2nd workshop on 6G Programmable Deterministic Networking with AI (6GPDN)

6G system is envisioned as a new paradigm in wireless communication featuring programmable networks, artificial intelligence, digital twining, and dependable communication systems to meet the demands for a fully connected, intelligent digital world. Research for 6G systems is ongoing investigating architectural enhancements and mechanisms to guarantee seamless provisioning of services for use cases that pose highly challenging demands. Service provisioning for these use cases requires end-to-end solutions including wired and wireless segments and their integration with the edge and cloud domains. It therefore becomes imperative to thoroughly study these use cases both in terms of their key performance indicators (latency, reliability, bandwidth etc.), and the new key value indicators (sustainability, trustworthiness etc.).

At the same time, the complexity posed by these use cases to the communication and the computing systems on resource management requires development of intelligent scheduling and traffic management systems. The softwarization and function virtualization over the past few years have enabled the usage of advanced programmability and flexibility features in both the communication and compute domains, enhancing the development of various packet handling mechanisms. Moreover, security monitoring framework and policies on traffic management are needed for prompt activation of countermeasures.

The next generation mobile networks should consider such indicators, enhancing the network to be more reliable, predictable, and time-sensitive, by developing an end-to-end 6G solution including architectural enhancements and protocols that can guarantee seamless provisioning of services for vertical use cases with extreme performance requirements far beyond 5G. To succeed, the solution will target dependable network infrastructures at large, including wired and wireless segments and their interconnections with the edge and cloud domains. The aim of this workshop is therefore to discuss the roadmap and challenges in the above technological areas (deterministic communications and deep network programmability in 6G) to support future end-to-end time-critical applications.

TPC Chairs

Dr. János Harmatos, Ericsson Hungary – General co-chair

János Harmatos is currently working as a master researcher at Ericsson in the field of assurance of mission-critical cloud and communication services. He received his PhD in the field of Communication Networks from Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 2005, after which he joined Ericsson Research Hungary. Ha has wide-spread research experience, covering various areas, such as mobile backhaul network design, radio resource allocation schemes, 5G network-enabled factory automation deployments, and reliable service orchestration in a multi-domain, multi-provider ecosystem. He also possesses expertise in the system integration of industrial networks and edge computing. In recent years, he has extensively investigated reliable, cloud-native control application solutions for Industry 4.0, as well as the cloudification aspects of TSN reliability and time-aware features. He has actively participated in the standardization of URLLC and 5G-TSN in 3GPP SA2, as well as Closed-loop control standardization in ETSI ZSM and 3GPP SA5. Additionally, he has made contributions to standardization in the edge computing area in 5G-ACIA and 3GPP SA2, along with the Industrial IoT area in 3GPP SA2. Currently, his focus is on addressing the challenges of the 5G/6G-enabled integration of time-aware edge computing and deterministic communication services to provide end-to-end time-critical, dependable solutions. He has published more than 25 international conference and journal papers and has over 40 filed invention disclosures. He has been actively involved in various research projects funded by the European Commission, such as 5GEx, 5G-SMART. He is currently coordinating the SNS JU DETERMINISTIC6G project.

Dr. Antonio De la Oliva, University Carlos III Madrid (UC3M) – General co-chair

Antonio de la Oliva received a Telecommunication Engineering degree in 2004, and a PhD in Telematics in 2008, both from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, where he worked as a research and teaching assistant from 2006 to 2008 and, since then, has worked as a Visiting Professor.

He has authored over 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He has been involved in IEEE 802 activities since 2007, contributing to several groups such as IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.19.1, IEEE 802.21 and IEEE 802.1cf. He has also held several official positions, working as IEEE 802.21b vice-chair and currently as IEEE 802.21d Technical Editor. He is currently involved in the development of the SDN use case for IEEE 802.1cf, enabling the use of SDN approaches in wireless IEEE 802 systems and he is ONF research associate. He is also serving as the rapporteur of the ETSI White Paper on Crosshauling. Regarding previous experience in European projects, he has 12 years of experience working in several research projects funded by the European Commission, such as Daidalos II, Onelab, CARMEN, MEDIEVAL, CROWD, and 5G-Crosshaul where he served as WP leader and deputy Coordinator. In addition, he has participated as conference organizer for multiple conferences and several special issue, and he is currently serving as Area Editor of Elsevier Computer Communications and Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing. He is currently coordinating the HE SNS 6G-IA PREDICT-6G project.

