Chair: Prof.Knud-Eric Skouby, Aalborg Uninversity, Denmark skouby@cmi.aau.dk

Mission
To promote a secure communications environment across multiple Socio-Economic settings based on user needs and requirements

Overview
WGA is focused on discovering and promoting research areas that strive to understand the needs for and requirements to wireless future internet systems. The activities are based on the understanding that users are driving the creation and design of new, emerging applications and services in a secure environment. This includes the ‘direct’, traditional user requirements area: how the users are driving the creation and design of new, emerging services in a secure environment and how users will interact with devices, systems and applications in the Wireless World. It also includes ‘indirect’ user requirements in the form of ‘M2M’ communications. There is thus recognized an Increasing socio-economic impact on the Wireless development where the Future Internet will represent an increasing fusion between the digital and the physical world. User acceptance of this development requires attention to data protection, privacy and ethical issues. WGA addresses these challenges and investigates the sphere of user requirements and interaction between users, devices, systems and applications and studies the elements of viable business models under different socio-economic conditions.

Focus areas

• • Methods, processes and best practices for user-centred research and design
  • Reference frameworks for modeling user needs within the context of wireless future internet systems
  • Identification of relevant future services and applications based analyses of user needs/ requirements and user experiences
  • Approaches and tools for creating new, sustainable applications, services and service infrastructures
  • User scenario creation and analysis
  • User interaction technologies
  • The needs of users, operators, service providers and other players for secure and trustworthy wireless systems incl security requirements and privacy concerns in context-sensing environments
  • Visions on services, applications and needed infrastructures related to the wireless Future Internet (FI) era
  • User centric Identity Management Systems
  • Studies of user requirements for, and usage of, wireless technologies by particular user groups, in different geographical or socio-economic contexts including emerging economies
  • Studies the spectrum requirements needed to make services available where needed by users (e.g., no home/ work distinction)
  • Development of viable business models based on user needs and requirements incl. impact of loss of reputation and trust to business models

Chair: Sudhir Dixit sudhir.dixit@gmail.com

Introduction
The approach and focus of the WWRF is at present being sharpened to better align with the technology innovations and industry directions in networking and communication. As a result, the Working Group C, while building on its successes, is being revitalized to speed-up and facilitate the convergence of software, cloud, big data, virtualization and networking. It is the WGC’s endeavor to pool industry and academic resources to do targeted applied research to identify challenges facing the industry with this convergence and propose solutions that are pragmatic in the short-term (with backwards compatibility) and strategic in the long-term to evolve to what ideally they should be.

Mission
The group’s mission is to guide the mobile industry in the use of software, virtualization and cloud computing in future networks (both wireless and wired) by developing end-to-end network architectures, identifying the specific requirements and issues and addressing them by providing solutions that are practical and business driven, and thus accelerate the adoption of 5G where IT will play a major role. Virtual network slicing to develop custom networks for specific industry verticals and services from the common underlying physical infrastructure will also be an important mission of this group.

Until now the working focused on the vision and tasks that were guided by the architecture depicted in Figure 1 below, resulting into several widely cited white papers and outlooks. These accomplishments will now form the foundation of the future activities of the reorganized working group, as depicted in Figure 2.0, and will primarily focus on the softwarization, virtualization and slicing of the 5G and future networks where IT will play an important role.

Focused Topics
Main topics that WGC covers are focused on:

• • Software network architectures and software design approaches to meet the specific requirements of future wireless carrier networks
  • Mapping of 5G performance requirements to virtualized hardware and software that is decentralized, including potentially those that virtualize the user (5G) devices
  • Liaison with IEEE, ITU and ETSI and other fora to influence standards work
  • Facilitate collaborations and consensus building among various experts and actors
  • Invite and engage with the IT industry and encourage them to join WWRF
  • Organize speaking events and workshops to encourage dissemination and interactions with the experts
  • Convergent wireless/ wireline access and core network segments leveraging cloud, virtualization and big data
    • Smart Virtualized Infrastructure
    • Smart management of the Cloud-RAN;
    • Software-defined wireless networks (SDN);
    • Network Function Virtualization (NFV)
    • End-to-end network slicing

Chair: Dr Angeliki Alexiou aalexiou@ieee.org

Overview
WGD addresses research aspects focusing on the air interface for wide-area and local-area wireless communication systems, spectrum issues and other distributed resource sharing for the wireless Future Internet.

