Title: Multimodal Wireless Remote Control for Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

Nowadays, the increasing availability of commercial off-the-shelf underwater acoustic and non-acoustic (e.g., optical and electromagnetic) modems that can be employed for both short-range broadband and long-range low-rate communication, the increasing level of autonomy of underwater vehicles, and the refinement of their underwater navigation systems pave the way for several new applications, such as data muling from underwater sensor networks and the transmission of real-time video streams underwater. In addition, these new developments inspired many companies to start designing hybrid wireless-driven underwater vehicles specifically tailored for off-shore operations and that are able to behave either as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) or as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), depending on both the type of mission they are required to perform and the limitations imposed by underwater communication channels. In this talk, we will discuss the actual quality of service (QoS) achievable with an underwater wireless-piloted vehicle, addressing the realistic aspects found in the underwater domain, first reviewing the current state-of-the-art of communication technologies and then proposing the list of application streams needed for control of the underwater vehicle, grouping them in different working modes according to the level of autonomy required by the off-shore mission. The proposed system is finally evaluated by employing the DESERT Underwater framework by specifically analyzing the QoS that can be provided to each application stream when using a multimodal underwater communication system specifically designed to support different traffic-based QoSs.

Biography

Filippo Campagnaro received the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees from the University of Padova, Italy, in 2012 and 2014, respectively. In 2014, he joined the SIGNET Group, within the Department of Information Engineering of the same university, as a Research Engineer. In October 2019 he completed the Ph.D. program in Information Engineering and joined the same department as a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer of ICT master courses. In January 2022 he became a Research Assistant Professor. His Ph.D. thesis involves the design and the evaluation of multimodal underwater optical and acoustic networks, with a particular focus on simulation and field experimentation (defence scheduled for February 2020). Filippo has joined many sea trials with the NATO STO CMRE (La Spezia, Italy), EvoLogics GmbH (Berlin, Germany), ENEA (Rome, Italy), and the IMDEA Network Institute (Madrid, Spain). He has been the Technical Manager of the MarTERA RoboVaaS project, and collaborates with the European Defence Agency project SALSA. His current work involves software development for the DESERT Underwater framework as well as the design of novel communication stacks and architectures, with special attention to cross-layer and multi-technology designs.

His research interests mainly involve the design, analysis, implementation, and field evaluation of multimodal underwater networks.

Since 2017, he has collaborated with Wireless and More srl, a spin-off company of the University of Padova.

Title: The Path Towards AI-Native Wireless 6G Systems

Abstract

The success of the sixth generation (6G) of wireless systems is contingent upon instilling native artificial intelligence (AI) across the system's components, processes, protocols, and devices. However, the design of an AI-native wireless system requires advances to today's AI techniques -- from reinforcement learning to edge learning -- in order to bring them closer to the realm of human, brain-like intelligence. These advances include the creation of reliable and generalizable AI algorithms that can reason over small data and the development of distributed edge learning algorithms that can operate with minimal training and latency overhead in distributed, large-scale, and heterogeneous systems. Without such advances, many of the promises of 6G systems, such as connected autonomy and semantic communications, may not be realized. In this talk, we provide a holistic overview on the current and future state of AI designs for wireless systems, with a focus on enhancing reliability, generalizability, latency,  and reasoning capabilities. We then discuss key use cases including the design of reliable, low-latency, generalizable reinforcement  learning for wireless resource management and drone trajectory control and the design of reasoning algorithms for semantic communication, and, if time permits, the role of co-design of communications, AI, and control systems.

