Hours:
24 hours (6 credits)

Room:

Aula Riunioni del Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Via G. Caruso 16, Pisa - Ground Floor

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Short Abstract:

In the last years, information communication, computation and storage technologies are jointly reshaping the way we use technology, meeting the future needs of a wide range of big data and artificial intelligence applications and, paving the way for a full-customized autonomous user experience. In 2020 the 5G -Next Generation Communication Networks is expected to be operational and a global game changer from a technological, economic, societal and environmental perspective. 5G industry is intensively working today on designing, prototyping and testing fundamental technological advances to de-liver the promised performance in terms of latency, energy efficiency, wireless broadband capacity, elasticity, etc. Nevertheless, many experts say that the next big step for cellular networks is not 5G, it is the distributed support of the cloud and AI.
This set of lectures will cover the vision, the use cases, the architecture design and technical tools for understanding the key enabling technologies that will enable beyond 5G networks to meet its challenging performance targets and how ‘the cloud’ will play an operational role in future wireless networks. The lecture will also introduce and detail very innovative concepts freshly under investigation for future B5G/6G networks such as Reconfigurable Intelligent surfaces and the integration of non-terrestrial communication and edge intelligence with terrestrial communication systems. Moreover, dedicated lectures will promotes the idea that including semantic and goal-oriented aspects in future 6G networks can produce a significant leap forward in terms of system effectiveness and sustainability. Semantic communication goes beyond the common Shannon paradigm of guaranteeing the correct reception of each single transmitted packet, irrespective of the meaning conveyed by the packet. The idea is that, whenever communication occurs to convey meaning or to accomplish a goal, what really matters is the impact that the correct reception/interpretation of a packet is going to have on the goal accomplishment. Focusing on semantic and goal-oriented aspects and, possibly combining them, helps to identify the relevant information, i.e. the information strictly necessary to recover the meaning intended by the transmitter or to accomplish a goal. Combining knowledge representation and reasoning tools with machine learning algorithms paves the way to build semantic learning strategies enabling current machine learning algorithms to achieve better interpretation capabilities and contrast
adversarial attacks. 6G semantic networks can bring semantic learning mechanisms at the edge of the network and, at the same time, semantic learning can help 6G networks to improve their efficiency and sustainability.
The lecture will offer a flora for interactive discussions on future research axes and open challenges on B5G/6G networks.

Course Contents in brief:

1. Lecture 1 (3h) - Introduction to evolution of Wireless Networks from 3G+ to 5G. Details on technologies enabling the revolution between 4G and 5G networks.
2. Lecture 2 (1.5h) – 6G, The next frontier: Visions, roadmaps, opportunities, issues, HW reality check
3. Lecture 3 (3h) – The quest for high spectrum bands: mmW, sub-THz and VLC communications. Issues and practical examples.
4. Lecture 4 (3h) – From the Mobile Edge Computing paradigm to network cloudification and Edge AI
5. Lecture 5 (1.5h) – Sustainable and energy efficient 6G Connect-Compute-Control Networks
6. Lecture 6 (1.5h) - 6G: The reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces Opportunities for shaping the Environment as a Service. The RISE-6G case.
7. Lecture 7 (1.5h) - 6G: The non-terrestrial Communication integration and the on demand intelligent support for 3-dimensional services. The 5G-Allstar case.
8. Lecture 7 (3h) – Challenges in AI & Wireless Communications for 6G
9. Lecture 8 (3h) - 6G: The Semantic Communication opportunity and recent research results.
10. Lecture 9 (1.5h) - the Goal-Oriented Communications opportunity and recent research results.
11. Lecture 10 (1.5h) A strategy for future 6G research axes. Open discussions.

Schedule:

1. 18/07/2022 ore 9:00-13:00 (4 ore)
2. 19/07/2022 ore 9:00-13:00 (4 ore)
3. 20/07/2022 ore 9:00-13:00 (4 ore)
4. 21/07/2022 ore 9:00-13:00 e 15:00-17:00 (6 ore)
5. 22/07/2022 ore 9:00-13:00 e 15:00-17:00 (6 ore)