IMDEA Networks receives funding to develop its research activities from varied sources. There are two main categories of external funding:
Externally-funded Research Projects:
Externally-funded research projects enable us to collaborate with researchers from other organizations and backgrounds. Research funding is awarded following an open competitive selection process in which project proposals, and the private or public sector organizations presenting them, are subject to rigorous scrutiny. Such thoroughness helps to ensure that research undertaken with those funds is relevant, well-managed and with high probabilities of success in achieving its stated goals.
Currently IMDEA Networks is collaborating with the NETCOM (Networks and Communications Services) Research Group from the Telematics Department at University Carlos III of Madrid, in several research projects.
CARMEN | CONPARTE | FLAVIA | MEDIANET | MEDIEVAL | QUARTET | PASITO | TRILOGY
(CARrier grade MEsh Networks)
Participating entity: NETCOM Research Group
Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña (azcorra@it.uc3m.es)
Project Website: (click here)
Funded by: European Union. ICT Programme FP7
Project partners: University Carlos III of Madrid, AGH University of Science and Technology, Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG, British
Telecommunications PLC, Deutsche Telekom AG, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.V., NEC Europe Ltd., University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, Dubli
Duration: January 2008 – December 2010
Description: CARMEN, CARrier grade MEsh Networks, will study and specify a wireless mesh network supporting carrier grade triple-play services for mobile/fixed network operators. Future operator networks will be comprised of a common core network and several access networks, and the CARMEN access network will complement other access technologies by providing a low cost and fast deployment mesh network access technology. The project proposes the integration of heterogeneous wireless technologies in a multi-hop fashion to provide scalable and efficient ubiquitous quad-play carrier services.
To address the integration complexity of heterogeneous radio technologies, CARMEN introduces a layer 2.5 located between the subnet layer and the routing layer, in order to abstract technology specific issues into a common set of events and commands. Upper layers will use the abstract interface of layer 2.5 to dynamically adapt functions such as routing, mobility and monitoring. One relevant issue is that CARMEN will provide capacity handling algorithms to exploit specific features of the mesh networks such as the availability of multiple links between two peers (i.e. multipath) or the use of radio broadcast instead of unicast to alleviate the load of broadcast services (e.g. video) in the mesh network. CARMEN will focus on three planes: technology, message transfer, and self-configuration and management, to provide a complete solution for setting up and maintaining a cost-effective carrier grade wireless mesh access network.
Soundness of the obtained results is guaranteed by the strong operator involvement, and by performing a use-case implementation. The experience of the consortium guarantees that the developed solutions will produce significant advance with respect to the current state of the art, which will be reflected in IPR creation, proposals of standards (with focus on IETF and IEEE), and dissemination of the results in high impact conferences and journals.
The CARMEN project forms part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union (EU)
CONPARTE
(Contribution to the new paradigms and network technologies for communications of tomorrow)
Participating entity: NETCOM Research Group
Contact: Francisco Valera Pintor (fvalera@it.uc3m.es)
Funded by: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación – MICINN)
Project partners: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Universidad de Vigo, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Duration: December 2007 – November 2010
Description: This project focuses on common research problems and methodologies across diverse hot network technologies. It is a joint effort by research groups of Universidad de Vigo, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Specifically, we study conceptual and methodological issues (physical interface, error management, medium access, routing, traffic control, network interconnection, cross-layer interactions…) as “horizontal” aspects of “vertical” technologies (high performance switching, UMTS, wireless networks…). As a result, we establish synergies to take advantage of the experience of the partners, in order to offer solutions to problems associated with emerging technologies. Consequently, we perform our research in specific technologies but we exploit the multidisciplinary teams by setting cross-relations among those emergent technologies we are interested in, so as to solve the common scientific problems.
FLAVIA
(FLexible Architecture for Virtualizable wireless future Internet Access)
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Contact: Sergey Gorinsky (sergey.gorinsky@imdea.org)
Funded by: European Commission. ICT Programme FP7
Project partners: Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecommunicazioni, Alvarion, NEC Europe, Telefonica Research, Comsys Communication & Signal Processing Ltd, MobiMesh s.r.l. , Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Science, Fundación IMDEA Networks, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Hamilton Institute of the National University of Ireland Maynooth
Duration: July 2010 – June 2013
Description: Wireless networks importance for the Future Internet is raising at a fast pace as mobile devices increasingly become its entry point. However, today’s wireless networks are unable to rapidly adapt to evolving contexts and service needs due to their rigid architectural design.
We believe that the wireless Internet’s ability to keep up with innovation directly stems from its reliance on the traditional layer-based Internet abstraction. Especially, the Link Layer interface appears way too abstracted from the actual wireless access and coordination needs. FLAVIA fosters a paradigm shift towards the Future Wireless Internet: from pre-designed link services to programmable link processors. The key concept is to expose flexible programmable interfaces enabling service customization and performance optimization through software-based exploitation of low-level operations and control primitives, e.g., transmission timing, frame customization and processing, spectrum and channel management, power control, etc.