Biography

Walid Saad (S’07, M’10, SM’15, F’19) received his Ph.D degree from the University of Oslo in 2010. He is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Network sciEnce, Wireless, and Security (NEWS) laboratory. He is also the Next-G Wireless research leader at Virginia Tech's Innovation Campus.   His research interests include wireless networks (5G/6G/beyond), machine learning, game theory, security, unmanned aerial vehicles, semantic communications, cyber-physical systems, and network science. Dr. Saad is a Fellow of the IEEE. He is also the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2013 and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 2015. He was the author/co-author of eleven conference best paper awards at WiOpt in 2009, ICIMP in 2010, IEEE WCNC in 2012, IEEE PIMRC in 2015, IEEE SmartGridComm in 2015, EuCNC in 2017, IEEE GLOBECOM in 2018, IFIP NTMS in 2019, IEEE ICC in 2020 and 2022, and IEEE GLOBECOM in 2020. He is the recipient of the 2015 and 2022 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, of the 2017 IEEE ComSoc Best Young Professional in Academia award, of the 2018 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee Early Achievement Award, and of the 2019 IEEE ComSoc Communication Theory Technical Committee. He was also a co-author of the 2019 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper and of the 2021 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper.  He is the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in  Communications and Networking.

Title: Federated and Split learning for collaborative control-type applications. 

Abstract

This talk will present an overview of collaborative and federated control  through the lens of edge AI and control, in which agents collaboratively solve task-specific goals in a communication-efficient and privacy-preserving manner. Some recent results targetting terrestrial and aerial vehicles scenarios will be presented.

Biography

Dr Mehdi Bennis is a full (tenured) Professor at the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland and head of the intelligent connectivity and networks/systems group (ICON). His main research interests are in radio resource management, game theory and distributed AI in 5G/6G networks. He has published more than 200 research papers in international conferences, journals and book chapters. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including the 2015 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2016 Best Tutorial Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2017 EURASIP Best paper Award for the Journal of Wireless Communications and Networks, the all-University of Oulu award for research, the 2019 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee Early Achievement Award and the 2020 Clarviate Highly Cited Researcher by the Web of Science. Dr Bennis is an editor of IEEE TCOM and Specialty Chief Editor for Data Science for Communications in the Frontiers in Communications and Networks journal. Dr Bennis is an IEEE Fellow.

Title: UAV swarm solutions and applications

Abstact

Communications between UAVs enable all sorts of collaborative tasks, including the creation of UAV swarms, whereby UAVs move according to a certain flight formation that is optimally defined for a certain target application. In this context, achieving a self-organized swarm that is both flexible and resilient is a challenging task that must be properly addressed to avoid collisions and maximize efficiency. This talk will provide an overview of some major challenges in the UAV area, detailing different solutions developed at the GRC lab to achieve safe and reliable takeoff and flight of large UAV swarms, analyzing the different tradeoffs involved. In addition, example applications for such swarms using AI techniques will be presented and discussed.

Biography

Carlos Tavares Calafate is a full professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at the Technical University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain. He graduated with honors in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Oporto (Portugal) in 2001. He received his Cum Laude Ph.D. degree in Informatics from the Technical University of Valencia in 2006, where he has worked since 2002. His research interests include ad-hoc and vehicular networks, UAVs, Smart Cities & IoT, QoS, network protocols, video streaming, and network security. To date he has published more than 450 articles, several of which in journals including IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Elsevier Ad hoc Networks and IEEE Communications Magazine. He is associate editor for several international journals from editorials including Elsevier, Hindawi, MDPI, IET, and SAGE, and has participated in the TPC of more than 250 international conferences. He is ranked among the World's Top 2% Scientists, and also among the top 100 Spanish researchers in the Computer Science & Electronics field. He is a founding member of the IEEE SIG on Big Data with Computational Intelligence and the IEEE SIG on Green Internet of Vehicles. 

Title: Toward Equitable 6G Access Service: Aerial and Underwater Cloud-Enabled Platforms

