In the meeting, held this Monday 10th June at Vicomtech’s facilities in Donostia/San Sebastian, the Basque, Catalan and Galician centres have shared the progress made so far and have defined the project’s roadmap for the coming months.
On Monday 10th June, representatives from Vicomtech, Gradiant and i2CAT centres met in Donostia-San Sebastián at Vicomtech’s facilities, coordinator of the Network, to hold the first meeting of the 6G DIFFERENT project, and to promote its development.
Vicomtech, Gradiant and i2CAT, three leading technology centres with extensive experience in the development of 5G technologies and their evolution to 6G, have joined forces once again in a project that starts from a technological base already developed in the previous Open-VERSO Joint Network. 6GDIFERENTE, a project within the Cervera Network promoted by the CDTI Innovation, arises from the motivation of the three technology centres to consolidate their position as leading centres in the research and development of the communications networks of the future: 6G networks. It is based on a solid technological foundation established in a previous Open-VERSO project (2020 – 2023) financed, like 6GDIFERENTE, by the CDTI in its Cervera programme of support for technology centres.
The project addresses two of the major challenges of advanced 6G mobile communications: the establishment of over-the-air device communications; and the continuity and quality of services in virtualised edge environments in mobility situations. In addition, under the auspices of the 6G network development timeline, promising new and fundamental technologies for 6G are explored, especially those identified at the level of both European R&D support programmes for communications networks (6G-IA and SNS-JU), and by the scientific community in relation to the new functionalities expected from future 6G networks.
Vicomtech is the main coordinator of 6GDIFERENTE, which develops the centre’s own 5G infrastructure, thus building the foundations for a new generation of mobile telephony. It also incorporates millimetre wave interfaces into the centre’s infrastructure, explores the potential of quantum computing in network management, and investigates immersive data visualisation systems integrated with the network. “6GDIFERENTE gives us a new opportunity to consolidate our position as a benchmark in communication network research and its application to different verticals. This project will not only evolve our infrastructure, but also strengthen the intersection with other emerging technologies such as extended reality or mobility applications. Research in these areas will allow us to increase and improve our offer for future industrial applications. says Dr. Sergio Cabrero Barros, 6GDIFERENTE coordinator.
i2CAT coordinates the definition of the 6DIFERENTE architecture and the development of the whole environment for its management. The participation of the Catalan research centre focuses on the development of technologies and their integration in the resulting infrastructure with respect to non-terrestrial networks, holographic communication from extended reality (XR), reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), low-power devices in the Internet of Things (IoT), integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the environment of open access radio networks (O-RAN) and the development of virtualisation and monitoring tools for the management of the infrastructure. As Dr. Joan Adrià Ruiz de Azua, director of the Space Communications research area at i2CAT, points out, ‘this project will allow us to reinforce our positioning, at a national level, in two areas. Firstly, we will intensify collaboration with mobile communications operators, with whom i2CAT wants to collaborate in the design of services that make use of network APIs under the concept of Network as a Service (Naas), which will be investigated in the project. Secondly, we will improve the validation services offered to SMEs and startups by developing new advanced 5G and 6G connectivity capabilities”.
Gradiant leads the development of wireless and emerging technologies in 6G networks and synchronises the implementation of use cases to validate the 6GDIFERENTE infrastructure and technologies developed by the 3 centres. In particular, it focuses on enhancing its competences in mobile networks through research in technologies based on signal processing, security and satellite network integration. Gradiant will introduce disruptive solutions based on quantum technologies and photonic technologies for application in mobile networks. “Through 6G DIFERENTE, Gradiant hopes to further consolidate its position as a benchmark in the evolution of 5G and 6G technologies. In this way, we will help to meet specific objectives that have been set for these mobile networks, such as better coverage, lower energy consumption or greater security for the most critical use cases such as autonomous vehicle connectivity. In addition, we will continue to be useful for the business fabric when creating new tools, infrastructure and services associated with this sector”, explains Luis Pérez Roca, director of the Advanced Communications area at Gradiant.
Thanks to 6GDIFERENTE, 6G networks will not only have a better performance than the current ones, but they will also be more efficient and intelligent networks. They will have lower power consumption and will be able to reconfigure themselves according to users and applications, anticipating their needs. These technologies will be enabling for relevant use cases such as virtual worlds, Industry 5.0 or more efficient mobility.
The new 6GDIFERENTE project enables the development of cutting-edge technologies that will play an important role in the future of communications networks and transform the production and industrial processes of the future. 6G DIFERENTE is one of the most pioneering and innovative projects that, thanks to the most disruptive and promising technologies in the field of telecommunications, represents a breakthrough and greater competitiveness for the industrial fabric with new tools, infrastructure and services.