FLAVIA’s approach is based on three main pillars: i) lower the interface between hardware-dependent layers and upper layers, ii) apply a hierarchical decomposition of the MAC/PHY layer functionalities, and iii) open programmable interfaces at different abstraction levels. To prove the viability of this new architectural vision, FLAVIA will prototype its concept on two wireless technologies currently available, 802.11 and 802.16, representing today’s two main radio resource allocation philosophies: contention-based and scheduled. Moreover, FLAVIA will assess the applicability of the proposed architecture concepts to the emerging 3GPP standards.
FLAVIA’s concept will allow boosting innovation and reducing the cost of network upgrades. Operators, manufacturers, network designers, emerging third-party solution developers, and even spontaneous end users, will be able to easily and rapidly optimize and upgrade the wireless network operation, quickly prototype and test their new protocols, and adapt the wireless access operation to emerging scenarios or service needs.
MEDIANET
(Integración de Servicios Multimedia de Siguiente Generación en la Internet del Futuro – Integration of Next Generation Multimedia Services in the Internet of the Future)
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks
Contact: José Félix Kukielka (josefelix.kukielka@imdea.org)
Project website: (click here)
Funded by: Department of Education, Regional Government of Madrid (Consejería de Educación, Comunidad de Madrid)
Project partners: NETCOM Research Group from University Carlos III of Madrid, DSA Research group from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Institute IMDEA Networks, GIST Research Group from Universidad de Alcalá de Henares
Duration: January 2010 - December 2013
Description: This program strives for a significant scientific advance in the future media Internet where important advances are necessary to allow end-users to perceive a good quality of experience. The network technologies objectives consist of the definition and validation of new proposals for the efficient transport of high bandwidth, real-time data flows in a decentralized way where the network provides mechanisms to seamlessly request and configure devices to increase the quality of experience perceived by end-users. Furthermore, new experiences with layer 2 networks and a cross-layer design will be tested with high bandwidth demanding media services. The global result will be an integrated and independent advancement in future media Internet protocols, algorithms, switching architectures and standards.
MEDIEVAL
Participating entity: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Fundacion IMDEA Networks
Contact: Banchs Roca (Banchs@it.uc3m.es)
Funded by: European Union. ICT Programme FP7
Project partners: ALCATEL – LUCENT BELL Labs France, Telecom Italia S.p.a., Portugal Telecom Inovaçao , Docomo Communications Laboratories Europe, Comsys Communication & Signal Processing Ltd. , LiveU , Instituto de Telecomunicacoes, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Fundación IMDEA Networks, Consorzio Ferrara Ricerche, Universita Degli Studi di Padova, EURECOM
Duration: July 2010 – June 2013
Description: Video is a major challenge for the future Internet. This traffic type is foreseen to account for close to 90 percent of consumer traffic already by 2012. However, the current Internet, and in particular the mobile Internet, was not designed with video requirements in mind and, as a consequence, its architecture is very inefficient when handling video traffic. It is the vision of this consortium that, as video is going to represent the majority of the traffic, the future Internet architecture should be tailored to efficiently support the requirements of this traffic type. Specific enhancements for video should be introduced at all layers of the protocol stack where needed, ideally supporting an incremental deployment.
Following the above vision, the main goal of the project is to evolve the Internet architecture for efficient video traffic support. The proposed architecture will follow a cross-layer design that, by exploiting the interaction between layers, can raise performance to values unattainable with individual developments. The following key issues will be addressed by the architecture: i) enhanced wireless access support to optimise video performance, ii) novel IP mobility architecture adapted to the requirements of video traffic, iii) transport optimisations for video distribution and iv) network-aware video services that interact with the underlying layers.
The technology developed by the project will be designed taking into account the requirements of network operators for commercial deployment, and will aim at improving the Quality of Experience by users as well as reducing the associated costs for operators. Standardization and early incremental testing are considered key success factors for MEDIEVAL.
The consortium is well balanced and combines the integrated perspectives of three mobile operators, a major manufacturer and an innovative video technology company, in addition to leading academic partners and research institutes."
(Plataforma de experimentación de servicios de telecomunicaciones –Telecommunications Service Analysis Platform)
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks
Project website: (click here)
Funded by: State Secretariat for Telecommunications and the Information Society (SETSI) of the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade (MITYC)
Project partners: Red.es/RedIRIS, CESCA (Centre de Supercomputació de Catalunya –Catalonian Supercomputing Centre), CESGA (Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia – Galician Supercomputing Centre), CICA (Centro Informático Científico de Andalucía – Andalusian Scientific Computing Centre), the Basque academic network i2BASQUE, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the i2CAT Foundation, IMDEA Networks, Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), University of Carlos III of Madrid (UCIII), the University of Granada (UGR), the University of Murcia (UMU), the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and the University of Vigo (UVIGO).
