6G Activities in Germany

Authors: Frank H.P. Fitzek, TU Dresden; Holger Boche, TU München; Slawomir Stanczak, TU Berlin; Harris Gacanin, RWTH Aachen; Gerhard Fettweis, TU Dresden; Hans D. Schotten, TU Kaiserslautern

1. 6G Platform Germany
Mobile communications have unleashed a significant transformative force on society and businesses. Services have gone mobile and the smart phone has become an increasingly omnipotent companion. With 5G, this impact has extended to vertical industries - especially automation, mobility, logistics, and agriculture - where 5G is increasingly becoming a key enabler for efficient digitization.

With 6G, this trend is expected to affect almost all areas of society and economy, with an increased focus on people and their needs in addition to the vertical user industries. Humans will be supported by avatars and autonomous robots, digital twinning will allow increasing efficiency in mobility and production, new personalized medical applications and new types of human-machine interaction will improve health and increase safety, comfort, and – in particular – sustainability of our daily life.

Acknowledging the importance of 6G as future infrastructure for digitalization, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the BMBF, launched a research initiative for 6G technology in 2021. The German 6G program will comprise several funding schemes.

A “Platform for Future Communication Technologies and 6G” (also known as the “6G Platform Germany” for short) acts as umbrella organization for the German 6G program. The 6G Platform Germany provides a platform for collaboration, networking, and coordination within the German 6G program. It is also the point of contact for external collaborations on a European and international level. Besides this organizational work and the liaison management, the 6G Platform implements several Working Groups that address topics of high societal importance and important technical topics requiring coordination.

Another part of the German 6G Program are four 6G Research Hubs: 6GEM, 6G-RIC, 6G-life and Open6GHub with the coordination offices being located in the German cities of Aachen, Berlin, Dresden/Munich, and Kaiserslautern. The projects started in August 2021 for an initial period of four years. They are canters of excellence targeting fundamental research questions in all areas relevant for defining a new generation of mobile systems including microelectronics, quantum technology, information theory, propagation, security and resilience, system engineering, architecture, software techniques, sensing, etc.

Figure 1

Collaborative industry projects for “research of holistic systems and component technologies for 6G mobile communications” including a 6G flagship project ensure that stakeholders from the telecommunications industry and vertical industries work together on the overall system design. This part of the 6G program aims to develop innovative solutions on all technology levels: material, component, microelectronic, modular and network level. IT security, software defined networking and artificial intelligence represent further areas of focus as cross-cutting topics. The participation of industry players will enable application-oriented development and the transfer of the research results into the international standardization and regulatory processes.

The 6G platform creates a structured space for networking of all partner involved in the 6G program. For this purpose, working groups are established to develop position statements, white papers or other deliverables. The working groups and their work assignments are defined by an industry-led steering committee. Four working groups targeting topics of societal importance are already established. Additional working groups will address system architecture, specific technical topics as well as the application domain. The four already established working groups are described below.

One of the 6G Platform Working Groups focuses on “Science Communication”. This topic is given particular importance within the 6G platform, since the involvement of all interested parties in the 6G vision process and the consideration of requirements of all stakeholder groups is of high significance for public acceptance. A dialogue process with civil and industrial stakeholder groups guarantees an iterative assessment of 6G vision statements and identified key functionalities. Content is prepared in a transparent, information and target group-oriented manner and made accessible via effective communication channels. Cooperative and participatory formats are the focus in order to reach both technologically inclined parts of the population as well as the group of those who have reservations about technology.

Sustainability and participation is the focus topic of another Working Group. Green ICT as well as 6G for sustainability will all its different aspects will be the focus of this group. With the increasing importance of mobile digital services in the areas of health, education and public administration, it is becoming essential to provide all citizens in urban and rural areas with mobile Internet access. Increasing digitization in businesses and the importance of digitization as a key technology for efficient sustainability led to further pressure to ensure comprehensive participation opportunities. To this end, a 6G system will combine network components ranging from traditional terrestrial devices to drones and satellites into a unified 3-dimensional network. Such 3D networks will provide "unlimited connectivity" through innovations such as organic 3D networking, dynamic shifting of network functionalities (radio access and core network), and dynamic control of information flows. A basic prerequisite for this is to support intensive cooperation between the two hitherto rather separate industries of mobile and space communications at various levels (technological, economic, regulatory, political). In order to develop largely harmonized and standardized solutions, the 6G Platform accompanies and moderates this cooperation.

