INSTINCT

Description:

The INSTINCT project aims to enable globally sustainable, interactive, immersive, and intelligent ‘beyond communications’ 6G connectivity by developing three complementary but critical breakthrough technology pillars:

• Sensing-assisted communication technologies, thus allowing localization, tracking, mapping, monitoring, imaging, incident detection and semantics become integral parts of connectivity services (Pillar 1).
• Intelligent surfaces, holographic radios and cell free systems, which offer wavefront engineering functionalities and tuneability of the wireless environment and can act as reconfigurable and intelligent sensors (Pillar 2).
• Machine Learning (ML) techniques-based co-design of Sensing and Communications (Pillar 3).

These pillars will result in three demonstrators: two hardware and one software demonstration of interactive, immersive, and intelligent connectivity in 6G usage scenarios.

Within the project, the i2CAT Foundation participates in the different project’s Work Packages. Specifically, within Work Package 1 – Use cases, system architecture and requirements, i2CAT will focus on challenges, performance requirements and research directions for Joint Communications and Sensing systems (JCAS) and RIS-based networks. In Work Package 2- Joint communications and sensing technology enablers, i2CAT will investigate sensing and communication performance trade-offs and channel models for JCAS systems and RIS-based networks. Researchers will also study energy-harvesting solutions to make RIS more energy efficient, proposing new algorithms that tend to reduce the carbon footprint. Within Work Package 3 – Machine learning empowered intelligent JCAS network, i2CAT’s researchers will investigate an optimal placement of smart surfaces that enables a deployment of virtual access points (AP) by reflecting the signal of a real active AP in a controlled and optimized manner. They will then propose learning-based approaches to improve sensing services with spatial and temporal sharing of node beliefs, thus improving sensing performance through multi-node spatial-temporal cooperation. Furthermore, i2CAT will work on the development of the intelligent orchestration of the JCAS networks by applying AI techniques to the network elements. i2CAT will also contribute to Work Package 4 – Demonstrations, Simulations and KPI/KVI Evaluations by defining requirements and features of the scenarios and integrating WP2 and WP3 results in the demonstrator. Finally, within Work Package 5 – Dissemination, communication, standardisation and exploitation, i2CAT leads Task 5.1 Dissemination and Communication, oriented at designing, executing and monitoring the INSTINCT communication and dissemination strategy to ensure the project’s wide visibility and attract new stakeholders to the project’s ecosystem.

Estimated impact:

The project oversees the following wider impacts:

• Strengthening research and innovation capacity: INSTINCT focuses on three innovation capacity building blocks for 6G network design and optimisation, namely (i) integration of sensing within communications systems (“sense to co MIMO, and (iii) the co-design of sensing and communications in a multi-functional beyond communications system concept.
• Strengthening the competitiveness and growth of companies: INSTINCT has the potential to create significant impact for the growth of companies in the field of wireless technologies and networking, including network infrastructure manufacturers, SMEs creating and offering hardware and software products, mobile network operators and service providers, devices and testing equipment vendors, semiconductors and sensing.
• Strengthening other key stakeholders within the wireless value chain: Besides wireless arena companies, other important stakeholders will be also positively impacted by the INSTINCT including academia and researchers, end users and regulatory bodies.
• The necessity of a European approach: The major objective of INSTINCT is to bring together a broad spectrum of expertise and technological perspectives and various sector actors from all over Europe in order to build a strong and balanced research team capable of delivering the project’s research strategic goals.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking as granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.