Dr. Chrysa Papagianni, University of Amsterdam (UvA) – General co-chair

Chrysa Papagianni is an assistant professor at the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to joining UvA she was a network research engineer for Bell Labs Antwerp. From 2016 to 2018 she was a Research Scientist for the Institute for Systems Research, affiliated with the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland. From 2010 to 2016, she worked a Research and Teaching Associate for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). She received her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the NTUA in 2009. She has co-authored over 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. She has worked in multiple research projects funded by the European Commission, the Dutch research council and the European Space Agency, such as Fed4FIRE+, OpenLab, 5Growth, CATRIN etc. Chrysa is currently coordinating the SNS JU DESIRE6G project on 6G system architecture. She also leads the AI-assisted networking work package in the 6G flagship project for the Netherlands on Future Network Services.

TPC Committee

This workshop is organized by three Horizon Europe 6G-SNS JU projects, DETERMINISTIC6G, PREDICT-6G and DESIRE6G. As such, we propose to invite key researchers from top European institutions participating in similar projects to be part of the TPC list. These researchers include:

Carla Chiasserini (POLITO), Claudio Casetti (POLITO), Carlos J. Bernardos (UC3M), Manuel Lorenzo (Ericsson), Peter Szilagyi (Nokia), Juan Jose Vegas Olmo (nVidia), Aurora Ramos (Atos), Sebastian Robitzsch (InterDigital), Sandor Laki (ELTE), Silvester Nádas (Ericsson), Istvan Godor (Ericsson), Xi Li (NEC), Fabio Verdi (UFScar), Panagiotis Papadimitriou (UoM), Filippo Cugini (CNIT), Luca Valcarenghi (SSSA), Hasanin Harkous (Nokia Bell Labs), Chia-Yu Chang (Nokia Bell Labs), Gergely Pongracz (Ericsson), Marios Avgeris (ÉTS), Paola Grosso (UvA), James Gross (KTH), Joachim Sachs (Ericsson), Janos Harmatos (Ericsson), Raheeb Muzaffar (Silicon Austria Labs), Marilet De Andrade Jardim (Ericsson), Gourav Prateek Sharma (KTH), Hans-Peter Bernhard (Silicon Austria Labs), Fjolla Ademaj (Silicon Austria Labs), Mahin Ahmed (Silicon Austria Labs), Frank Dürr (University of Stuttgart)

Publicity co-Chairs: Jessica Carneiro and Alejandra Espino (AUSTRALO)

Programme

14:00 Welcome and Workshop Introduction
14:05 Keynote: Stefan Parkvall (Senior Expert, Ericsson Research)

6G – communication for 2030 and beyond

Over the last couple of years, 5G networks have been rapidly deployed across the world, offering unprecedented capabilities. Nevertheless, to meet future expectations, discussions on the next generation cellular networks – commonly referred to as 6G – will start in 3GPP in 2025, targeting deployments in 2030 and beyond. Spectrum flexibility, improved energy efficiency, improved support for reliable and time-critical communication, and beyond-communication services are some examples of areas considered for 6G.In this talk, an overview of 6G and its key technologies will be given, with focus on time-critical and dependable communication. A smooth evolution from 5G to 6G is essential – introducing 6G should be as smooth as introducing a new release of 5G – and solutions fo this will be discussed