In particular, WGD covers topics such as multi-carrier air interfaces, smart antenna technologies, cooperative communications, interference management, cross-layer (PHY/MAC) design, overhead signalling and complexity issues, advanced White Space Devices (WSDs). Physical-layer security of wireless systems is also covered in this working group.

As wireless networks evolve beyond IMT-Advanced, challenging requirements resulting from the ever-decreasing cell size along with the explosive increase in the number of cells and the number of users and devices to be connected, breaking the interference barrier and maintaining the per user/node capacity will need powerful PHY/MAC cross-layer design and emphasis on the optimization of performance versus complexity/overhead trade-off. Moreover, an interactive and reliable radio resource sharing mechanism covering technical and technological aspects will need to be studied. Hence, a secure liberalized radio environment would be one of the prime targets of the wireless FI ecosystem.

It is envisaged that WGD will address the groups of research areas identified in the following subsections.

New Air Interfaces design

• • Requirements, target scenarios, network and channel modelling and performance criteria for systems beyond IMT-Advanced and short-range communications
  • Frequency-domain, adaptable and scalable air interface design
  • Packet-based multiple access (TDMA, FDMA, SDMA, OFDMA)
  • Dynamic resource allocation: Scheduling and signalling subcarrier power, time/frequency chunk allocation, and code rate for OFDMA
  • Cross-layer optimization: balance against MAC/PHY separation to support a wide range of air interface alternatives
  • Interference management and inter-cell coordination
  • Both radio and optical air interface design.

Enabling Technologies

• • Single user MIMO, Multi-user MIMO, Coordinated multipoint transmission and reception (CoMP)
  • Massive, distributed and network MIMO approaches
  • Interference management and flexible radio resources allocation for linear capacity scaling
  • Relaying and cooperative communications
  • Advanced coding (Turbo, LDPC, etc) and network coding

Novel system concepts

• • HetNets and Small cell networks: interference management and integration with the macro layer
  • Green Radio: energy efficient PHY and MAC design
  • Random versus scheduled access
  • Integration of WiFi into future cellular networks
  • Internet of Things enablers and machine-to-machine communications
  • Cloud-based radio communication technologies and architectures

Requirements for Spectrum Management

• • Business drivers for future spectrum management algorithms and techniques in the wireless Future Internet
  • Technology roadmaps for spectrum management systems and regulatory constraints
  • Technical, functional and regulatory requirements for enabling secure spectrum trading and liberation in the Future Internet

Spectrum management aspects in the FI era

• • Optimization of cognitive management with respect to the knowledge of radio environment
  • Reconfigurable protocols, and equipment of wireless FI networks in UHF and VHF (TV white space)

WGD White Papers

• • “Wireless World 2020: System Concept Trends, Technology Enablers and Radio Interface Challenges” [available as outlook]
  • “Small Cell Evolution for Wireless World 2020: Hotspots&Indoor improvement”
  • “WWRF Wireless World 2020 Workshops: Visions for the Wireless Future”

Chair: Samant Khajuria, Terma A/S (sakh@terma.com)

Mission

The mission of the WG-Cybersecurity is to promote a trusted and cyber secure environment for the current and future wireless technologies through the identification of key research challenges and technology trends.

NEWS

Workshop on Cybersecurity on 1st April 2022

With the mission to promote a trusted and cyber secure environment for the current and future wireless technologies through the identification of key research challenges and technology trends WWRF organised a virtual workshop on 1st of April, WWRF WG-Cybersecurity on “Cybersecurity in 5G Beyond” The workshop had good representation from the Industry and Research Institutions. The topics for the talks were:

• • “Towards sustainable 6G” Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue; Research Director at Infotech Oulu Institute Director of Sustainability and Regulation at 6G Flagship >>>
  • “Where is cybersecurity developing towards – a view on recent trends in the standardization of cybersecurity” – Scott Cadzow; Director, Cadzow Communications Consulting.>>>
  • Security Standardization in 3GPP – Noamen Ben Henda; Security Standardization Expert, Huawei Technologies.>>>

Overview

WWRF provides a platform to the global wireless research community to explore and develop the research challenges that confront us as we look beyond current 5G and other developments. These developments have raised considerable concerns in the cybersecurity sector.

