The traditional cloud centric IoT has clear limitations, e.g. unreliable connectivity, privacy concerns, or high round-trip times. IntellIoT overcomes these challenges in order to enable NG IoT applications. IntellIoT’s objectives aim at developing a framework for intelligent IoT environments that execute semi-autonomous IoT applications, which evolve by keeping the human-in-the-loop as an integral part of the system. Such intelligent IoT environments enable a suite of novel use cases. IntellIoT focuses on: Agriculture, where a tractor is semi-autonomously operated in conjunction with drones. Healthcare, where patients are monitored by sensors to receive advice and interventions from virtual advisors. Manufacturing, where highly automated plants are shared by multiple tenants who utilize machinery from third-party vendors. In all cases a human expert plays a key role in controlling and teaching the AI-enabled systems. The following 3 key features of IntellIoT’s approach are highly relevant for the work programme as they address the call’s challenges: (1) Human-defined autonomy is established through distributed AI running on intelligent IoT devices under resource-constraints, while users teach and refine the AI via tactile interaction (with AR/VR). (2) De-centralised, semi-autonomous IoT applications are enabled by self-aware agents of a hypermedia-based multi-agent system, defining a novel architecture for the NG IoT. It copes with interoperability by relying on W3C WoT standards and enabling automatic resolution of incompatibility constraints. (3) An efficient, reliable computation & communication infrastructure is powered by 5G and dynamically manages and optimizes the usage of network and compute resources in a closed loop. Integrated security assurance mechanisms provide trust and DLTs are made accessible under resource constraints to enable smart contracts and show transparency of performed actions.

The Social and hUman ceNtered XR (SUN) project aims at investigating and developing extended reality (XR) solutions that integrate the physical and the virtual world in a convincing way, from a human and social perspective. The virtual world will be a means to augment the physical world with new opportunities for social and human interaction. We will address the following limitations: ● Lack of solutions to develop scalable and cost-effective new XR applications; ● Lack of convincing solutions for mixing of the virtual and physical environment; ● Lack of plausible and convincing human interaction interfaces in XR; ● Barriers due to resource limitations of end-user devices; We will develop solutions to surpass current limitations, including: ● Development of scalable solutions to obtain plausible and convincing virtual copies of physical objects and environments; ● Development of solutions for a seamless and convincing interaction between the physical and the virtual world; ● Development of wearable sensors and haptic interfaces for convincing and natural interaction with the virtual environment; ● Development of artificial intelligence-based solutions to address current computing, memory, and network limitations of wearable devices; The developed solution will be demonstrated in three real-life scenarios: 1 XR for rehabilitation after accidents or diseases. 2 XR in the industry to increase safety and improve social interaction among workers. 3 XR to remove interaction barriers for persons with disabilities.

VERGE will tackle evolution of edge computing from three perspectives: “Edge for AI”, “AI for Edge” and security, privacy and trustworthiness of AI for Edge. “Edge for AI” defines a flexible, modular and converged Edge platform that is ready to support distributed AI at the edge. This is achieved by unifying lifecycle management and closed-loop automation for cloud-native applications, MEC and network services, while fully exploiting multi-core and multi-accelerator capabilities for ultra-high computational performance. “AI for Edge” enables dynamic function placement by managing and orchestrating the underlying physical, network, and compute resources. Application-specific network and computational KPIs will be assured in an efficient and collision-free manner, taking Edge resource constraints in to account. Security, privacy and trustworthiness of AI for Edge are addressed to ensure security of the AI-based models against adversarial attacks, privacy of data and models, and transparency in training and execution by providing explanations for model decisions improving trust in models. VERGE will verify the three perspectives through delivery of 7 demonstrations across two use cases - XR-driven Edge-enabled industrial B5G applications across two separate Arçelik sites in Turkey, and Edge-assisted Autonomous Tram operation in Florence. VERGE will disseminate results to academia, industry and the wider stakeholder community through liaisons and contributions to relevant standardization bodies and open sources, a series of demonstrations showing progression through TRLs and by creating an open dataspace for enabling public access to the datasets generated by the project.

UNITY-6G aims to create a highly sustainable and scalable integrated AI-native architecture that can support the diverse requirements of 6G networks by relying on advanced technologies, such as distributed ledger technology, semantic communications, digital network twinning to enhance the performance, cost-efficiency and trustworthiness of integrated 6G network services and applications. The focus is on scalability and sustainability for integrated networks (Non-Terrestrial and Terrestrial Networks, xHaul, Open RAN, Non-Public Networks, Edge, Core and Cloud). Furthermore, UNITY-6G aims to evolve to real-time distributed and network state-aware Open RAN that can leverage the integration of distributed applications in the integrated architecture. This will enable fine-grained data-driven management and control via incorporating dApps, distributed applications that complement existing xApps/rApps and use cases with stricter timing requirements in an integrated network. Common interfaces and protocols will be defined so that different heterogenous domains can communicate seamlessly. To better guide the design, UNITY-6G will use the principles of service-based architecture for integrated networks and leverage digital twins for network evaluation. UNITY-6G considers four use cases targeting: i) Sustainable networks for disaster handling, (ii) Immersive Experience with Real-time XR/holographic communications, (iii) Digital Twin for Integrated 6G Network Evaluation, (iv) Multi-RAT O-RAN enabled NPN for supporting time sensitive applications for Industry 4.0.

InfraStress addresses cyber-physical (C/P) security of Sensitive Industrial Plants and Sites (SIPS) Critical Infrastructures (CI) and improves resilience and protection capabilities of SIPS exposed to large scale, combined, C/P threats and hazards, and guarantee continuity of operations, while minimizing cascading effects in the infrastructure itself, the environment, other CIs, and citizens in vicinity, at reasonable cost. In fact, InfraStress will develop TRL4+ solutions from preceding research and innovation towards TRL7 level producing maximum adoption of the proposed methods and solutions. Addressing the current fragmentation of available security solutions and technology, InfraStress will provide an integrated framework including cyber and physical threat detection, integrated C/P Situational Awareness, Threat Intelligence, and an innovative methodology for resilience assessment – all tailored to each site. InfraStress adopts a user-driven approach carried out through: a) delivery of usable and user-friendly Services and Applications for C/P protection and resilience; b) technical activities driven by and receiving active input from end users, i.e. SIPS and relevant stakeholders; c) a comprehensive set of 5 real-world Pilots and Evaluation activities to be carried out by User partners. InfraStress matches key impacts not only in response to the Work Programme Call but also at Strategic, Socio-economic and Market levels. In fact InfraStress was conceived since the beginning with a strong business vision in mind and will carry out effective exploitation actions ensureing successful go-to-market. Tailored activities are also planned to rise a a culture of participatory security to involve all stakeholders including companies, workers, public authorities, citizens and civil society. InfraStress involves 27 partners of excellence from 11 countries with very cross-cutting and complementary competences and excellent track records, including 5 SIPS operators.