Short Bio: Stefan Parkvall is currently a Senior Expert at Ericsson Research working with research on 6G and future radio access. He is one of the key persons in the development of HSPA, LTE and NR radio access and has been deeply involved in 3GPP standardization for many years. Dr Parkvall is a fellow of the IEEE, served as an IEEE Distinguished lecturer 2011-2012, holds numerous patents in the area of cellular communication, and is co-author of several popular books such as “5G NR – The Next Generation Wireless Access”. In 2005, he received the Ericsson “Inventor of the Year” award, in 2009 the Swedish government’s Major Technical Award for his contributions to the success of HSPA, and in 2014 he and colleagues at Ericsson was one of three finalists for the European Inventor Award for their contributions to LTE. Dr Parkvall received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in 1996. His previous positions include assistant professor in communication theory at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and a visiting researcher at University of California, San Diego, USA.
Technical Session #1
14:50 – Environmental-aware Reinforcement Learning-based Scheduler for Trustworthy 6G in the Factory Floor
F. Ademaj-Berisha, R. Khanzadeh, A. Springer, H. Bernhard
15:10 – Routing-Aware Shaping for Feasible Multi-Domain Determinism
A. Francini, R. Miller, B. Cilli, C. Di Martino
15:30 – Experimental Evaluation of a Multi-Domain TSN Scenario in Industry 4.0
D. Rico-Menéndez, P. Picazo-Martínez, A. de la Oliva
15:50 – An Architectural Framework for 6G Network Digital Twins System
Z. Yang, C. Papagianni, A. Belloum, P. Grosso
16:10 Break
16:40 Keynote: Ashutosh Dutta (Senior Scientist and 5G Chief Strategist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL))

Next generation cellular networks such as 5G and 6G promise to support emerging applications such as enhanced mobile broadband, mission critical applications for the first responder, remote surgery, and industrial IOT among others. While Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networking open up the door for programmable networks and rapid service creation, these also offer both security opportunities, and introduces additional challenges and complexities. The talk focuses on various security challenges and opportunities introduced by 5G enablers, namely hypervisor, virtualization, SDN controller, orchestration, network slicing, Open RAN, edge cloud, and open source. This talk introduces threat taxonomy for 5G security from an end-to-end system perspective including, interfaces, protocols, potential threats introduced by these enablers, and associated mitigation techniques. Additionally, this talk highlights how AI/ML can help enhance security features of these networks and elaborates some adverse effects of AI/ML. Finally, the talk introduces some of the ongoing activities within various standards communities including open source consortiums, large scale NSF testbeds, and illustrates a few deployment use case scenarios.

Short Bio: Ashutosh Dutta is Chief 5G Strategist and APL Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Labs, USA. He serves as the director of Doctor of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In the past, he served as the chair of ECE department of Engineering for Professionals at JHU, Director of Technology Security at AT&T, CTO of Wireless at NIKSUN, Senior Scientist in Telcordia Research, Director of Central Research Facility at Columbia University, and Computer Engineer with TATA Motors. He has authored more than 110 technical papers, one book published by John and Wiley, and 5 book chapters, and has 31 issued patents. Ashutosh is recipient of IEEE MGA’s 2009 Leadership Award, IEEE-USA’s 2010 Professional Leadership Award, 2022 IEEE-USA George F. McClure Citation of Honor and 2022 IEEE North American Region Exceptional Service Award. Ashutosh served as Member-At-Large for IEEE Communications Society for 2020-2025 and Distinguished Lecturer from 2018-2021. He co-founded the IEEE STEM conference (ISEC) in 2011 and has served its co-chair since then. Ashutosh currently serves as the Chair for IEEE Industry Connection’s O-RAN activities and 6G. As the Founding co-chair of IEEE Future Networks he led technology roadmap, publications, standardization, testbed, education, industry engagement, conferences and workshops in the area of 5G and 6G, while keeping a focus on humanitarian needs. Ashutosh is a Distinguished Alumnus of NIT Rourkela with a BS in Electrical Engineering, MS in Computer Science from NJIT, and a Ph.D. in EE from Columbia University. Ashutosh is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished member.
Technical Session #1
17:25 – Artificial Intelligence Control Plane for Deterministic Networks Proof-of-Concept
A. Calvillo-Fernandez, M. Ravalli, J. Brenes, P. Giardina, J. Carcel, D. Rico-Menendez, F. Agraz, S. Spadaro, L. Velasco
17:40 – Lightweight INT on the Tofino Programmable Switch
A. Dimoglis, L. de Almeida, K. Papadopoulos, C. Papagianni, P. Papadimitriou, P. Grosso
17:55 Closing

