Scientists:	Manuel Simon, M.Sc., Eric Hauser, Sebastian Gallenmüller, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Carle
Duration:	01.05.2021 – 30.04.2024
Funding:	Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy

Abstract

The Chair of Network Architectures and Network Services contributes specific testbed setups for reproducible wired and wireless network research for the 6G testbed for the Industry 4.0 application focus. The infrastructure for reproducible experiments includes a testbed orchestration service, flexible and programmable traffic generators, hardware-based time synchronization with PTP support, IEEE TSN support (TAS, ATS), Virtualization with SR-IOV, IOMMU and Multiqueue SmartNICs, P4 programmability with different targets, and different Wireless NIC and Shielding Boxes.

With the programmable SmartNICs and switches in the testbed, servers with different architectures (multicore and manycore), and different virtualization and measurement functionalities, different distribution of network functions between standard servers, SmartNICs and switches can be investigated. Among other things, the influences of different architectures and configurations and the effects of component failures and attacks in terms of data rates, latency, robustness and availability can be investigated.

The usage of programmable SmartNICs and network elements also makes a significant contribution to Digital Sovereignty. The programmable components and associated tools used provide a technological platform, tool chain, and implementation concepts for Digital Sovereignty in 6G. The relevant stakeholders, in particular government and public authorities or enterprises, should thus be able to make digitally sovereign decisions and act with regard to infrastructure, data, algorithms, hardware, and software. The following dimensions of digital sovereignty are strengthened: competencies, data, governance, and software and hardware technologies. Competencies relate to the capabilities of individuals, organizations, and nations. Due to the high pace of innovation in mobile, especially 6G, technical universities have a key role to play in developing the key competencies required for Digital Sovereignty and transferring them to key points of value creation via graduates as well as via collaborations with industry.

Data sovereignty is not only of utmost importance for artificial intelligence and machine learning, but also to leverage innovation potential. Data sovereignty ensures being able to include or exclude third parties from accessing data on a contractual basis and to enable or prevent the processing and analysis of data. Governance to achieve or maintain digital sovereignty includes regulatory measures at national, European and international level. Technological sovereignty with regard to hardware, software and architecture includes having a choice of alternative solutions for required functionality provided by trustworthy organizations, together with full documentation of architecture and interfaces, transparency and traceability of the functions included, which provides extensive opportunities for validating components, systems and services.

Partner

• Chair of Communication Networks (TUM EI, Prof. Wolfgang Kellerer)