Simu5G – the first real-time open source 5G simulator – will support Federated XAI within Hexa-X project

Simu5G, created by the collaboration of the Information Engineering Department of the University of Pisa and Intel, is to be used as a cornerstone for demo activity in 6G flagship EU project Hexa-X

Developed as a joint project of Intel and the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa, Simu5G, the 5G open-source network simulator, is now freely downloadable at http://simu5g.org.

“Our simulator can also emulate a 5G network in real time,” says Professor Stea. “This makes it useful for rapidly developing prototypes and demonstrators of distributed applications, such as autonomous vehicles communication with cloud- or edge-computing-based intelligence. For a company wishing to do this, setting up the necessary infrastructure would be a very expensive operation. With Simu5G, on the other hand, it is possible to obtain a reliable performance evaluation of the entire system quickly and at no cost.”

The collaboration with Intel has resulted in the integration of OpenNESS with Simu5G. OpenNESS is an edge computing software toolkit from Intel that helps developers onboarding and managing high-performance applications and network functions at the edge with cloud-like agility, thereby navigating network complexity at the edge. “The collaboration with the University of Pisa for Simu5G is significant as it gives enterprises the tools to simulate 5G network implementations,” said Renu Navale, VP and GM in Intel’s Network Platform Group.  “The integration of OpenNESS with Simu5G makes it possible for developers to leverage the simulator for testing Multi-Access Edge Computing use cases and capabilities in a seamless manner. Additionally, Simu5G can be a major open source input to the 6G flagship EU project Hexa-X, where Intel, UniPisa and TIM will use it for the planned Proof of Concept on FED-XAI (Federated and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence)”.

Moreover, Simu5G and its evolution will be available as a tool enabling the development and testing of new 6G functionalities and innovations within Hexa-X.  For instance, in the FED-XAI demo, User Equipments will connect through Simu5G for federated learning of XAI models in real time, to make predictions about Quality of Experience in a distributed and privacy-preserving way.