The establishment of concepts as campus networks, Open RAN and “Reduced Capability” products are opening up great potential for innovations and new market opportunities for SMEs and start-ups. In a third Working Group, the 6G platform will therefore coordinate the identification of such potentials and the resulting new business models, provide mentoring for start-ups, and promote the establishment of a growing and innovative mobile ecosystem.

Building a harmonized vision on 6G is the focus of another Working Group. Here, a comprehensive and realistic vision for a future hyper-connected society is derived based on input of all 6G projects. In particular, mobility visions, smart cities, campus networks of the future, but also personalized medicine, e-government and novel human-machine interaction will be considered. The developed visions will support science communication, help to set technological priorities and also be a contribution to Germany's digitization agenda.

The partner organization of the 6G Platform Germany are Barkhausen Institut, Dresden, Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institut für Automation und Kommunikation e.V., Technische Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Dresden, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, and Universität Bremen.

Link: www.6g-plattform.de

2. 6G-life - Digital Transformation and Sovereignty of Future Communication Networks
6G-life is one of the four 6G research hubs in Germany that addresses the question of future communication networks with respect to human-machine interaction in real and virtual space (metaverse). 6G-life offers new approaches to sustainability, security, resilience and latency and will sustainably strengthen the economy and thus digital sovereignty in Germany.

After the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions, the digital transformation is one of the next great challenges facing humanity. For society, change through digital transformation offers completely new opportunities, but also raises questions: How will our children learn in the future? How will we shape our work? How will we receive medical care in old age and be cared for with dignity in our familiar surroundings? Even if the change offers a lot of potential and the societal need is obvious, society must be accompanied on this path. For the economy and industry, and thus for the productivity of our country, it is of enormous importance how this change is responded to. Due to the high speed at which the digital transformation is progressing, the economic-evolutionary pressure is also increasing enormously. It is therefore absolutely essential for business and industry not only to keep pace with this fast-moving change, but to actively shape it. After all, Charles Darwin's guiding principle that it is not the currently strongest but the one who best shapes change that will survive still applies.

Whether in private life or in business, the key to digitization is reliable, high-performance communications networks. For the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as for Europe, it is not only important to deploy future communications networks in time to support society and the economy, but it is also essential to exert a significant influence in research and development so that developments meet our requirements in terms of ethics, sustainability and economic activity. The latter comes under the heading of digital sovereignty. To this end, the Federal Republic of Germany has rolled out a stimulus package to promote research in the field of future communications networks under the term 6G. 6G focuses on humans and their communication and interaction with machines and virtual worlds, while the current 5G focuses on a network for machines.

In response to the call for proposals from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for 6G research hubs, the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) successfully applied with the 6G-life research hub to (i) drive cutting-edge research for future 6G communication networks with a focus on human-machine collaboration, (ii) patent and standardize the research results worldwide (3GPP, IETF, ETSI, ITU, ACIA), (iii) secure digital sovereignty for the Federal Republic of Germany and (iv) support start-ups, SMEs and industry with innovative and sustainable concepts. In this context, the merger of the two universities of excellence combines the world-leading, mostly joint preliminary work of both universities in the field of (i) the tactile Internet in the Cluster of Excellence CeTI (www.ceti.one) , (ii) 5G communication networks, (iii) quantum communication, (iv) disruptive ideas in information theory, such as post-Shannon theory, (v) artificial intelligence methods, and (vi) adaptive and flexible hardware and software platforms.

6G-life has identified the following challenges for cutting-edge research: (i) Information transmission and computing are the keys to successful digitization. However, ever-increasing data volumes lead to higher energy consumption, which could deplete world energy production as early as 2040. 6G-life provides new approaches to sustainability, such as the post-Shannon theory, to decouple the relationship between data volumes and energy consumption as much as possible. (ii) Because of the various applications expected in human-machine collaboration (MMC), the communication platform must be kept highly flexible. However, this leads to new attack opportunities and, as a consequence, possibly to failures. Here, 6G-life will provide new concepts for security by design (quantum communication, information theoretic security, post-quantum cryptography and protocols) and for resilience by design (artificial intelligence methods to control in-network computing, resilience against denial-of-service attacks using coding schemes with common randomness and quantum communication). (iii) Current latencies are still too high for critical use cases. In-network computing has contributed significantly to reduce propagation delay, but at the same time added additional delays due to computation time. New approaches in compiler construction and for operating systems are needed here. Also, most sensors and actuators are still too slow. To speed them up, 6G-life will explore new materials. Nearly all of the network and data security mechanisms used to date cause delays. To maintain quality of service without sacrificing security, 6G-life will research and test new, fast methods to ensure privacy and resilience.


