TELICE wants to further integrate new learning tools to meet the new needs of 6G connectivity in transport, drawing on its expertise in channel modelling and characterisation, experimentation and validation through experience, and system security.
Theme 1: Cell-free architecture for the vehicular communications of the future
5G mobile networks are currently built on a cellular architecture around a base station (BS) equipped with a massive MIMO antenna array. This architecture poses QoS limitations, particularly at cell edges, and is no longer compatible to meet the challenges of future wireless communications applications and provide ubiquitous connectivity for vehicular communications. A new "cell-free" network architecture has recently emerged, based on a large number of Access Points (APs) distributed over a large geographical area, which cooperate to optimally serve users (UEs). There are currently no experimental studies in the literature that characterise these networks for vehicles and enable new resource allocation algorithms to be developed and validated. The objectives are therefore to develop the MAMIMOSA channel sounder with the introduction of independent synchronised real-time wireless transmitters and receivers; to probe and model the massive MIMO cell-free channel; to develop resource allocation and AP clustering algorithms and new imaging techniques for channel localisation and modelling; and to study the robustness of cell-free networks to EM interference.
Theme 2: Diagnosis of on-board wired networks
Our method for analysing in-vehicle wired networks, based on transferometry and combining a signal and system approach, has been validated on a laboratory test bench. The aim is to develop a system for monitoring the state of health of wired communication and energy networks in vehicles, including diagnostic aspects and maintenance decisions, with the development of a decision procedure on residuals in a disturbed environment, prognosis on the residual lifetimes of components, detection and location of multiple faults, and finally the implementation of the diagnostic method on an autonomous electric vehicle of the Zoé type.
