations, traffic sensors or traffic control infrastructure, where devices generate and send data in predictable -potentially cyclical- patterns.

The communication is dynamic with regards to the groups of vehicles that momentarily exchange messages with each other. As only vehicles within physical proximity or participating in a cooperative maneuver need to receive each other’s messages, the group communication relations are changing frequently based on the trajectory of each vehicle in an ad-hoc manner.

This means that the MDP (Multi-Domain Platform) providing reliable, low latency and low jitter for a group of vehicles must support adding/removing vehicular endpoints dynamically and it must follow the physical mobility of the vehicles by continuously reconfiguring the deterministic service layer of each network domain and network element involved in fulfilling the service.

In current industrial deployments, installations are typically wired to ensure that the signals are transmitted at the right time, but the protocols that ensure this determinism are also critical to guarantee that signals and commands follow the correct order. Therefore, to remove all the wires from an installation and have a wireless connection, the same level of determinism, reliability, and latency as when connected via wires, is required.

Our partner GESTAMP has been committed to Digitization and Industry 4.0 for several years, with a clear vision: to transform its current manufacturing model towards the model of the future smart manufacturing plant, providing wireless access with deterministic characteristics to robots controlled in the cloud, using the innovations on disaggregated architectures expected in 6G.

To achieve this objective, the current concept of automated manufacturing installations needs to evolve to one in which the different new technologies converge, enabling concepts of flexibility, agility, and mobility for a manufacturing process. Another goal of this evolution is to change the current industrial control and automation programming to a SW programming, creating the possibility to orchestrate OT and IT systems at the same level, from the cloud.