Figure 2: 6G-life – research team.

Involving about 60 professorships from both universities and more than 150 newly recruited researchers, national industry partners, a high-level international advisory board, and international collaborative projects in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., a 6G hub is being created that will have a global impact on the research landscape. Digital sovereignty will not be achieved through compartmentalization, but as a technology leader in global cooperation. In parallel, this hub will significantly stimulate industry and the start-up landscape in Germany through positive showcase projects and thus sustainably strengthen digital sovereignty in Germany. It is the goal to involve at least 30 start-ups through 6G-life in the first four years and to create at least 10 new start-ups. Testbeds for both use cases will drive research and economic stimulation.

6G-life has also set itself the task of making a contribution to society: specifically (i) to accompany the population through information events in the digital transformation (a partnership with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BSF) will contribute to this), (ii) to create a sustainable support program for young scientists: in this field, (iii) make 6G-life knowledge available to industry, especially SMEs, and (iv) secure Germany's digital sovereignty with Kantian thinking (as opposed to George Orwell's dystopia).

Aspects that address societal change take on special significance due to the holistic approach taken by 6G-life. There are plans to include the humanities and social sciences in the research to address ethical issues and comprehensively counter potential concerns, such as radiation exposure. In this context, explicit public relations work is extremely important in addition to pure science communication. Both aspects are adequately addressed at 6G-life.

Link: https://6g-life.de/

Figure 3: Logo

3. 6GEM
Communication systems are the central nervous system of a digital economy and society. To be able to shape the digital future. The next-generation (6G) networks will face a massive increase in data heterogeneity generated by either human social behavior or intelligent machines where demands on communication resources are transient, unpredictable, and dynamic. Furthermore, commercial adoption of experience-rich (e.g., extended reality with low-latency and high-reliability) services for innovative and sustainable societies of tomorrow requires future networks with stringent security, advanced automation at the sub-ms scale, and decentralized open communication infrastructure.


Figure 4: BMBF 6GEM consortium

From August 1, 2021, the "6G Research Hub for Open, Efficient and Secure Mobile Communications Systems (6GEM)" project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany to establish Germany as a digitally sovereign key player in the development of next-generation mobile communication technologies. The 6GEM consortium partners are RWTH Aachen University, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, TU Dortmund University, the University of Duisburg-Essen, TU Ilmenau, Friedrich Alexander University, and four research institutions, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and Sensor Systems, the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques, and the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy.

The next-generation of mobile communication systems are blending with social activities through various human-centric applications/cyber-physical spaces. Thus, the space dynamically improves the social environment of humans. By utilizing digitally distributed data, the network senses human behavior to determine why a specific service is needed. To build such a vision, we require flexible Hardware, distributed Software, and human-centric Applications, which are strongly dependent on human interactions and environment interactions. Thus, there are multiple and dispersed data delivery points from the network to devices, while each device communicates with preferred physical links depending on the sensed environment. We cannot rely on incremental changes to the present information and communication technologies to build such a vision.

In the project, researchers design communication systems - from the hardware to the software - that offers a flexible network infrastructure. The aim is to guarantee resilient, adaptive system operation with extremely low latency and maximum reliability. Newly developed technologies will enable promising applications such as safer road traffic, port logistics, intralogistics, rescue robotics, and the digital operating room using digital twins. Research focuses on open, modular, and flexibly expandable 6G platforms that enable resilient and highly adaptive communication. The communication infrastructure is programmable by itself and becomes aware of how it is being used at the specific moment and what is likely to be required later. Simultaneously, communication devices need to share their data computing and storage resources and utilize distributed signal processing and artificial intelligence in real-time. Naturally, this research will include safety and security technologies as part of the network architecture from the design. Innovations for the planned mobile radio system are the new terahertz radiation, distributed computing resources in the network, and RADAR-based approaches for communication technologies. Furthermore, new approaches to artificial intelligence and machine learning complement the technologies mentioned. The goal is to incorporate knowledge from the physical layer and application processes into automated network diagnostics, troubleshooting, and management. The technologies will be integrated into a flexible 6G system consisting of software and hardware and demonstrated in different application areas. Thorough interdisciplinary and cross-location research cooperation the consortium will seek to establish the value of future 6G systems for highly relevant societal and industrial use cases, ranging from healthcare, robotics, production, logistics, and road traffic to show the potential of 6G in these areas (see the next illustration of technology development research areas).