WG-Cybersecurity focuses on addressing these concerns and provides a common ground to researchers and Industry representatives to explore these challenges. The group takes the multifaced approach to cybersecurity due to its complexity as there are multiple threat vectors, increasingly sophisticated and effective attacks, and a general lack of suitable security standards.

To support our mission of “a trusted and cyber secure environment for the current and future wireless technologies” the WG-cyber will focus on following areas. 

• • Cybersecurity Strategy, Policy and Standardization
  • Cybersecurity Frameworks, Certification and Supply chain
  • Cybersecurity Directives and Regulations
  • Enhancing the Trustworthiness in Current and Future Wireless Technologies
  • Wireless Cybersecurity Use Cases (IoT, V2X, Healthcare)
  • Cyber Threat and Risk Management for 5G Networks and beyond
  • Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity Challenges
  • New Security Technologies and Techniques Relevant to Wireless Networks

Workshop Cybersecurity on 1st of April 2022

AGENDA

• • Welcome - Dr Nigel Jefferies, WWRF Chair
  • Introduction - Samant Khajuria, Working Group Cybersecurity Chair
  • Presentation 1 - “Towards sustainable 6G”. Dr. Marja Matinmikko-Blue; Research Director at Infotech Oulu Institute
  • Presentation 2 – “Where is cybersecurity developing towards – a view on recent trends in the standardization of cybersecurity” - Scott Cadzow; Director,Cadzow Communications Consulting
  • Presentation 3 - Security Standardization in 3GPP - Noamen Ben Henda; Security Standardization Expert, Huawei Technologies ~ 40 mins
    - Discussion
    - Closing Remarks

Speakers information here

Chair: Dr Angeliki Alexiou, University of Piraeus aalexiou@ieee.org

Introduction

In recent years, data rates in wireless communication have doubled every 18 months[i]. Extrapolating on this trend, wireless data rates of 1 Tbit/s per data link can be anticipated by the year 2030. These data rates are far beyond what the current 5G wireless vision is hoping and what is possible even in current "wired" systems, which are working towards a 400 Gbit/s Ethernet today. Higher frequencies (above 6 GHz) radio communication technologies are expected to play a significant role in realising this vision of wireless transmissions towards the region of 1 Tbit/s.

Due to the ultra-large bandwidth required to achieve such data rates, carrier frequencies of tens or even several hundreds of GHz bandwidths are necessary compared to present 5 -20 MHz. To achieve the goal of data rates of 2-3 orders of magnitude higher compare to the current 5G vision, fundamental research, system and channel modeling and enabling technologies in the following three technological key areas are required:

1. 1. Channel modelling and propagation
   2. Physical layer including RF front end and baseband (waveform and modulation aspects)
   3. Wireless access issues, including multiple access and radio resources and interference management.

Vision

To provide a discussion platform/thinktank, by engaging a critical mass of experts from industry, regulators and academia, in order to investigate/understand the trends, requirements, enablers and challenges in the specification, design, optimization and adoption of high frequencies radio technologies in future wireless networks.

Objectives

• • Study the requirements and research and technology challenges for high frequencies radio communications.
  • Report of the advances on channel modeling, physical layer and wireless access issues.
  • Facilitate collaborations and consensus building among various experts and actors.
  • Organize workshops to encourage dissemination and interactions.
  • Follow/participate/contribute to research/technology/regulatory/standardization fora (e.g. NGMN, 5G-PPP, ITU-R, IEEE, ..).

Stakeholders

Several organizations have already expressed their interest to participate in this activity and have contributed to the workshop organized by WGD at WWRF35 in October 2015 under the theme of “Channel Modelling and Technology Enablers in mmWave and THz bands  - Evolution beyond 5G”.

ITU-R WG A& D have indicated that they are interested in receiving contributions on the subject matter. Preliminary discussion s with ITU-R WP5A has shown interest in organizing a workshop on 275GHz and above.

It will be also necessary for this group from time to time to look at near term issues in order to help industry stakeholders assess / direct the technology evolution path (which is an important factor for service providers and for their investments.)

