CELTIC Awards Honor Three Outstanding Projects in Green Networking, Applications, and 6G Innovation

At the CELTIC 21st Anniversary Ceremony co-located with the Berlin 6G Platform Event at BCC in Berlin, Germany on 2nd of July 2024, 3 projects won the CELTIC award for their outstanding work. One of these projects have been awarded for their excellence in the areas of green networking, and another one for excellent achievements in the category of applications and services. The Third was honoured with the Innovation Award for its outstanding innovations and high number of key performance indicators.

The awards were presented to the winners by the CELTIC-NEXT Chairperson Mr. David Kennedy from Eurescom as well as by the representative of the Public Authority Mrs Juana Sanchez (CDTI, Spain).

CELTIC-NEXT Innovation Award:

AI-NET – Accelerating digital ­transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork automation

The Innovation Award 2024 was handed over to the overall project leader Mr Achim Autenrieth, ADTRAN, Germany.

AI-NET has achieved remarkable progress in 6G enabling technologies, complementing existing 5G solutions with a focus on edge-centric compute and artificial intelligence. These advancements are seen as instrumental in shaping new, secure services and application platforms. Notably, AI-NET has successfully demonstrated excellent results in developing sustainable compute platforms that support AI on top of the communications system. Additionally, AI-NET has introduced highly competitive solutions, particularly in the area of energy-efficient edge data centres. These solutions are nearing the performance of leading hyper-scaler technologies, achieving a power usage effectiveness (PUE) in the range of 1.0 to 1.2 PUE.

This clearly highlights the competitive edge the project has achieved in addressing global challenges, contributing to Europe’s future prosperity and competitiveness. The project has demonstrated scientific excellence in the area of future 6G technologies, while also meeting ambitious key performance indicators (KPIs) crucial to securing future markets for 6G deployment.

In total, 316 scientific publications in leading international journals and conferences, supported by 184 PhD and Master’s theses, have been successfully accepted and completed. A strong business impact is anticipated from 72 contributions to intellectual property rights (IPR), open-source projects, and standards. The project’s excellence is further emphasized by 77 Proof of Concepts, 70 keynote presentations, and the hiring of 43 professionals.

The project focused on timely solutions for enhancing security, sustainability, performance, and cost efficiency of AI in future telecom networks. This included energy metering in real industrial environments, hybrid IT management solutions, and incremental manufacturing processes. Furthermore, optimized power distribution, in synergy with network management, and lightweight software layer solutions offer telecom customers an effective entry point to access telco cloud services. New AI algorithms featuring federated learning (FL) alongside unlearning techniques, coupled with overfitting parameter analysis and smart clustering solutions, have demonstrated significant potential for large-scale data savings when deployed on a computing platform.

CELTIC Excellence Award for Green Networking:

AI4Green – Artificial Intelligence for Green networks

The Excellence Award 2024 in the category green networking was handed over to the project leader Mrs Cicek Cavdar from KTH, Sweden.

AI4Green addresses the critical need for energy-efficient and advanced algorithms that span the entire telecommunications ecosystem, from radio access and core networks to data centers and storage. With a focus on adapting to new architectures and integrating smart grid technologies, the project has been pivotal in pushing for sustainable solutions. It set ambitious energy-saving targets of 30-40%, yet exceeded these goals through AI-driven enhancements in energy savings and fault detection. The outcomes of AI4Green range from pioneering research to tangible products and contributions to standardization efforts.

High energy savings were consistently achieved through advanced techniques, such as implementing AI-driven sleep modes that adaptively manage network resources. AI4Green’s data analysis leveraged vast datasets, including environmental monitoring (radar data and signal propagation), operator network metrics (traffic, deployment, and performance), and mobile user data (crowdsourced insights and usage patterns). Testing on live operator networks provided real-world validation, with a significant pilot conducted in one of Istanbul’s busiest areas. Here, AI-assisted sector and carrier shutdowns demonstrated 14% energy savings, with an additional 10% improvement over traditional model-based approaches for selective sector deactivation.

In scenarios with fluctuating demand, such as large gatherings or events, AI-enabled mobility prediction was instrumental in optimizing energy usage. By forecasting crowd movements in real-time, energy-saving modes could be activated selectively across more than 50% of cells for extended periods—achieving substantial savings post-event, such as five hours after a major football game in Istanbul’s city center.

AI4Green also advanced novel architectures like cell-free massive MIMO atop virtualized cloud RAN. Here, intelligent access point clustering and selective deactivation with AI reduced energy usage, particularly through 5G base stations with large antenna arrays configured to exploit advanced sleep modes. These methods achieved energy savings surpassing 30%, demonstrating the power of combining AI with deep-sleep functionalities in modern telecom networks.

AI also enabled efficient fault detection, eliminating the need for extensive drive testing by utilizing robust data analytics and predictive algorithms. By integrating AI into core operations, AI4Green has contributed essential solutions to building energy-efficient, sustainable telecommunications networks for the future.

CELTIC-NEXT Excellence Award for Services and Applications:

5GPerfecta – 5G and next-generation mobile Performance compliance testing assurance

The Excellence Award 2024 in the category of applications and services has been handed over to the project coordinator Mr Antonio Cuadra Sánchez, Minsait, Spain.

The project made significant contributions to analyzing and supervising 5G network performance, developing technologies for 5G monitoring, and overseeing 5G services, applications, and measurement devices. With 5G deployment under way and ongoing demand for insights and optimizations, the project is of high relevance to real-world business operations for telecom operators and service providers. Its impact is underscored by its early alignment with the practical needs of 5G deployment, making it particularly valuable for operators looking to maximize network efficiency and service quality from the outset.

A balanced consortium drove the project’s success, bringing together operators, vendors of 5G equipment, small and medium enterprises, and academic institutions. This diverse partnership enabled a broad spectrum of use cases relevant to business, covering essential 5G service categories—enhanced broadband, mission-critical applications, remote machine operations, and IoT services.

The project’s outcomes reflect high quality, as shown by 86 contributions to the broader 5G technology landscape through 5G PERFECTA, which facilitates the dissemination of key innovations. These contributions include 37 publications in prestigious international journals, conferences, and symposiums, seven currently under review, one PhD thesis, nine MSc theses, 10 contributions to standards bodies (ITU-T, VQEG, and TM Forum), and participation in 22 exhibitions and events.

This high perceived quality has been reinforced by direct feedback from seven major exhibitions and events, including the CELTIC-NEXT Event at EUCNC 2019 in Valencia, the VQEG Meeting in Shenzhen, AfricaCom 2019, 5G Forum Day in May 2021, 5G World London 2020, and the joint workshop between CELTIC-NEXT projects in October 2020. These events provided valuable platforms for industry feedback, demonstrating the project’s influence and relevance in advancing 5G standards, innovation, and business applications globally.

Awardees of Innovation Awards 2024

CELTIC-NEXT website – https://www.celticnext.eu/