One of the main objectives of this project is to establish advanced digital and technological sovereignty of the German research and development landscape. To this goal, we define and appropriately implement the open, efficient, secure and safe communication technologies through programmable platforms. The platforms will provide testing and validation opportunities for startups, SMEs and telecom vendors/operators, including complex standardization and security requirements for core network components. The technology focus will cover algorithmic, control and system integration, while networking and security will be covering the higher communication layers. Our goal is to play a crucial role in shaping, not just using, 6G technology development. Thus, our goal is to strengthen the national and international networking and cooperation between industry and academia.

The results of the 6GEM project are combined in a modular 6G platform that enables companies to evaluate their business models and products based on 6G at an early stage. The technologies developed in the project should form the basis for founding companies that will strengthen the future 6G ecosystem in Germany. The research work carried out in the project can also provide important building blocks for the future 6G mobile communications standard. In addition, there is a prospect that excellent specialists will be trained for the companies in the project partner's environment, thus enabling a faster transfer of knowledge to the economy.

Link: https://www.6gem.de

Figure 5: Logo

4. 6G-RIC
The 6G Research and Innovation Cluster (6G-RIC) is a research hub that aims to deliver scientific and technical foundations for the next generation of mobile communications (6G) across multiple technology disciplines, including radio access, core and fiber optic transport networks. This aim will be achieved through an interdisciplinary and coordinated collaboration of leading experts in communications engineering, computer science, mathematics and related disciplines. The focus is on research and development of a secure, flexible and open communications infrastructure as the basis for successful digitization in business and in other areas of society.

The greatest challenges for research arise from the radically increased requirements of the envisioned 6G applications expressed in terms of data rate, latency, reliability, and security. The required data rates per user of up to 100 Gbit/s and even beyond cannot be realized with 5G, particularly when several of the requirements need to be met simultaneously. This generally leads to notoriously difficult optimization problems with conflicting objectives. The integration of sensing services (keyword: “network as a sensor”) will result in new requirements that have to be met in addition to the communication requirements, ideally without impairing the quality of service of the communication. An essential prerequisite for satisfying the requirements of 6G applications is the availability of large bandwidths, which are not available below 60GHz. For this reason, the sub-THz band (up to 300GHz) must be exploited for mobile access, and this poses some major challenges for hardware, signal processing and wireless networking such as seamless handover in mobile scenarios. Due to strong Doppler effects, high channel attenuation and sensitivity to shadowing effects, the sub-THz frequencies are currently used only in stationary point-to-point communication scenarios.

Given long-term climate targets and the rapid spread of wireless communications, a profound reduction in energy consumption in future mobile communications networks is of particular social and economic importance. Therefore, a special attention must be devoted to the trade-off between the communication and sensing requirements of 6G applications on the one hand and the energy efficiency on the other. The goal must be to reconcile the expected explosive growth in data traffic, the integration of sensing services and the massive network densification with the demand for global sustainability and fairness. Similarly, user privacy and security must be a major design criterion to increase the social acceptance of future 6G technologies. With the advent of quantum computing, it is essential that the security of 6G networks will be built from the beginning on methods that are robust to quantum attacks.

There is little doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) will be one of the key technologies to address the mentioned challenges as we move from 5G to 6G. However, AI does not come at zero cost, and the gains achieved through its use must be put in relation to the corresponding effort and resources required. This will drive the convergence of information and communications technology to reduce the need for (wireless) communications in favor of local computing and processing. Indeed, in terms of energy efficiency, the statement "computing is cheap, communication is expensive" is more true today than ever before. Therefore, 6G-RIC envisions a holistic approach that expands the optimization dimensions of 5G by incorporating energy consumption, data acquisition and network computing, complemented by security by design, as an integral part of the overall network design (see Fig.)

