AMBIENT-6G

AMBIENT-6G aims to reduce the reliance of Internet of Things (IoT) devices on primary batteries, by replacing them with renewable harvested energy. This ambition is motivated by several IoT-related observations:

A recent EU study estimated that in 2025 alone, over 78 million IoT device batteries will be dumped every day worldwide, risking immense amounts of toxic chemicals to leak into the soil.
The IoT’s e-waste problem is not limited to batteries alone, as many embedded devices, such as trackers or wearables, are designed to fail once the battery dies, due to the significant maintenance cost of battery replacement. This results in immense and ever-growing amounts of discarded electronic devices, estimated to be around 52 million metric tons yearly in 2021.
Recently, 3GPP, the international organization developing standards for mobile cellular technologies, realized the importance and need for energy-neutral IoT devices, by introducing the new Ambient IoT (A-IoT) device class in its Release-18. A-IoT fills a niche, consuming significantly lower power compared to existing 4G and 5G connectivity technologies such as New Radio (NR), Reduced Capacity (RedCap), Long-Term Evolution Machine Type Communication (LTE-M), and even Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT).

The AMBIENT-6G project aims to address the IoT's e-waste problem, by proposing a new class of energy-neutral IoT devices, which will significantly reduce battery waste and increase device lifetime. Such devices exploit ambient energy harvesting (e.g., based on vibration, thermal, photovoltaic, or radio frequency harvesting) or intentional radio frequency wireless power transfer (RF-WPT) to power their operations. This allows energy-neutral devices to achieve decades-long energy autonomy.

The major challenge AMBIENT-6G faces, is to ensure energy-neutral devices maintain the same usefulness as battery-powered devices, with a fraction of the power budget. The project considers the whole spectrum of energy-neutral devices, both powered by rechargeable batteries, as well as battery-less devices that use a (super)capacitor to store a small amount of energy. Moreover, we will study both devices that can actively communicate, as well as passive devices that make use of backscatter technologies. By considering a broad definition of energy-neutral IoT devices, AMBIENT-6G aims to contribute to the further broadening of the deployment options, use cases and A-IoT device class scope towards 3GPP Release-19.

Overall objective

Design, prototype, validate, and standardize hardware and software technology solutions for intelligent Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled energy-neutral devices, and the 6G network infrastructure that connects them to the Internet.

1. Holistic device architecture

A holistic energy neutral device architecture, encompassing performance vs. cost vs. materials trade-off, circuits for energy storage, harvesting, and management, and ultra-low-power radio solutions.

2. Secure low-power 6G connectivity

6G low-power network to enable energy neutral device connectivity, encompassing infrastructure enablers for backscatter and RF-WPT, as well as secure low-power protocol design.

3. Distributed intelligence

Enablers for intelligent energy neutral devices, including predictive mechanisms to support energy-awareness, distributed and on-device machine learning, and cloud-edge-device orchestration and offloading.

4. Proof of concept demonstration

Implement, test, validate, and demonstrate end-to-end intelligent energy neutral device capabilities, and 6G network functionality.

5. Contributions to standardization

Actively support, contribute to, and steer standardization efforts on energy neutral 6G devices, such as Ambient IoT in 3GPP Release 19 and beyond, driven by evidence-based scientific results.

6. Use cases and business models

Provide industry with insights into viable use cases and business models for energy neutral devices and Ambient IoT, providing a solid foundation for further exploitation of the project outcomes.

The AMBIENT-6G project targets the secure integration of both active and passive energy-neutral devices in the 6G network architecture and end-to-end cloud-edge-device continuum. To achieve this, the project aims to provide technological innovations on both the device and infrastructure side, as illustrated in the figure below. The innovations encompass three areas: (i) circuits for energy-neutral devices, (ii) secure Ambient-IoT network protocols, and (iii) cloud-edge-device operations and resource allocation. The project's vision spans across the (i) devices & infrastructure, (ii) the intelligence & applications, and (iii) device operations.

The AMBIENT-6G project is structured into seven distinct work packages. WP1 is dedicated to the technical, administrative, and financial management of the project, encompassing quality, risk, and data management. WP2 focuses on the design of hardware for energy-neutral devices, while WP3 is tasked with the development of the overall system architecture and protocols. WP4 is aimed at advancing energy-aware computing in the cloud-edge-device continuum. WP5 mainly focuses of validating the technologies developed in previous WPs through proof-of-concept demonstrators and test-bed validation. WP6 is responsible for disseminating project results, formulating exploitation plans and business models, and contributing to standardization and regulation efforts. Finally, WP7 ensures ethical follow-up and compliance.