2nd Edition of ATHENA WORKSHOP

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Empowering 6G Networks: 2nd Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptive Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution (ATHENA 2025)

The ATHENA 2025 workshop focuses on the pivotal advancements required for 6G networks to become a reality. The core themes revolve around research infrastructures, adaptive frameworks, and the architectural evolution of future communication systems.

The motivation behind ATHENA 2025 is to provide a dedicated venue where experts can discuss next-generation testbeds, AI-driven network adaptability, and global connectivity solutions that transcend traditional network paradigms. With 6G expected to introduce ultra-low latency, AI-native architectures, and seamless integration of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, this workshop will serve as a vital forum to address technical challenges and propose groundbreaking solutions.

ATHENA 2025 complements the IEEE SDN/NFV 2025 conference by exploring how the softwarization of networks, virtualization techniques, and AI-driven optimizations will shape the transition to 6G. By bringing together academia, industry, and policymakers, this workshop fosters collaboration on key innovations driving the evolution from 5G to 6G.

The IEEE International Conference on SDN/NFV 2025 invites researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to submit their original contributions to the workshop titled “Empowering 6G Networks: Workshop on Advancements in Research Infrastructures, Adaptive Frameworks, and Global Architectural Evolution.”

Important Dates: (tentative)
– Paper Submission Deadline: 14/7/2025
– Acceptance Notification: 1/8/2024
– Camera-Ready Submission: 8/8/2024

The workshop authors/presenters shall perform a full conference registration, while the participants shall perform 1-day registration if they are planning to attend workshops organised in the same day or a full conference registration for attending workshops organised in different days.

The workshop is co-organised by aerOS project

A Novel Multiple Access Scheme for Heterogeneous Wireless Communications Using Symmetry-Aware Continual Deep Reinforcement Learning Journal Paper

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The Metaverse holds the potential to revolutionize digital interactions through the establishment of a highly dynamic and immersive virtual realm over wireless communications systems, offering services such as massive twinning and telepresence. This landscape presents novel challenges, particularly efficient management of multiple access to the frequency spectrum, for which numerous adaptive Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) approaches have been explored. However, challenges persist in adapting agents to heterogeneous and non-stationary wireless environments. In this paper, we present a novel approach that leverages Continual Learning (CL) to enhance intelligent Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols, featuring an intelligent agent coexisting with legacy User Equipments (UEs) with varying numbers, protocols, and transmission profiles unknown to the agent for the sake of backward compatibility and privacy. We introduce an adaptive Double and Dueling Deep Q-Learning (D3QL)-based MAC protocol, enriched by a symmetry-aware CL mechanism, which maximizes intelligent agent throughput while ensuring fairness. Mathematical analysis validates the efficiency of our proposed scheme, showcasing superiority over conventional DRL-based techniques in terms of throughput, collision rate, and fairness, coupled with real-time responsiveness in highly dynamic scenarios.

Find the paper online here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10908203

aerOS 7th Plenary Meeting

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aerOS 7th plenary meeting took place in MADE premises in Milan. Partners focused on presentations and discussions on technical aspects of the projects and pilot status. Also, pilot presentations and discussions on communication, dissemination and exploitation took place in the second day. The meeting: meeting ended with partners discussing impact, exploitation and OSS. Last but not least a presentation of MADE was made to all partners with a guided tour in MADE facilities.

Toward Building a Digital Twin for Network Operations and Management Journal Paper

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With the growth of telecommunication networks driven by resource-intensive applications, the expansion of IoT, the rise of data centers, and the advancements of 5G and future 6G networks, monitoring and maintenance are becoming increasingly important for network operators. In this sense, the Network Digital Twin (NDT) is emerging as a promising technology to mirror a network’s whole operational and management lifecycle to optimize its performance without compromising the real network. In this work, we propose an NDT solution supported by a new data integration methodology and a prototypical architecture for translating information from the network management domain into a knowledge-based interoperable model. Our case study shows how this NDT can be used to reveal the capabilities of real networks in terms of configuration and operational status, providing benefits for network control and management to facilitate the application of closed-loop network automation systems.

Find the paper online here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10919072