White Papers

WP1: Channel Modelling for mmWAVE and THz radio communications – Requirements, Challenges, State of the Art  and Global Initiatives

• • Timeline: May 2016 – May 2017
  • Results will be presented atthe WWRF 37th and the final version at the 38^th WWRF meeting

WP2: Air Interface and Wireless Access technologies for mmWave and THz radio communications – Challenges and Trends and expected Impact

• • Timeline Oct 2016 – Oct 2017
  • Results will be presented in the WWRF 38th meeting and the final version at the 39^th WWRF meeting.

Actions Planned

• • Launch of the new WG at WWRF 36^thmtg
  • Special sessions to be held at WWRFR 37^th and 38^th meetings
  • Workshop* on Channel Modelling in the mmWAVE and THz regimes
  • Workshop* on Advanced Radio Communications Technologies for the mmWAVE and THz regimes
  • Input / presentation to ITU-R (WP5D and WP5A)
  • Input/presentation to NGMN, IEEE, etc
  • Presentation of the findings/conclusions of the WG at WWRF 39^thmtg

*Target conferences include EUCNC, PIMRC, ICC, WCNC

Chairs: 

Prof. Sudhir Dixit, Basic Internet Foundation and University of Oulu, sudhir.dixit@ieee.org

Simon Fletcher, Real Wireless, simon.fletcher@real-wireless.com

Mission

To peer into what is next to come after 5G (B5G) leading to the development of the  standards for 6G, required research into the enabling technologies and how it is likely to be  commercialized. Nothing succeeds without the compelling use cases, applications, and innovations in business models; therefore, this group will also be vigilant about these non-technical aspects to augment its work on technologies and standards to present a holistic view of the launch of the 6G era.

Scope

The 6G Vision and Technologies Group focuses on research that looks five to ten years ahead in order to meet the requirements of the networks in the year 2030 time-frame. The group looks into the gaps in 5G that would need to be filled, resulting into incremental changes to 5G, called B5G until such time that clear requirements of 6G have been determined and needed research areas identified.  The group also aims to study the emerging new use cases that will require 6G, and the potentially novel business models to justify investments that will be needed.

Methodology

• • Leverage academic research to develop technologies for B5G and 6G that drive and/or complement the standards activities
  • Provide relevant input from/to the stakeholders in order to maximize the advantages of B5G and 6G while addressing concerns with respect to security, trust and privacy
  • Develop WWRF as a bridge between the various stakeholders to provide input to help prepare for standardization
  • Develop ideas and concepts on how 6G will likely impact the various industry verticals, facilitating the telecom and vertical industries to jointly discuss the vision, usage scenarios and technical requirements
  • Develop use cases and study any gaps that may need to be addressed
  • Develop use cases and technical requirements for 5G and beyond support of the connected car and associated industries,
  • Work with other relevant global organizations with similar visions and interests as those of the WWRF
  • Publish white papers, articles and speak at the various leading networking events.

Areas of focus

• • Use cases or killer applications
  • All technology areas related to networking and adjacencies, such as AI, ML, blockchain
  • Evolution of networking to cloud and IT technologies, including SDN, virtualization, edge computing
  • IoT, M2M and M2H communications
  • Network management, operations support and administration
  • Community and federated architectures
  • Intersection of B5G and 6G with SDG goals to bridge the digital divide
  • Network sharing concepts
  • Green communications
  • Business models
  • Regulatory and policy related ideas and issues
  • Authentication, security and trust
  • Reliability and QoS.

Participation

The major companies, universities and organizations active in 5G, B5G and 6G are most welcome to join the 6G Working group.

Chair: Dr Costas Danas on e/m-Health Systems K.Danas@kingston.ac.uk

Vision

Develop an e/m-Health and wearables vertical industry paradigm to expose the requirements of such systems (HaaS) to be 5G enabled. Get the experts from this vertical industry involved in the WWRF VIP and beyond.