Abstract

Driven by the surging need for seamless connectivity, wireless communication services have dramatically evolved over the years to meet the increasing demand for capacity and coverage. Such evolution concurs with a notable increase in data traffic, thereby inflicting stringent requirements on aerial, terrestrial, and underwater networks. To this end, this talk invigorates a new connectivity solution that integrates wireless systems with both high-altitude platform station (HAPS) and underwater networks so as to promote an equitable, sustainable, and immersive connectivity landscape. The first part of this talk focuses on a connectivity framework that considers a cloud-enabled HAPS, connected to terrestrial base stations and hot-air balloons via a data-sharing fronthauling strategy. Under such a realm, the transmitting modules are grouped into clusters to coordinate transmission strategies to serve both aerial and terrestrial users. The talk then focuses on optimizing the downlink of such cloud-enabled HAPS systems under practical system considerations, namely the limited transmit power and limited capacity fronthaul constraints. The talk then addresses the problems of maximizing both the system throughput and the system load-balancing, via the joint design of user scheduling and users’ beamforming vectors. In a complementary direction, the second part of the talk then proposes augmenting underwater engineering systems with a cloud-based connectivity platform as a paradigm shift for upscaling underwater communication networks and their applications. The envisioned underwater cloud-assisted network (UCAN) jointly provides underwater computing, processing, communication, and acquisition whilst benefiting from the cooling features of the aquatic environment. The talk explores the opportunities stemming from such deployment, e.g., resource management, natural cooling, and underwater intelligence. The talk finally highlights the challenges and open issues arising from such futuristic cloud-enabled underwater communication networks, and ways of their integration with future 6G systems.

Biography

Hayssam Dahrouj (S'02, M'11, SM'15) received his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto (UofT), Canada, in 2010. Since August 2022, he has been with the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Sharjah, UAE, where he is currently an associate professor. Prior to that, he was with the Center of Excellence for NEOM Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as a senior research scientist. From June 2015 to June 2020, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Effat University as an assistant professor, and a visiting scholar at the Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) division at KAUST, where he also was a research associate between April 2014 and May 2015. Prior to joining KAUST, Prof. Dahrouj was an industrial postdoctoral fellow at  the University of Toronto, in collaboration with BLiNQ Networks Inc., Kanata, Canada, where he worked on developing practical solutions for the design of non-line-of sight wireless backhaul networks. During his doctoral studies at UofT, he pioneered the idea of coordinated beamforming as a means of minimizing intercell interference in a distributed fashion across multiple base stations. The journal paper on this subject was ranked second in the 2013 IEEE Marconi paper awards in wireless communications. Prof. Dahrouj is the recipient of both the faculty award of excellence in research, and the faculty award of excellence in teaching (at the university level) in May 2017. He is a senior member of the IEEE, an editor of the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, an associate editor of the Frontiers in Communications and Networks, and a lead-guest editor of the Frontiers special issue on Resource Allocation in Cloud-Radio Access Networks and Fog-Radio Access Networks for B5G Systems. His main research interests include 6G wireless systems, integrated space-air-ground networks, machine learning for wireless communications, underwater communications, convex optimization, and distributed algorithms.

Title: 6G Collective Intelligence: a glimpse through the lens of Robotics

Abstract

Whilst first commercial deployments of the next 6th Generation Cellular Networks are estimated to land in 2030, bringing ubiquitous intelligence, hyper-connectivity, merging physical and cyber domains, triggering new usages and services, the Robotics market size is forecast to reach USD 214.68 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 22.8% by 2030, with a valuation of approximately USD 340 billion by the end of 2040. We’ll thus highlight key usages and services within the wide domain of robotics that start to benefit from 5G/B5G, and that will be reinforced and upscaled thanks to 6G technology.

Biography

Dr. Thierry Lestable is the Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence & Digital Science Research Center (AIDRC), which includes AI Dept, Digital Telecom Dept & Digital Security Dept, reporting to Chief Researcher Prof. Mérouane Debbah, within the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi.

Before this, Dr. Lestable was Director, created and led the e-Mobility & Automotive Business Department from Sagemcom, addressing challenges raising from Intelligent & Connected Vehicles (ADAS/DMS, Video Telematics), to micro-mobility (electric batteries). Dr. Lestable nailed down 2 Telematics contracts with French Car OEM Manufacturer (Renault), and was elected as member of the Steering Committee from FIEV Federation, which represents Automotive Equipment Suppliers, where he promoted the benefits of A.I for road safety, and organized the first AI event in Paris in June 2022.

Prior to Automotive, he was heading the Industrial IoT Business Department (30M€ T.O), designing and manufacturing connected devices for the industry (Smart City, Smart Grid, …), rolling out LPWAN Networks worldwide (France, Oman).

