UNITY-6G Coordinator and Scientific Coordinator have co-authored two papers on network slicing that were presented and published in the IEEE Conference on Standards for Communications and Networking (CSCN) 2025 proceedings. Both studies contribute to advancing the understanding and practical deployment of network slicing—a foundational technology in 5G and future 6G systems—particularly within industrial and automation environments.
The first paper, “Network Slicing in the IIoT Era: Architectures, Blueprints, and Tooling Ecosystem,” provides a comprehensive examination of network slicing architectures for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. It bridges the gap between standards-based concepts and real-world implementations, proposing blueprint-driven designs and surveying tools for orchestration and monitoring.
The second paper, “Network Slicing for Industrial Automated Services,” delves into the applicability and challenges of slicing in smart manufacturing and process automation. It explores integration issues with legacy systems, safety certification requirements, and insights from EU testbeds such as 5G-VINNI and 5G-ERA, offering a critical view of when slicing truly adds value over simpler alternatives.
Together, these contributions highlight UNITY-6G’s role in shaping the future of reliable, deterministic, and scalable communication for industrial applications in the 6G era.
“Network Slicing in the IIoT Era: Architectures, Blueprints, and Tooling Ecosystem” abstract—Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications demand deterministic communication with high reliability, low latency, and adaptability to dynamic workloads. Network slicing, a key enabler in 5G and beyond, offers the potential to meet these stringent requirements by creating logically isolated and customized network partitions.
This paper presents a comprehensive study on the design and realization of network slicing tailored for IIoT systems. Our aim is to bridge the gap between standards-driven network slicing concepts and their practical application in industrial automation networks. First, we analyze both core and radio access network (RAN) perspectives, emphasizing slice-specific architectural considerations and mapping them to 3GPP standards. Then, we propose a blueprint-based design approach for edge-centric slice deployment and present a catalogue of lightweight, standardised slice profiles derived from 3GPP specifications and testbed experiences in the literature. In addition, we survey an array of open-source and commercial tools used for slice provisioning, orchestration, and monitoring.
Index Terms: IIoT, slice blueprint, tooling, network slicing.
Read the full paper to learn more.
“Network Slicing for Industrial Automated Services” abstract—With the advent of Industry 4.0, the need for advanced network architectures capable of supporting diverse, latency-sensitive, and safety-critical applications has intensified. Network slicing, a central enabler in 5G and beyond, offers the ability to create multiple logically isolated network instances tailored to specific industrial use cases.
In this paper, we analyse the suitability and limitations of network slicing in the context of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments, especially in the area of smart manufacturing and process automation. In addition to design considerations, we critically analyse deployment challenges such as legacy system integration, safety certification (IEC 61508/62443), orchestration overhead and latency determinism. Real-world insights from EU testbeds (5G-VINNI, 5G-ERA) and industry pilots (5G-ACIA) are integrated to show practical gaps between theory and practise. We also consider when slicing is justified over simpler alternatives such as static QoS provisioning or time sensitive network overlays.
Index Terms: Network Slicing, Industry Automation, Network Services.
Read the full paper to learn more.