Figure 6: The expansion of the optimization dimensions in the transition from 5G to 6G.

6G-RIC is supported by an interdisciplinary and coordinated collaboration of a total of 32 research groups from 20 universities and research institutions and by more than 50 associated partnerships from science, industry and administration as well as an expert advisory board. The early involvement of government authorities (such as, e.g., the federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg) is intended to enable the test infrastructure to become permanent in order to support innovations in the medium and long term. The 6G-RIC is funded by The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with 70 million Euros over 4 years.

6G-RIC envisions an ambitious, comprehensive and interdisciplinary research program that is centered on the following Technical Innovation Areas (TIAs):

1. Opening up the highest frequencies for mobile applications through efficient transceiver technologies (Sub-THz Mobile Access);
2. Research and development of intelligent reconfigurable surfaces for the adaptation and optimization of the radio environment (Intelligent Radio Environments);
3. Convergence of radio sensing applications and communications (Network as a Sensor);
4. Goal-oriented unification of data generation, transmission and use (6G Connectivity);
5. Integration of communications security and data protection as part of the system design (Post-Quantum Security by Design);
6. Virtualization of network components (Autonomous Convergent Networks).

Within each TIA, 6G-RIC will study and develop key technologies for future 6G communication systems and evaluate them in the form of technology demonstrations in the "real laboratory". Selected technology components will be brought together in overarching end-to-end demonstrators and presented in the context of selected 6G use cases. Currently, two potential use cases are under discussion: Mixed Realities and Mobile Robot Swarms. Whereas the first use case has very high demands on data rates and latency, mobile robot swarms require highly accurate sensing and tracking capabilities with real-time analytics.

In addition to the scientific objectives, 6G-RIC pursues the following strategic goals:

• Creation of an open network infrastructure that will enable SMEs and start-ups to develop and test 6G technologies.
• Contributing to the establishment of a new ecosystem based on disagreggation, virtualization and openness
• Improve conditions for spin-offs and collaboration with industry
• Contributing to the training and promotion of young talent

The modularization, virtualization, and openness promoted in the 6G RIC are important enablers for the creation of numerous opportunities for German and European industry to enter the global market, especially in the area of campus networks (i.e., "private networks"), which are increasingly attracting attention worldwide as drivers of innovation. The development of intelligent communication technologies for future campus networks, which sometimes have to meet highly specialized industry-specific requirements, is expected to open up a variety of new business models. In this respect, 6G-RIC will contribute to the creation of an open ecosystem for innovation that can withstand the ever-increasing dynamics of the communications and smart services markets.

Link: https://6g-ric.de/

Figure 7: Logo

5. Open6GHub - 6G for Society and Sustainability
The project "Open6GHub" develops a 6G vision for sovereign citizens in a hyper-connected world from 2030. The aim of the Open6GHub is to provide contributions to a global 6G harmonization process and standard in the European context. Societal needs (sustainability, climate protection, data protection, resilience, ...) are our most important 6G design goals.


Figure 8: Setup and Structure of Open6GHub

The Open6GHub will contribute to the development of an overall 6G architecture and end-to-end solutions. Main research areas are advanced network topologies with highly agile Organic Networking (ON), security and resilience, THz and photonic transmission concepts, sensing functionalities in the network and a privacy-preserving and energy-efficient processing of the generated data, as well as application-specific radio protocols.

The Open6GHub cares about its openness and seeks an early, open and interactive dialogue with the public. It is open to collaborations with industry and users and will implement OpenLabs and experimental fields for this purpose, and wants to foster an open innovation system by involving SMEs and start-ups.

The work of the Open6GHub is based on input of experts from all stakeholder groups, the advisory boards (technical and user board) and an analysis of new technological trends. Based on this input, the 6G design process will be guided by an iteratively refined common vision for a hyper-connected world in 2030+.

The developed 6G architecture tries to support all foreseeable upcoming application requirements as well some new concepts and functionalities that might become enablers for future not yet known services. For the implementation, the Open6GHub focusses on a selection of promising and new technologies and features. Some of them are described hereafter.

