Sns Experimental Infrastructure

The main outcome will be (1) the availability of an evolvable experimental infrastructure representative of a 6G system for the Phase 3 of the SNS JU Programme with the ability to engage the 6G community to run experimentations and (2) the validation of key 6G technologies with demonstrated performance characteristics through experiments carried out using the experimental infrastructure. Such reference platform in the SNS JU will be used to demonstrate 6G technologies including those developed by SNS Stream B projects. Proponents should select a clear and limited number of technologies from Stream B projects. It will provide platform users with standardized and supported methods for affordable-cost integration of new technologies in the end-to-end environment as well to follow a common SNS approach to KPI measurement and data definition-storage-exposition. This SNS reference platform can be also offered by SNS to other communities to support broader collaboration and technology diffusion (e.g. 3GPP, AI RAN Alliance, ESA, ETSI and others). It targets:

• Validation of new 6G network technologies in E2E setups potentially covering the European ecosystem. Within SNS, this project will further support Stream D projects that focus on supporting trials for validation of vertical use cases. It will integrate, test and benchmark the various connectivity technologies to be used in future Stream D vertical evaluations.

• Validation capabilities covering as examples the 6 technological areas identified for SNS technological developments, namely: (1) AI Driven architecture, programmability and control, (2) Radio and signal processing, new waveforms and spectrum, ISAC capabilities, (3) Optical networking, flexible and green high capacity transport and backhaul, (4) Ubiquitous computing, edge cloud continuum service and management, (5) Security for network and services, security as a service and (6) NTN, technologies for TN/NTN unification.

• Experiments with network technologies following two schemes: (1) on demand, any topic and time experimentation, mainly from SNS community and (2) specific technologies open to the community, Platform will be open for experimenters outside of the consortium but with no budget for them. Proponents are requested to detail their plan for engaging such experimenters.

• Integration and validation of Stream B technologies coming from previous calls in the SNS in order to keep them as part of the new infrastructure until the end of SNS JU.

• Provision to SNS participants of a framework to mature their new technologies for exploitation, in order to accelerate potential start-ups, taking advance of the testing and experimentation tools and expertise from the project partners.

• Alignment with standards development by ensuring the platform follows standards evolutions and ensuring Impactful contributions to international standardization.

In view of ensuring maximum impact of previous investment, proposals should include a significant representation of European players with strong demonstrated impact at development and operation of 5G/6G experimental platforms and tools and strong potential of reutilization of existing platforms and solutions including open-source solutions. Proposals should also demonstrate the validity of the platform and related technology developments/validation in industrial context, towards maximised industrial take up.

Please refer to the "Specific Challenges and Objectives" section for Stream C-01 in the Work Programme, available under ‘Topic Conditions and Documents - Additional Documents’.

The project will leverage existing SNS JU Stream C and D project results, as well as results from European National Initiatives, aggregating testbed sites that can offer combined capabilities across Europe. The project should focus on integration, evaluation and validation beyond PoC of Stream B type of technologies for 6G KPIs and KVIs in a system context. The project should not engage in activities of interconnecting or federation, as these issues have been addressed in previous projects. The core of the activities is to run experiments, with some activities to maintain and expand the tool offered to the community.

The scope of this strand hence focuses on the following aspects:

• Accommodating a wide range of technologies towards 6G like RIS, ISAC/JCAS, NTN/5G, security, privacy, core evolution, AI, RAN evolution, network disaggregation, and any other relevant 6G subject as part of E2E setups for experimentation, see coverage of the 6 technological areas mentioned in the expected outcome, as example.

• Hosting advanced pilot “6G” use-cases not feasible during implementation lifecycle of ongoing Stream D projects due to the lack of maturity of the technology.

• Offering a well-defined catalogue of experimentation and KPI reporting tools that ensure repeatability, high level of automation, and comparison of results that provide valuable feedback to the developers and experimenters on potential shortcomings of the current prototype to facilitate technology maturation based on the experimental results.

• Offering users a low-barrier entry to an experimental facility enabling SNS-JU technologies, to run experiments.

• Providing trial facilities to enable hands on experience for engineer as part of their continuous learning and education.

• Integrating contributions from participants to expand the capabilities of the platforms with new features and capabilities.

• Ensuring security provisions for remote connectivity to the infrastructure for the experimenters.

• Providing plans on how to address the requirements for reusability and evolvability of the experimental platform over the lifetime of the SNS JU Programme.

The efforts are centralized around integration of technologies and execution of experimentation. Additional development will be strictly limited to maintenance and minimal integration effort of new technologies and prototypes, as the integration effort will be pushed on the experimenters. Platform upgrades and activities related to the integration of new technologies are also in scope as long as the running of experiments remains the core activity.

The platform will be open to any participant interested in running an experiment. There is no funding offered to the experimenters, who will propose to join according to their interest. The project will, however, include FSTP (Financial Support to Third Parties) to developers from current running SNS JU projects as a support to integrate their technologies into the platform. SNS projects in Phase 3 are expected to include integration and experimentation resources with the new infrastructure in their Grant Agreements. For SME and academia, the project will allocate up to 20% of the proposal budget on the FSTP mechanism in the form of up to 50 K€ grants to support the integration efforts of key technologies developed in previous SNS JU calls until Call 2025. Solutions from SNS JU Call 2027 projects are not eligible for FSTP and should include the effort to integrate into their project, as explained in the legal and financial set-up of the Grant Agreements.

Experimenters get full insight from the results to improve their solution. If an experimenter wishes so, they can also leave a version of the technology solution inside the platform for their own use or for reference/use of the SNS community. This is a way to showcase the experimenter technology, but also for them to run additional trials without needing to visit the platform (remote connectivity). Leaving the technology is an in-kind contribution on loan preferably for the remainder of the project transforming the platform to be a showroom for these 6G candidate technologies.