DLR (German Aerospace Center) is the Federal Republic of Germany’s research center for aeronautics and space. DLR conducts research and development activities in the fields of aeronautics, space, energy, transport, security, and digitalization. DLR participates in UNITY-6G through the Satellite Networks department, part of the Institute of Communications and Navigation, which has long-standing experience in research and industry projects related to satellite communications.
DLR is involved in all design, development, and integration activities carried out in the project, with a special focus on the use cases involving NTN components. In particular, DLR will actively contribute to the use of AI-based solutions for optimizing network orchestration and slicing functions in an O-RAN-based architecture, and will investigate the potential of semantic communications within the overall UNITY-6G system architecture.
UNITY-6G is important for DLR due to the strategic objective of global connectivity, which is one of the top priorities within the Institute of Communications and Navigation. In this regard, the main expectation is to further the integration of TN and NTN into a 6G ecosystem by acquiring new knowledge in this context and consolidating DLR’s position as one of the leading research organizations in Europe in this field.
The key people involved in the project are Tomaso de Cola (DLR project lead and responsible for the contribution to the architecture definition) and Purva Joshi (DLR lead for design and development activities).
The UNITY-6G project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 101192650. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
This work has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).