This is Section VI of the 6G and Beyond White Paper, this section covers Network Automation & Programmable Data Planes.
The Big Picture: Why Automation?
Imagine a 6G network as a massive, incredibly complex highway system with billions of cars (data) moving at high speeds. In the past, human operators acted like traffic controllers, manually flipping switches or writing scripts to manage traffic jams. However, 6G will be too complex and fast for humans to manage manually. Therefore, the network must become a “Self-Driving Network” that can fix itself, route traffic, and upgrade itself automatically.
Here are the three main technologies making this possible:
1. Programmable Data Planes (The “Smart” Intersections)
In older networks, the devices that direct traffic (switches) were somewhat rigid; they followed a strict set of rules that were hard to change quickly.
The Change: In 6G, these devices will be fully programmable using a language called P4.
What this means: Instead of a “dumb” traffic light that only changes on a timer, 6G switches are like smart intersections that can be reprogrammed instantly to handle new types of cars or traffic patterns. They will also be “Stateful,” meaning they can remember what happened to previous cars (packets) to make smarter decisions for the next ones without asking for help from a central controller.
2. Automated Service Decomposition (The “AI Architect”)
Currently, if a business wants a specific slice of the network (e.g., a super-fast lane for a factory), engineers have to use pre-made templates to set it up. This is slow and limits options.
The Change: 6G will use Automated Service Decomposition.
What this means: Instead of ordering from a set menu, a customer simply states their goal (e.g., “I need ultra-low latency for my robots”). An Artificial Intelligence (AI) automatically figures out exactly which ingredients (Virtual Network Functions) are needed to build that specific service and sets it up instantly, without a human engineer needing to design it from scratch.
3. Self-Driving Networks (The “Autopilot”)
The ultimate goal is a network that runs itself. This concept relies on two major shifts:
Intents (The “Goal”): Instead of giving the network step-by-step instructions (Imperative), operators will simply give the network a goal (Declarative).
Example: Instead of saying “Move traffic from Switch A to Switch B,” the operator says “Minimize congestion.” The network figures out how to do it.
In-band Telemetry (The “Black Box”): To drive itself, the network need perfect vision. It uses In-band Telemetry (INT) to hide performance data (like how long a wait was) inside the data packets themselves as they travel. This gives the network real-time, highly accurate information on its own health so it can make split-second adjustments.
Summary
In short, Section VI describes moving from a network managed by humans using templates and scripts, to a network managed by AI that can reprogram its own hardware, design its own services based on user goals, and fix traffic jams before humans even notice them.
Urban’s Notes & Research on Programmable Metasurfaces: https://docs.urbanodyssey.xyz/biodigital-convergence/metasurfaces.html
Figure(s) from Section VI
These are the graphics presented within Section Six (Figure 6 and 7)
Figure 6 - Automated Network Slice Framework
Figure 7 - High-Level Architecture for Self-Driving Networks
Key Definitions
Download the Devil’s Dictionary: https://anab-whitehouse.com/Devil's-Dictionary.pdf
Urban’s Imgur Album of Sharable Images: https://imgur.com/a/devils-dictionary-by-anab-whitehouse-rvm3d2i
Section VI Terms & Words
You can access the Imgur Album of the Words from this video here: https://imgur.com/a/key-terms-works-from-section-vi-on-network-automation-AHbiWzj
This series of videos will be setup on a section-by-section basis and then, following completion, will be edited into a final complete video.
Seeing as this paper covers so much information, I thought it would be best to present the information in chunks, this will make it easier to reference back to it in the future.
Previous Sections
Unmanned Future(s) Video
Downloads & Resources
(This page has all of the documents, dictionaries, playlists and more that you will need to follow along and/or to look up words you don’t know)
The document we’re reading is located in the very beginning of the “Section 3 - White Papers” section of the “Psinergy3” manual.
