TeraWireless — Wireless Networks at Optical Speed with Deterministic Performance

Future networks will support several applications that require extending fiber-optic quality of experience to wireless links. This means connectivity at extremely high data rates with deterministic performance (guaranteed requirements in terms of reliability and time response). Virtual avatar presence, traffic control, autonomous driving, remote health monitoring, cyber physical systems for intelligent transportation, industrial automation are only a few examples of anticipated use cases. Owing to the large amount of available bandwidth, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute has identified terahertz (THz) as a key technology for future wireless networks. TeraWireless is the first EU training-through-research industrial doctoral network of doctoral candidates and senior supervisors fully committed to lay the theoretical, algorithmic, and architectural foundations for enabling THz systems at optical speed with deterministic performance. TeraWireless will 1) put forth the innovative ultra-MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) technology for increasing the data rate and link reliability through spatial multiplexing and superdirective beamforming, and will pioneer the development of electromagnetic and communication models for evaluating its performance in low-scattering THz channels, where multipath propagation cannot be exploited, by integrating sensing, localization, communication capabilities; 2) leverage the emerging concept of semantic and goal-oriented communications by folding message semantics and goals of communication within communication layers; 3) develop innovative physics-based ML solutions for energy-efficient, robust, reliable, and explainable-by-design implementations; 4) make available to the research community the EU’s and world’s first open-access and open-source simulation environment - integrating ray tracing, link-level, and system-level features - for evaluating and optimizing THz large-scale deterministic networks at optical speed.