As the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication systems are commercially deployed, they bring new services, enhance user experiences, and offer various opportunities to different industries. Despite its advancements, 5G encounters several challenges. To tackle these issues, global industrial, academic, and standards organizations are actively researching on sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems. 6G networks are envisioned as a transformative shift in the interactions between the physical, digital, and human realms, paving the way for a pervasive human-centered cyber-physical world. 6G is positioned to be a platform that offers communication and beyond communication services considering both performance and value centric technological development approaches. In this paper, we present the way forward towards the design of 6G end-to-end (E2E) system as a consolidated view of leading industry stakeholders and academia in the European level 6G flagship project Hexa-X-II. We discuss the key challenges with 5G and how 6G is expected to tackle those by introducing new technological innovations and supporting novel use case requirements. We provide a comprehensive methodology for the design of a 6G E2E system including ten principles, a blueprint, and a structured design process. The architecture design principles prioritize environmental sustainability, digital inclusiveness, and trustworthiness, considering their impact on the 6G E2E system. The blueprint is described corresponding to the infrastructure, network centric application, and application layers, as well as the pervasive functionalities and the relevant technological innovations. Following the design principles and the system blueprint, the design process is demonstrated as two-way approaches (i.e., 1) key performance and value indicators based design process. 2) top-down versus bottom-up alignment process) through the lens of a collaborative robot use case. Through this use case, a special attention is given to the technological enablers that cover management and orchestration functionalities and their 6G enhancement to go beyond the limitations characterizing the previous network generation. In addition, virtual modelling aspects related to digital twining and simulations for 6G E2E system design are also discussed.

Empowered by network softwarization, 5G systems have become the key enabler to foster the digital transformation of the vertical industries by expanding the scope of traditional mobile networks and enriching the network service offerings. To make this a reality, we propose an automation solution for vertical services provisioning and hierarchical Service Level Agreement (SLA) management. Service scaling is one of the most essential operations to adapt the service deployments and resource allocations to ensure SLA fulfilment. Three different scaling levels are addressed in this work: application-, service-and resource-level. We have implemented our solution in a proof-of-concept of a virtualized mobile network platform, spanning over three geographically-distributed sites. To evaluate our solution, we leverage field tests, focusing on automotive vertical services comprising a mission-critical application (collision-avoidance) and an entertainment one (video streaming). The results demonstrate the excellent performance of our solution, and its ability to automatically deploy vertical services and ensure their SLAs through different levels of service scaling.

The vision of cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM) across Europe can only be realized when harmonized solutions that support cross-border traffic exist. The possibility of providing CCAM services along different countries when vehicles drive across various national borders has a huge innovative business potential. However, the seamless provision of connectivity and the uninterrupted delivery of services along borders also poses interesting technical challenges. The situation is particularly innovative given the multi-country, multi-operator, multi-telco-vendor, and multi-car-manufacturer scenario of any cross-border layout. This paper introduces the challenges associated to a cross-border deployment of communication technologies through the analysis of three use cases: tele-operated driving, high-definition map generation and distribution for autonomous vehicles, and anticipated cooperative collision avoidance. Furthermore, a set of 5G solutions have been identified to ensure that CCAM services can be supported efficiently in cross-border scenarios. Faster handover of a data connection from one operator to another, generalized inter-mobile edge computing (MEC) coordination, and quality of service (QoS) prediction are some of the solutions that have been introduced to reduce the uncertainties of a real 5G cross-border deployment.

Smart building applications require robust security measures to ensure system functionality, privacy, and security. To this end, this paper proposes a Federated Learning Intrusion Detection System (FL-IDS) composed of two convolutional neural network (CNN) models to detect network and IoT device attacks simultaneously. Collaborative training across multiple cooperative smart buildings enables model development without direct data sharing, ensuring privacy by design. Furthermore, the design of the proposed method considers three key principles: sustainability, adaptability, and trustworthiness. The proposed data pre-processing and engineering system significantly reduces the amount of data to be processed by the CNN, helping to limit the processing load and associated energy consumption towards more sustainable Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. Furthermore, the data engineering process, which includes sampling, feature extraction, and transformation of data into images, is designed considering its adaptability to integrate new sensor data and to fit seamlessly into a zero-touch system, following the principles of Machine Learning Operations (MLOps). The designed CNNs allow for the investigation of AI reasoning, implementing eXplainable AI (XAI) techniques such as the correlation map analyzed in this paper. Using the ToN-IoT dataset, the results show that the proposed FL-IDS achieves performance comparable to that of its centralized counterpart. To address the specific vulnerabilities of FL, a secure and robust aggregation method is introduced, making the system resistant to poisoning attacks from up to $20\%$ of the participating clients.

This article aims to explore the requirements and challenges that Intent-Based Management (IBM) systems should look towards to deliver proper automation management in multi-stakeholder 6G scenarios. To do so, the evolution of the telecommunications actors is presented to identify how they will interact with the use of intents and what IBM systems must face to fulfil with the tenants expectations while interacting among other IBM domains (aggregation vs. federation models). In a second step, this article presents how the IBM systems functionalities should be organized (based on standards research and comparative) and a set of enablers using them to properly deliver the automation needed to accomplish the requests done by the tenants. On a third step, a set of End-to-End (E2E) intent-based services are described to illustrate how the different enablers (and the functionalities they use) may work to reach the E2E service goal. Finally, a set of experimental results related to how intent conflicts should be manage is presented, followed by the conclusions.

The 5G EVE project has developed a multi-site experimental architecture for a European 5G end-to-end experimentation platform. The main objective of 5G EVE's innovative architecture is to facilitate the definition, execution and validation of experiments designed by verticals, mainly focused on testing and validating the KPIs of vertical services on top of an end-to-end 5G infrastructure. This paper explains the architecture and describes the workflow for defining, executing and analyzing the results of experiments.