Queen’s University Belfast and partners have been granted nearly £12 million from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, to develop and industrialise technologies and solutions for future 6G mobile networks.
The project, Realising Enabling Architectures and Solutions for Open Networks (REASON), brings together an ecosystem representing the entire telecommunication R&D supply chain, including three major mobile network equipment vendors, Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia.
REASON will develop a roadmap for open 6G networks, which will set the framework for new developments across the entire technology stack. The project will provide novel solutions to effectively integrate multi-technology access networks and to advance their performance in line with the emerging 6G KPIs. New concepts will be proposed to support unprecedented network densification. Smart technologies will be developed that aim to use multi-technology access networks to extract sensing information and support 6G use cases.
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In addition, advanced solutions for network-edge and network-wide automation will be developed leveraging state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. REASON aims to provide end-to-end service optimisation through cognitive orchestration tools to enable edge-to-edge and domain-domain functionalities for a wide range of use cases.
Professor Simon Cotton from Queen’s University Belfast commented: “The Centre for Wireless Innovation at Queen’s is delighted to be playing its part in helping to put the UK at the forefront of innovations in the 6G space.
“Working with colleagues from across UK academia, government and industry, REASON will push the boundaries of what is currently achievable in open RAN networks. At Queen’s, we will contribute to the project’s vision by exploiting existing strengths in multiple antenna systems and metasurfaces to deliver next-generation cell-free access. This will be underpinned by cutting-edge technologies such as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.”
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The grant is part of the government’s strategy to reduce the UK’s reliance on a small number of suppliers to build and maintain telecoms networks, and the funding will support the rollout of lightning-fast mobile connectivity by making it easier for more firms to enter the market.
Source: Written from press release
