The Beyond 5G Revolution

Communication networks are facing unprecedented changes driven by both human usage (e.g. the emergence of (i) immersive VR experience) and machine usage (smart cities, ITS, industry 4.0 etc.). From an architectural perspective the mobile networking world is experiencing a convergence of internet, broadcast, internet-of-things (IoT), and classical telecommunication frameworks. The network traffic is now dominated by machines which also sometimes must operate with each other, forcing the development of robust connected machine networks (cars, robots) with applications to systems as diverse as intelligent transport systems and the factory of the future.

In order to provide the expected services to a growing population of machine users (alongside human driven traffic), the redesign of communications strategies, radio spectrum sharing policies, QoS control modes and eventually the overall architecture of mobile networks must be carried out, in the context of beyond 5G evolutions (6G).  

The primary research goal of the Communication Systems department at EURECOM is two fold: First to make advances at the fundamental and applied levels  in domains ranging from information and communication theory, signal processing, graph theory and learning for networks, and secondly turn concepts into practical system-oriented innovations by leveraging the open-source experimental platforms developed by our department.

Organization of Research Activities

 Research in the department is organized along to two (nicely overlapping) axis:

• Foundation & Algorithms (Head: Prof. Gesbert): We develop or exploit solid scientific tools for the analysis of communications systems and the enhancement of their performance at multiple layers. We push the fundamental limits of communications over networks with novel transmissions and information decoding strategies. We develop concepts for 6G networks including ideas such as ultra-directional (massive MIMO, smart surfaces) communication, cache-aided (and coded-chaching) networking, connected robotics, robust multi-agent decision networks. 
• Networked Systems (Head: Prof. Knopp): We bring life to our ideas by real-life experimentation and prototyping. We develop and implement communication schemes and techniques with the goal of advancing the performance of post-4G (5G and beyond) standardized systems. We push open source 5G protocol design onto the global stage via the OpenAirInterface software alliance
• We address new challenges posed by emerging novel wireless applications (e.g. broadband multimedia and IoT) and scenarios (e.g. vehicular, radio over ITS,..) by developping efficient networking methods. The architecture of backhaul and core networks under the new prism of Mobile Edge Computing is considered and open source implementations are promoted.