Objectives

The objectives of the e/m-Health and wearables Vertical Industry Platform (VIP) are to:

1. 1. Develop Application Scenarios
   2. Identify User Requirements, i.e. Develop a Framework for Successful HaaS Systems
   3. Identify Technical Requirements in collaboration with third parties (5G PPP, ITU-R, 3GPP, IEEE, ETSI) and e/m-Health and wearables stakeholders
   4. Provide business cases to demonstrate the new business models and value chains
   5. Prepare and demonstrate a 5G e/m-Health and wearables paradigm to wide audiences and stakeholders in Europe and beyond

Figure 1. 5G in e/m-Healthand wearables

The above objectives will be realised by investigating various evolutions in healthcare by selecting a specific domain and focusing on the following:

• • New care pathways (clinical processes)
  • Digital transformation of medical and pharmaceutical industries
  • Added value for healthcare data - big data in healthcare
  • Assisted living and prevention

Case study parameters (and KPIs)

• • 5G networks need to target:
    • low power consumption
    • cost efficiency
    • flexibility for future evolutions
  • But healthcare and wearables use cases will require:
    • homogenous experience from outdoor to deep-indoor
    • higher typical throughput per user/ application
    • Smart IoT
    • High security
    • Ultra Low Cost deployments
    • Emergency management
  • Develop Application scenarios (define, specify, develop)
  • User Requirements (identify stakeholders and industry players needs)
  • Technology Requirements in collaboration with WWRF stakeholders and partners
  • Include the e/m-Health and wearables VIP in the 5GIA pre-structuring model and create further collaborations with the 5G PPP

Stakeholders approached (and we have positive feddback)

• • Kingston University London, UK
  • Huawei, China
  • Orange, France
  • Cosmote, Greece
  • Real Wireless, UK
  • NHS Foundation Trust, UK
  • AHEPA Hospital, Greece
  • University of Sheffield, UK
  • Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece
  • Stanford University, USA
  • Intel, US and Germany
  • Vidavo, Greece
  • CTTC, Spain
  • 5G PPP – 5GIA (VIA)
  • 3GPP
  • EETT (Hellenic Telecoms and Posts Commission), Greece
  • Beijing University of Posts and Telecoms (BUPT), China

Chair: Prof. Lee, HyeonWoo, DanKook Univ. Korea woojaa@dankook.ac.kr

Vice Chair: Dr. Nigel Jefferies, Chair WWRF, chairman@wwrf.ch

Scope

The Vertical Industry Platzform (VIP) Rail study group focuses on research that looks five to ten years ahead to meet the requirements of the railway industries based on the next generation wireless technologies. It is also  aimed to identify and discuss new and vital use cases for these industries.

As the global process of developing the 5G (NR) platform is progressing at remarkable speed, both in terms of the identification of the market need, standardization aspects and spectrum related matters, where  sets of “pioneer bands” already has been adopted across Regions, a need is emerging to focus more closely on the Professional Sectors, in this case the national Train Service Authorities, and the potential benefits and hurdles for their future adoption of what today is known as 5G.

As train services across the world offer higher speed trains, the need for operational radio communications systems and Internet of Things (IoT) are also pushing this aim.

Security, reliability, safety, resilience, IoT and dependability are playing a focal role in future radio communication systems for efficient train operations.
Furthermore, VIP Rail study group should also consider participation in the ITU-R activities, that are being initiated based on the decisions of the  ITU-R World Radio Conference 2019regarding choice of harmonized  spectrum for train to track communications.

