ITIS launches collaboration with European Special Agency to integrate 5G and 6G with Satellite

A delegation from the European 6G-SANDBOX project, in which the Institute of Software Technology and Engineering of the University of Malaga participates, visited the European Space Agency (ESA) research centres on 24 and 25 January to promote a common research agenda for the integration of 5G/6G terrestrial (TN) and non-terrestrial (NTN) networks.

6G-SANDBOX is a project funded under the European Smart Network and Services (SNS) initiative and aims to provide a complete end-to-end 5G/6G experimental platform for the other SNS projects and the European 6G ecosystem.

The delegation consisted of Michael Dieudonne (Keysight), Pedro Merino and Delia Rico (ITIS UMA) and David Artuñedo (Telefónica), who presented the entire project to ESA and explained the work to be carried out on the Malaga platform with a large project (Victoria Network) awarded to the Institute of Software Technology and Software Engineering (ITIS) by Next Generation EU.

The meeting at ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) in the UK defined plans with the 5G/6G Hub team led by Antonio Franchi to connect the Malaga platform at ITIS to ECSAT to demonstrate NTN capabilities in use cases such as augmented reality. The visit to the European Space Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands with the team led by Xavier Lobao and Maria Guta was the starting point for defining the capabilities of the NTN gateway to be deployed at ITIS. Both activities will contribute to the 6G SANDBOX offering for European Smart Grids and Services (SNS) projects.

The joint research agenda will exploit synergies to maximise the impact of ESA, SNS and EU Next Generation funding to make a significant contribution to the development of 5G/6G NTNs.