On January 31, ENVELOPE officially kicked off its activities in a two-day, in-person meeting hosted in the centre of Athens by the I-SENSE Group of ICCS, which coordinates the project. This new Horizon Europe project, with a total budget of 15.8€ and a duration of 3 years, is among the new 27 research, innovation and trials projects financed by the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU).
The main objective of ENVELOPE is to provide a vertical-oriented 5G advanced reference architecture, equipped with all necessary interfaces to be used in Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) use cases that aim to:
- expose network capabilities to verticals,
- provide vertical-related information to the network;
- enable verticals to dynamically request and modify certain network aspects in an open, transparent and easy-to-use, semi-automated way.
ENVELOPE aims to deliver 3 large-scale Beyond 5G (B5G) trial sites in Italy, Netherlands and Greece for CAM services and beyond, implementing functionalities tailored to the CAM services and advanced exposure capabilities.
Although focused on the CAM vertical, the developments resulting from the use cases will be reusable by any vertical. The ENVELOPE architecture will serve as an envelope that can cover, accommodate and support any type of vertical services. The applicability of ENVELOPE capabilities will be demonstrated and validated via the project CAM UCs and via at least 9 open call winners that will have the opportunity to receive funding and test their nnovative solutions by employing ENVELOPE’s tools.
The first day of the kick-off meeting started with short introductions by all 23 consortium members, focusing on their unique field of expertise and their specific role in the project. Dr. Angelos Amditis, R&D Director at ICCS – NTUA and I-SENSE Group’s Director welcomed everyone in Athens and this new European endeavour, before highlighting ICCS’s and our specifically our group’s key role in the European research landscape through the organisation’s participation on more than 120 EU-funded and national research projects. It was also an honour to have ENVELOPE’s project officer Mrs. Chiara Mazzone with us, who followed the meeting remotely and addressed the consortium with a warm welcome and a presentation of SNS JU’s commitment in supporting and accelerating ground-breaking research in B5G/6G technologies throughout Europe.
The second day focused on the description of the project’s large-scale B5G trials in the 3 Living Labs in Italy, Netherlands and Greece, an overview for the planning of the project’s 2 Open Calls, communication and dissemination action plans and the project’s business and sustainability strategy.
ENVELOPE’s kick-off was also attended by our group’s core team that will be heavily involved in the project, namely, Technical Operations Manager of the ITS Team Dr. Vasilis Sourlas , Scientific Project Managers Dr. Lazaros Gkatzikis, Dr. Pavlos Basaras and Dr. Konstantinos Katsaros, Software Engineers Giorgos Drainakis and Giorgos Hadjipavlis, Administrative Manager Marilena Xarcha and Communications and Dissemination Officer Sevi Christoforou. Apart from being responsible for ENVELOPE’s overall project management, the I-SENSE Group team will oversee the integration and roll-out of the necessary 5G adv./6G technologies and innovations in the project’s large-scale trial sites and lead the project’s dissemination activities and events.