Objectives

• • Identify and investigate the new advanced key applications that determine the stringent requirements to 5G for modern trains
  • Study the applicability adopting 5G technologies for  train operations
  • Compare and study if and how the Time,- and Mission Critical train applications compare with requirements from other professional and land-mobile vertical sectors, such asPublic Safety, utilities, etc.  with the aim of the possible sharing of such professional 5G network resources applied in those s vertical sectors
  • Study the vital coexistence aspects between the passengers Internet access platform(s) and the train operations 5G system
  • Develop WWRF as a bridge between the railway industries and industry organizations such as 5GAA and the wireless standards organizations (such as 3GPP) to provide input to help prepare for ideal standardization
  • Leverage academic research to develop technologies for railways that complement developments in standards bodies. Provide relevant input to government and railway industry to maximize the advantages of new technologies while addressing growing concerns with respect to security and privacy.
  • Create a better understanding in the railway industry of the potential and capabilities of future wireless technologies.
  • Enable the telecom and railway industry to jointly discuss the vision, usage scenarios, requirements and enabling technologies to achieve the targets of future vertical industry communications in 5G and beyond.
  • Work with the global railway industry to highlight and develop opportunities enabled by 5G and beyondsuch as the UIC (European Union Agency for Railways) Future Radio Mobile Communications System (FRMCS) Project and other Global Initiatives
  • Provide relevant and timely input to standardization process (3GPP, ITU-R,  ITU-T, ETSI, etc.)
  • In particular for the EEA/ETSI, the TC TCCE for Critical Communications matters, the TC ERM for spectrum and EMC matters, the TC RRS for Reconfigurable Radio Systems /Software Defined Radio solutions, the TC ITS for Intelligent Transport Systems, the TC SAGE and TC CYBER for security matters and the ETSI TC SES for satellite communication matters.
  • Liaise where required with the regional spectrum authorities, one level under ITU-R, such as the CEPT/ECC, ATU, Arab Group, and other Regional Authorities….
  • Liaise where applicable with the EU Research Framework programmes, such as Horizon 2020 and in particular the forthcoming Horizon Europe Research Framework, that right now can be inspired/contributed to by the WWRF results related to 5G

Milestones and deliverables

Outputs include white papers and technical proposals which will be submitted to the major standardization bodies of 5G, including ITU and 3GPP.

• • Delivery of draft white paper

• • Deliver contributions to 3GPP and other organizations

• • Approval of final white paper

Participation

Invite major companies, universities, and organizations active in the area of railways

Chair: Professor Knud Erik Skouby skouby@cmi.aau.dk, 

Vice Chair: Professor Peter Lindgren peterli@btech.au.dk

Scope

The Vertical Industry Platform (VIP) focuses on research that looks five to ten years ahead on Business Models (BM´s)  supported and enabled by 5G and Beyond wireless technologies in order to meet the requirements of future Business Model Ecosystems (BMES). It also is aimed at the identification of user and business cases for these BM´s and BMES.

Objectives

• • Leverage academic research to develop technologies for Multi Business Model Innovation (MBMI) that complement developments in standards bodies.
  • Provide relevant input to government in order to maximize the advantages of MBMI technologies while addressing concerns with respect to security, privacy, trust, speed of MBMI.
  • Develop WWRF as a bridge between the Future 5G wireless technologies, MBMI and the wireless standards organizations (such as ETSI and ITU) to provide input to help prepare for standardization.
  • Create a better understanding of MBMI in Businesses, BMES of the potential, competences needed, capabilities, risks of Business Models and BMES embedded with future wireless technologies.
  • Enable the telecom, businesses and representatives from different BMES´s to jointly discuss the vision, usage scenarios, customers, network, requirements and enabling technologies to achieve the targets of future vertical and horizontal BMES business and communications in 5G and beyond.
  • Develop use-, business-, BMES cases and study any gaps that may need to be addressed with respect to existing and evolving standards for the support of related BM´s, BMES´s
  • Develop use-, business-, BMEs- cases and technical requirements for future Sensing and Persuasive 5G and beyond BM´s and BMES
  • Provide relevant and timely input to standardization processes (IEEE, ITU and ETSI)

Participation

Companies, universities and organizations have shown interest in the activities and will be contacted after the approved launch.

Contact

Knud Erik Skouby
Professor,
Center for Communication, Media and Information technologies
Aalborg University- Copenhagen
Post: AC Meyers Vænge 15; DK-2450 Copenhagen SV  Denmark
Visit: Frederikskaj Bldg.12, 3.Floor
Tel: +45 9940 7197

Peter Lindgren
Professor, PhD - Multi Business Model Innovation and Technology, Vice-president CTIF Global Capsule
Aarhus University
School of Business and Social Sciences
Birk Centerpark 15, Office: CGC LAB
DK-7400 Herning – Denmark
T: +45 29442211/ +45 23425504
M: peterli@btech.au.dk
www.au.dk
www.ctifglobalcapsule.org
http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/peter-lindgren(244bfceb-2a4c-4ef0-8c5a-34ad8238b5eb)/publications.html
W: http://www.riverpublishers.com/journal.php?j=JMBMIT/1/2
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aarhus-school-of-business?trk=company_logo