The fifth, in turn, 5G-PINE Workshop (https://www.5g-essence-h2020.eu/Contact/5GPine-Submission.aspx) following to the great success and the wider impact of its predecessors, has been established to disseminate knowledge obtained from actual 5G EU-funded projects as well as from any other action of research, in the wider thematic area of “5G Innovative Activities – Putting Intelligence to the Network Edge” and with the aim of focusing upon Artificial Intelligence (AI) in modern 5G telecommunications infrastructures.
The 5G-PINE Workshop 2020 had a strong impact in the broader context of the AIAI’2020 Conference (http://www.aiai2020.eu/), where the event has been hosted.
The 5G-PINE 2020 Workshop has been organised as a joint action of the 5G-DRIVE project together with the H2020/5G-PPP “5G ESSENCE” project and the H2020 “MOTOR5G” project.
The 5th 5G-PINE Workshop has supported delivery of intelligence directly to network’s edge, by exploiting the emerging paradigms of Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Slicing and Edge Cloud Computing. Moreover, it supported promotion of rich virtualisation and multi-tenant capabilities, optimally deployed close to the user. Inter-alia, it emphasized on the Small Cell (SC) concept, so as to support improved cellular coverage, capacity and applications in a fully dynamic and flexible manner with strong emphasis on vertical applications, based on well-defined scenarios and/or selective use cases as promoted by the detailed “5G ESSENCE” context. Another one important areas of interest has been around the original scope of the “5G-DRIVE” project promoting cooperation between EU and China, especially by discussing the proposed context for trials according to the corresponding European policy for realizing tests and trials, as well as by promoting the context for enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) applications and “Vehicle-to-Everything” (V2X) communications. Last but not least, among the pillars of the 5th 5G-PINE Workshop has also been the framework promoted by the ongoing H2020-MCSA-ITN “MOTOR-5G” project focusing on embedding artificial intelligence into 5G communication systems for the smarter use of network-generated data, the automated enabling of network operators and service providers to adapt to changes in traffic patterns, security risks and user behavior, thus paving the way towards safe and reliable next-generation wireless ecosystems.
Among the originally submitted 23 proposed papers, 12 have finally been accepted as full papers (acceptance ratio of 52%) due the high quality of the works and, most importantly, due to their strong relevance to ongoing EU-funded research activities –especially from the scope of the H2020/5G-PPP framework– thus promoting important innovations from current -and applied- 5G research activities and “harassing” incentives for growth, in most of the cases.
The accepted papers focused upon several innovative findings coming directly from modern European research in the area, that is from the 5G-PPP projects “5G-ESSENCE”, “5G-DRIVE”, “5G-PHOS”, “5GCity” and “5G-MEDIA”, the H2020 “DataPorts” and “YAKSHA” projects, as well as from the Spanish “SONAR 5G” Grant, all covering a wide variety of technical and business aspects and promoting options for growth and development in the respective market(s). One additional work also came from the H2020-MCSA-ITN “MOTOR-5G” project. The other accepted papers have covered broader aspects of current research activities in the respective domains, as briefly outlined before. All works were fully aligned to the objectives of the 5th 5G-PINE scope and introduced innovative aspects. Although the 5G-PINE 2020 Workshop has finally been realised virtually, it was a fully interactive and quite successful event that has fully achieved the predefined targets.