Technology Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTjFubVoA60qFjP6fquRlSxMDtgLLDOt_jTgKaKxUwkUfhMeTXTJM8M5TMzip162Hqq64mfN4qDtEAq/pubhtml
The ISO-20022 Standard: https://iso20022.officialurban.com
Internet of Nano Things: https://iont.officialurban.com
Juxtaposition1 Glossary: https://docs.urbanodyssey.xyz/biodigital-convergence/juxta-glossary.html
Urban’s Dictionaries: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1qbIKb9GEs25cFIC4lEz3g6IbVCyv8ANc
Juxtaposition1 & Sabrina Wallace
Many of these videos discuss Terahertz Radiation and Sabrina does very well to explain it:
More Information & Research
These citations & links were provided from VisorSurf Project
Introducing the Programmable Wireless Environments!
Liaskos C., Tsioliaridou A., Pitsillides A., Ioannidis S, Akyildiz IF,
“Using any Surface to Realize a New Paradigm for Wireless Communications”.
Communications of the ACM, 2018.
http://users.ics.forth.gr/cliaskos/files/jrn/CACM18.pdf
A Ray-tracing-based Evaluation of the Programmable Wireless Environment potential.
Liaskos C., Nie S., Tsioliaridou A., Pitsillides A., Ioannidis S, Akyildiz IF.
“A New Wireless Communication Paradigm through Software-controlled Metasurfaces”.
IEEE Communications Magazine, 2018.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1806.01792
(WoWMoM’18 Conference version: http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.06677 )
A look into how we expect to design the nanocomputers and nanonetworks inside metamaterials.
S. Abadal, C. Liaskos, A. Tsioliaridou, S. Ioannidis, A. Pitsillides, J. Solé-Pareta, E. Alarcón, A. Cabellos, “Computing and Communications for the Software-Defined Metamaterial Paradigm: A Context Analysis”, IEEE Access, 2017.
http://www.n3cat.upc.edu/papers/Computing-and-Communications-for-the-Software-Defined-Metamaterial-Paradigm-A-Context-Analysis.pdf
What if the internal nanonetworks of a metamaterial are wireless?
S. Abadal, A. Mestres, J. Torrellas, E. Alarcón, and A. Cabellos-Aparicio,
"Medium Access Control in Wireless Network-on-Chip: A Context Analysis",
IEEE Communications Magazine, 2018.
http://iacoma.cs.uiuc.edu/iacoma-papers/comm2018.pdf
Challenges of Nano-communications within metamaterials.
X. Timoneda, S. Abadal, A. Cabellos-Aparicio, D. Manessis, J. Zhou, A. Franques, J. Torrellas, E. Alarcon. “Millimeter-Wave Propagation within a Computer Chip Package”,
In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2018.
http://www.n3cat.upc.edu/papers/Millimeter-Wave_Propagation_within_a_Computer_Chip_Package.pdf
Intelligent metasurfaces where unit cells communicate with each other and provide multiple functions.
A. C. Tasolamprou, M. S. Mirmoosa, O. Tsilipakos, A. Pitilakis, F. Liu, S. Abadal, A. Cabellos-Aparicio, E. Alarcon, C. Liaskos, N. V. Kantartzis, S. Tretyakov, M. Kafesaki, E. N. Economou, C. M. Soukoulis,
''Intercell Wireless Communication in Software-defined Metasurfaces','
IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2018.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8351865&isnumber=8350884
What functionalities can programmable metasurfaces provide?
F. Liu, A. Pitilakis, M. S. Mirmoosa, O. Tsilipakos, X. Wang, A. C. Tasolamprou, S. Abadal, A. Cabellos-Aparicio, E. Alarcon, C. Liaskos, N. V. Kantartzis, M. Kafesaki, E. N. Economou, C. M. Soukoulis, S. Tretyakov,
''Programmable Metasurfaces: State of the Art and Prospects'
IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2018.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8351817&isnumber=8350884
Ultra-thin metasurfaces performing arbitrarily phase manipulation to broadband pulses.
Odysseas Tsilipakos, Thomas Koschny, and Costas M. Soukoulis,
“Antimatched Electromagnetic Metasurfaces for Broadband Arbitrary Phase Manipulation in Reflection”,
ACS Photonics, 2018.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01415