Key Dates

July 19

2024

Workshop Paper Submission

August 23

2024

Notification of Acceptance

September 13

2024

Camera-ready Workshop Papers

November 18

2024

Workshop Date

Call for papers

Over the past decade the mobile communications system has transformed into a fundamental infrastructure that supports digital demands from all industry sectors. 6G is envisioned to accelerate the path started in 5G for catering to the needs of a wide variety of vertical use cases, both current and emerging. That will however require major enhancements to the current 5G capabilities, in terms of well-established key performance indicators (latency, reliability, bandwidth etc.), as well as new key value indicators (sustainability, trustworthiness etc.) that are currently being formed. Creating a deterministic network, understood as end-to-end time sensitive, reliable, and predictable communications, remains a challenge for cellular networks, especially in an industrial context. Wired deterministic communication standards have already emerged including Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Deterministic Networking (DetNet) and 5G has specified mechanisms for interworking with those standards. However, the available support of 5G in conjunction with TSN and DetNet is not sufficient for future end-to-end time-critical applications. Network programmability and predictability is key in supporting emerging 6G networks in achieving their promises of increased performance and flexibility at a lower cost. Deep network programmability, that is the ability to program the network fabric both vertically (control and data plane) and horizontally (end-to-end from the radio to edge and core network), is expected to characterize the new generation of mobile networks (6G), currently under development, towards supporting extreme performance requirements and service-specific operations. Enriching next-generation mobile networks with data plane programming capabilities can bring significant benefits with regards to network slicing and multi-tenancy, dynamic traffic engineering, offloading network functions to the data plane, etc. Coupled with edge solutions and advanced machine learning algorithms for prediction and network automation can help to overcome network performance limits, e.g., in terms of latency and deterministic delivery.

This workshop aims to bring together academic and industry researchers to stimulate discussions, introduce news ideas and technical solutions in the aforementioned areas and therefore contribute to theprogress of 6G networking research. Submitted papers may cover any of the following topics:

  • Programmable data planes for TSN
  • Enhancements towards 6G TSN and DetNet integration
  • Network softwarization for 6G
  • Programmable networking protocols
  • Programmable SDN and NFV: languages and architectures (P4 and others)
  • Hardware acceleration for programmable network functions
  • Multitenant data planes
  • Orchestration and management of software-defined deterministic networks
  • Control and management of data plane programmable devices
  • Artificial intelligence for deterministic networks
  • In network machine learning
  • In-network service level tuning and optimization; QoS
  • High precision traffic monitoring/telemetry
  • Service assurance and fulfilment programmability
  • Slicing for 6G
  • Intent-based systems and digital twinning applied in 6G
  • Routing and scheduling algorithms for reliable and real-time IoT
  • Trustworthy edge and cloud computing architectures and services

Publicity Plan

The promotion of the workshop will be carried out in three stages covering the time before, during and after the event. A draft plan will be elaborated in collaboration with the responsible people for communication in each project. The plan will detail the specific communication and dissemination actions that will be performed, distribute responsibilities among the workshop participants, and establish a timeline.

Stage 1: Prior to the event, materials will be prepared, including banners for social media, a slide deck, and a flyer or similar, which will be accessed by means of a QR code in line with our environmentally friendly approach. These will present the subject of the workshop in a nutshell, the agenda, and the speakers bio, among other basic information. A news piece will be written introducing the workshop, including a save the date and the details to attend. This will be published in each of the participating projects´ website. The workshop will also be promoted through on well-established community mailing lists (tccc-announce@comsoc.org, comms@sns-ju.eu, etc.) and target industry and academic organizations part of the participants networks. Groups and projects in relevant Standards Development Organizations (SDO) and Open Source (OS) will also be contacted. An event for the workshop will be published in LinkedIn, including an invitation to register for MobiCom 2024 and will be promoted through social media channels of all three involved projects.

Stage 2: During the event, the organizers will provide live coverage of the workshop and other activities through social media. Moreover, they will collect pictures, short videos, testimonials, etc. for later use.

Stage 3: A set of follow-up actions will be implemented. These will include a joint elaboration of an article that will be published in each partner´s newsletter. The newsletter will be distributed through the mailing lists contacted earlier. Furthermore, related posts will be published on LinkedIn, Twitter and other channels, underlining the major successes of the workshop, the impressions of participants, boosting the networking carried out, and commenting on next steps.

Submission of Papers

Authors are invited to submit original contributions written in English that have not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Technical papers must be formatted using the ACM 2-column format and should be 5 pages. Papers should be submitted through https://6g-pdn24.hotcrp.com/