Earlier, as Head of IoT Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, he actively participated to the Launch of IoT LoRa™ Alliance, being granted the position of Vice-chair for the Strategy Committee in June 2015, then from October 2015 till 2017 was the Vice-Chairman of the Alliance.

In 2018, he was the recipient of the LoRa Alliance Leadership Award for his role and contribution to create and steer the Alliance.

In 2016, Dr. Lestable was identified amongst the 20 most active IoT’s French influencers.

Whilst head of Innovation, CTO group of Sagemcom, besides driving technology roadmap amongst 3 subsidiaries, and chairing Expert group (60ppl), successfully created 2 Major LTE/4G European Research Projects (FP7), BeFEMTO (9,9M€, 2010-2012) and EXALTED (10.2M€, 2010-2013).

In 2009, Dr. Lestable was nominated as the first Emeritus Expert in Sagemcom group. To this date, there are only 2,

From 2004 to 2008, Dr. Lestable was leading the Research & Standardization team in SAMSUNG UK (London), investigating IMT-Advanced (4G) systems, contributing to IEEE 802.16m, WiMAX evolution, and created the very first European Project led by Asian company (Samsung), called DAVINCI project.

From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Lestable was leading B3G/4G team in Shangai, whilst working on B3G/4G Wireless Video & Multi-Carrier Communication Systems.

Dr. Lestable has 25 years’ experience in the Telecom, Mobility and Energy industry, steering industrial innovation, from spark of ideas to prototypes, products, standards, and systems, rolling-out networks, whilst leading new business development, within organizations such as Alcatel, Samsung, and Sagemcom.

He received Eng. Degree from Supélec in 1997, and Ph.D, in 2003 from Supélec/Paris Sud-Orsay.

Dr. Lestable is author of 35+ international publications, 20+ patents, editor of 1 Wiley Book on Advanced Channel Coding, co-author in 2 Wiley Books on B3G/4G systems, was Telecom Expert for the European Commission, Eureka Cluster CELTIC, and the French National Research Agency (ANR). He was Chair of the M2M Expert Group in eMobility European Technology Platform. In 2010, Dr. Lestable was member of the Telecom Steering committee of Systematic, a competitiveness pole, and created the IoT/M2M course in Supélec, where he was visiting lecturer for 7 years.

Title: MAD about FANETs

Abstract

Flying Ad Hoc NETworks (FANETs) have received a lot of attention lately for their flexibility and low acquisition costs, which make them a powerful solution for many applications, from emergency-critical to government-official missions, from smart-city to smart-farm scenarios. The increasing attention of lawmakers witnesses the growing awareness that drones are here to stay and be an integral part of our monitoring, surveillance, and delivery systems. Their application is proposed in a wide range of services, while the Internet of Flying Things is becoming a reality.

The need for collaboration among the multiple devices composing a FANET brings about the need to study their communications with a completely novel approach that takes account of the peculiarities of device mobility and applications’ requirements.

Unlike with MANETs, the mobility of FANET devices is controllable and can be incorporated into a cross-layer approach to communications. Research on protocol design and network performance also requires a new approach that considers the peculiar aspects of FANETs that make them different from any other existing network paradigm.

In this talk, we explore some of the most recent approaches to exploiting mobility for facilitating communications in aerial networks, incorporating mobility decisions in communication protocols and algorithms for a Mobility Assisted Delivery (MAD), and we analyze the deriving tradeoff between application and communication needs.

Biography

Novella Bartolini is a full professor in the Department of Computer Science of the Sapienza University of Rome, where she leads the Multi-Agent and Networking group. Novella received her Ph.D. from the University of Rome in 2001. She was a Visiting Professor at Penn State University from 2014 to 2017. She has received several awards for her work on mobile robot coordination and the application of artificial intelligence to multi-agent systems, including the Sapienza Ricerca award and two Faculty Awards from JPMorgan Chase. Her research focuses on robotic networks, multi-agent systems, and network management. She serves on the Editorial Board of IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING. She can be reached at novella@di.uniroma1.it.