CHARISMA project develops new 5G network architecture with higher bandwidth and lower latency to enable resilient and secure cloud services for mobile users

November 6th, 2015: The CHARISMA[1] project is funded by the European Commission (Horizon 2020 program) within the 5G Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) initiative under the grant agreement No: 671704. It develops a new 5G Open Access network architecture where the same physical network is shared by multiple fixed and mobile services. On top of multiple physical layers, intelligent hierarchical routing is enabled and a new end-to-end security service is provided via physical layer security (PLS). The project aims to fulfill the 5G PPP key performance indicators (KPIs) such as 1.000x higher speed, 100x more devices and 5x reduced latency for the wireless Internet of things (IoT).

The CHARISMA project further develops physical layer technologies, such as 10G-point-to-point wireless links based on mm-wave (60 GHz), free-space optics (FSO) and a new passive optical network (PON) solution based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM-PON). These technologies enable the implementation of an intelligent cloud radio-access network (C-RAN) connecting intelligent remote radio heads (RRHs) to a central baseband unit (BBU) by using IPv6 Trust Node routing featuring very low-latency for the traffic management. Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) virtualization platform ease the deployment of advance networking CPE devices together with intelligence distributed across the back-, front-hauls, and perimetric data transports. Ad-hoc mobile device interconnectivities (Device-to-Device (D2D), Device-to-Infrastructure (D2I), Cloud-to-Cloud (C2C) etc.), content delivery network (CDN) and mobile distributed caching (MDC) offer an energy-efficient (better than x20 improvement possible) information-centric networking (ICN) architecture.

CHARISMA’s flexible and programmable control and management plane is enabled by the Software Defined Network (SDN) technology (Open network-as-a-Service (OpenNaaS) platform) offering to mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) the required functionality allowing additional cost savings. In addition, Network Function Virtualizations (NFVs) will provide distributed security with self-configured setup of secure and fast virtualised sub-networks permitting new applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) and instantaneous machine-type communications (MTC) control.

CHARISMA solution will provide enhanced user experience with ground-breaking low-latency services, high-bandwidth and mobile cloud resilient network security. Field trials will validate the proposed 5G architecture, demonstrating the intelligent end-to-end virtualized security platform, for ultra-low latency (low jitter) high-performance (high Quality of Service / Experience – QoS/E) applications across multiple domains and cells.

CHARISMA consortium consists of a team of organizations covering the complete spectrum from advanced research to the market. The composition of the consortium is well balanced including highly-skilled partners with a proven track record in network security on physical layer, cross-layer, virtualization and application. A total of thirteen organizations from 9 different countries (France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and UK) composes CHARISMA consortium. The partnership includes five SMEs (InnoRoute, INCITES, JCP-CONNECT, APFutura, and Ethernity       Networks), three research centres (Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya, National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos” and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V), one University (University of Essex), two operators (TeleKom Slovenia and COSMOTE), one equipment vendors (Intracom), and one network solutions provider (Portugal Telecom Innovaçao e Sistemas). CHARISMA project coordinator is i2CAT while the University of Essex performs the Technical management role.

More Info:

About Horizon 2020

Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market. For more info: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/what-horizon-2020

About 5G PPP initiative

The 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership, in short 5G PPP, has been initiated by the EU Commission (as part of Horizon 2020 with a budget of €700 million in public funding) and industry manufacturers, telecommunications operators, service providers, SMEs and researchers. The 5G PPP will deliver solutions, architectures, technologies and standards for the ubiquitous next generation communication infrastructures of the coming decade.

The challenge for the 5G PPP is to secure Europe’s leadership in the particular areas where Europe is strong or where there is potential for creating new markets such as smart cities, e-health, intelligent transport, education or entertainment & media. The 5G PPP initiative will reinforce the European industry to successfully compete on global markets and open new innovation opportunities. For more info: https://5g-ppp.eu/

Contact

For more information and questions, please contact our project co-ordinator:

Dr. Eduard Escalona

Email: charisma-contact@i2cat.net

Web: http://www.charisma5g.eu/

[1] Converged Heterogeneous Advanced 5G Cloud-RAN Architecture for Intelligent and Secure Media Access