5G-CLARITY will develop and demonstrate a beyond 5G system for private networks integrating 5G, Wi-Fi, and LiFi technologies, and managed through AI based autonomic networking. 5G-CLARITY aims to be instrumental in order to secure the leadership of Europe in the growing markets of private 5G networks, and 5G for factory automation.
Beyond 5G private networks
5G-CLARITY brings forward the design of a system for beyond 5G private networks that addresses the challenges in spectrum flexibility, delivery of critical services, and autonomic network management. The first pillar of our vision is a heterogeneous wireless access network that integrates three technologies: 5G beyond R16, Wi-Fi, and LiFi. In this way, we plan to engineer communication services which:
- Provide per-UE and aggregate capacities beyond 3GPP R16, through interface aggregation and intelligent interface selection,
- Provide communication services with lower delays and higher reliability than 3GPP R16, through parallel access and selective packet duplication, and
- Provide an indoor positioning service with cm-level accuracy, through the combination of RF and Optical Camera Communications (OCC) for LiFi.
Key component of our vision
The integration of LiFi in private beyond 5G networks, which will be based on the upcoming IEEE 802.11bb standard, is a key component of our vision, whereby the focalized nature of light propagation offers essential features for private networks such as increased security, as light does not propagate through walls, area capacity, and positioning accuracy.
SDN & NFV
The second pillar of our vision is a novel management plane based on the principles of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, in order to enable network slicing for neutral hosts, and autonomic network management. The envisioned management plane will feature:
- an SDN/NFV platform exposing an Application Programming Interface (API) to drive the network configuration, to extract network state, and to manage the creation of infrastructure and service slices,
- an AI engine that will collect data from the SDN/NFV platform and learn over time how to optimize the configuration of the network, and
- a high-level intent based policy language that will allow an infrastructure operator to interact with the network using business primitives, instead of low-level network configuration.
