Timely and Sustainable Information Management in 6G Networks (TIMIN6)

Digital and Green transformations on one hand rely on increasing the amount of accurate, meaningful and readily available information, and on the other hand require communication networks and information systems to reduce their energy consumption and operate in a more energy efficient manner – essentially requesting more and better information with less energy spent. In fact, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) contribute significantly to global CO2 emissions. In 2020, CO2 emissions from ICT reached 2.3% of the total, with wireless communications responsible for 1%. Such a level of emissions is comparable to that of often criticised air traffic. Given the increasing demand for ICT services and the expansion of 5G and upcoming 6G networks, it is crucial to address the issue of energy waste in telecommunication networks as part of designing new approaches for increased information delivery and not separately as an “afterthought”. To tackle this issue, the TIMIN6 project will create a framework for sustainable data collection in future 6G networks, to investigate new ways to exploit the meaning, importance and usefulness of the information conveyed by the source rather than barely transfer symbols and bits as accurately and as fast as possible. It will thus contribute to the concept of so-called semantic communications which are in this respect considered to go beyond the common Shannon limit. The main goal of the TIMIN6 project is to develop a novel method for data collection that is based on the Age of Information (AoI) metric combined with sustainability aspects of resource management by leveraging the semantic nature of collected information. The AoI metric is a relatively new and not fully understood metric of interest in the field of information science. It has been established that AoI of data can be critical to the energy consumption of data collection, but many aspects and real-world usefulness of the metric are yet to be explored. While much of the current research in the field focuses on finding more efficient ways to extract information from already collected data, the TIMIN6 project proposes a different approach by focusing on how often devices should generate and transmit data in an environmentally sustainable manner. This approach aims to reduce energy waste in the billions of devices that are expected to constitute 6G networks and build towards a more sustainable future. The main goal of the project will be achieved by addressing three objectives: (O1) develop criteria that quantify the sustainability of data generation in the context of future (6G) networks using the AoI logic; (O2) employ time series analysis tools to explore the semantic of generated data; and (O3) design a novel mechanism for sustainable data collection in 6G Networks. Applying the AoI concept to improve the sustainability of communication networks using AI-powered data collection will enable to explore the never before considered trade-off of joint energy-efficiency and timeliness optimization, and the focus on sustainability will enable examination of the semantic aspects behind the AoI in real-world settings. We divided the work into three research work packages (WPs) to reach the set objectives. Research in WP1 will focus on describing the system model using queuing theory to support gaining insights and propose criteria for sustainable data collection as a function of timeliness of information. The emphasis in WP2 will be shifted on extensive time-series analysis of relevant smart infrastructure data available from previous projects or public datasets to develop a semantic reasoning model utilizing AoI logic and explore the semantic of collected information to determine its value to the system. Eventually, in WP3 we will develop an AI-based solution for sustainable data management for smart infrastructure.