The availability of the necessary connectivity for tomorrow's digital society and economy requires new network architectures in which flying network nodes - from drones to satellites - together with terrestrial network components form a unified 3D communications network. The holistic approach required for this opens up space for innovations that go beyond the capabilities of the 3GPP 5G-NTN approach by exploiting the potential of flying network components much more comprehensively and deeply. Examples of innovations include: 3D ONs, dynamic relocation of network functionalities (radio access and core network) within the 3D network, and dynamic control of information flows. In the Open6GHub, the key technologies and core components required for this are being developed, and experimental platforms are being used to assess the feasibility of 3D networks.
For experimental evaluation, the Open6GHub develops a broadband test platform at 26 GHz that offers researchers and the industry the possibility to test at a very early stage new developments in the context of 6G, e.g., joint communication and sensing (JCAS), MIMO concepts, etc. At the final expansion stage, the demonstrator can provide up to 256 Tx and Rx channels each with a signal bandwidth up to 1 GHz (2 GHz if only half of the channels is used). It offers the replay and storage of raw data to directly start the investigations at the physical layer. In addition, real-time implementations on the FPGA are also in the scope of the project.

An ultra-high data rate wireless link operating at 300 GHz is foreseen for indoor applications like a data kiosk serving several mobile users with multi-Gbps download pipes. For that, the transmitter requires 2D beam steering, which will be achieved by combining an optical beam forming network chip with a frequency-scanning leaky-wave antenna array. Two possible hardware architectures for the receiver are foreseen including an in-phase and quadrature mixer approach, in which the antenna, low noise amplifier and mixer will be realized monolithically using GaAs technology. The second architecture is based on a Schottky barrier diode envelope detector which will result in a hybrid integration approach of InP and GaAs components. Based on first experimental results of using a hybrid setup of the foreseen architecture, a 300 GHz multi-user wireless supporting a data rate of 10 – 100 Gbps will be feasible.

Recently, it has turned out that JCAS becomes a key feature of future 6G networks. Hence, it is also one of the cornerstones of Open6GHub. JCAS is considered a deep integration of radio sensing capabilities into mobile network architecture reaching from radio access through network layers up to a quality controlled sensing service in public or private networks. In contrast to well-known and already established positioning services, JCAS will allow positioning, tracking and recognition of passive objects that are not equipped with a radio tag. A key advantage of JCAS is the re-use of radio and network resources of 6G. This increases resource efficiency and unlocks the whole access and network functionality to develop 6G a full-fledged distributed sensing network with adaptive and cognitive performance.

Resilience against failures and external threats is an essential property of future 6G networks. Thus, Resilience-by-Design is a key design criterion in the Open6GHub. Future 6G networks need to dynamically and predictively adapt, enabling resilient communication when necessary but allowing for resource-efficient high-performance communication when possible. In Open6GHub, we focus on such intelligent network adaptation to constantly mitigate known and unforeseen threats.

The idea of Organic Networking (ON) is a software-centric architectural approach that enables networks to continuously morph themselves to momentary localized user- and application-specific needs and available infrastructure resources, i.e. fully customized network provision at any location and any point in time. In ONs, distributed and heterogeneous infrastructures, converge into a coherent and resilient communication system including different access networks customized for campus and public networks. Beyond the 5G Service-based Architecture (SBA), the ON addresses the end-to-end service requirements with flexible dis/aggregation, orchestration, placement and morphing of network functions, based on the internet software services concepts.

An agile AI/ML driven self-aware network can adapt, optimize, learn and evolve itself. Intelligence can be gathered and processed anywhere in the network, ranging from the user terminal, network edge and central servers up to end applications by using a new highly customizable data exchange layer. It also means that contextual information (sensing, localization, ...) occurring on the network side is made available openly and transparently to third parties for the generation of innovative services. The same applies to making available network-side resources for AI, computing and trust. Mobile trusted multi-party AI services that need to use local context are likely to become possible only in this way.

The Open6GHub considers public and non-public networks. Here, there is a special focus on application fields with high requirements, such as those found in manufacturing and automation. Additional application areas that will be demonstrated include agriculture, logistics, new human-machine interfaces (HMIs), Smart Cities, and campus mobility solutions. Applications and technological solutions for 6G end-to-end communication system will be demonstrated and evaluated in several experimental fields with each partner, but can also be visited on dedicated OpenLabs which individually focus on a chosen application field of 6G like hyperconnected factory, smart and automated agriculture, ambient assisting living and tele medicine.

Link: www.open6ghub.de

Figure 9: Logo