Duration: Starting on September 2007 - TBD
Description: The platform for telecommunications services analysis (PASITO) is a distributed tests laboratory, which offers engineers the chance to construct, refine and evaluate test scenarios for telecommunication services.
The laboratory contributes to:
- Optimizing communications resources
- Designing and adapting new services to the current needs
- Certifying equipment and services
PASITO is a public infrastructure, based upon the Spanish RedIRIS academic network. It uses varied technologies to enable it to test a wide range of telecommunication services and at the same time guarantee that its activities are isolated from the rest of the academic network's services. This avoids interference with other activities that are in operation within the Spanish scientific community.
The platform’s main research areas are:
- Internet architectures
- Communication protocols
- Transport technologies with service quality
- Virtualization and autoconfiguration of networks and services
- Technologies and tools to monitor networks and services
- Optical services for intensive data projects
- Large scale information distribution technologies
- Peer-to-peer systems
- Mobility services
- Technologies to improve network security
- Standards for new generation collaboration services
QUARTET
(QUAlity of seRvice enabled IP heTerogeneous vEhicular neTworks)
Participating entity: NETCOM Research Group
Contact: Carlos J. Bernardos (cjbc@it.uc3m.es)
Project website: Under construction
Funded by: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación – MICINN)
Project partners: UniversityCarlos III of Madrid (UC3M)
Duration: October 2009 – September 2112
Description:Vehicular communications are a reality not too far to come. Driven by the goals of improving road safety and efficiency, governments, car manufacturers and telecommunication players are working towards the definition of a geonetworking-based architecture that enables vehicles to benefit from communication capabilities. The goal is to support different types of applications: critical safety (e.g., forward collision warning), non-critical safety (e.g., traffic efficiency applications), and non-safety (infotainment or generic Internet connectivity), but most efforts have been devoted so far to standardise critical safety applications, while ensuring coexistence with other types of applications. Bringing IP connectivity to cars will also enable classical and new Internet applications to be provided in cars.
This advance will also help speeding up the adoption of vehicular communication systems by the users, since they will see an additional benefit in the installation of a communication system in their cars. In order to help this become a reality, this project focuses on the design of Quality of Service enabled IP heterogeneous vehicular networks, where two fundamental needs are identified:
- Integration of IP into a geonetworking-based vehicular architecture. This comprises the definition of IP autoconfiguration mechanisms, as well as protocols to transport IP datagrams inside vehicular networks.
- Support of heterogeneous wireless technologies. This includes the design and evaluation of mechanisms that efficiently and transparently support mobility across different access technologies.
This mobility support will provide the IP services through the geonetworking based architecture wherever its coverage is available. If it is not, the mobility support will select the LTE network to handover the communication, since this is an emerging 4G technology with a promising broadband access.
Finally, an experimentation test-bed will be designed and deployed. This demonstrator will be used to validate and analyse the key mechanisms designed within each of the three areas above.
Additionally, a sub-set of mechanisms will be integrated, in order to gather some insight on the operation of the integrated architecture.
(ReArchitecting the Internet. An Hourglass Control Architecture for the Internet, Supporting Extremes of Commercial, Social and Technical Control)
Participating entity: NETCOM Research Group
Contact: Marcelo Bagnulo ( marcelo@it.uc3m.es)
Project website: (click here)
Funded by: European Union. Program FP7-ICT (ICT-2007-216372).
Project partners: British Telecommunications PLC (Coordinator), Deutsche Telekom, NEC Europe, NOKIA, Roke Manor Research, Athens University of Economics and Business, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University College London, Université catholique de Louvain, EURESCOM, Stanford University Law School
Duration: January 2008 – December 2010
Description: The Internet is out-growing its original design. Evidence for this is widespread and the problem is affecting all the various stakeholders in different ways. End users are plagued by security worries; operators are spending ever more effort to mitigate the effects of address space depletion and the limitations of current inter-domain routing protocols; enterprises face complex trade-offs when trying to ensure resilience through multi-homing or protection from distributed denial-of-service attacks, and application developers have a mountain to climb in order to circumvent the presence of middleboxes in the end-to-end path. It is now the right time to develop a new design that is cognizant of the competing technical, economic and social demands that must be met by the global information network.
The aim of the Trilogy project is to develop new solutions for the control architecture of the Internet and remove the known and emerging technical deficiencies while avoiding prejudging commercial and social outcomes for the different players. The focus is the generic control functions of the Internet - the neck of the hour-glass but for control. Our architectural design activities focus on a radical approach to develop a Future Internet for the next 20+ years. This design is tempered and refined by considering the need for incremental deployment.
Trilogy project forms part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union (EU).
Funding of individual researchers
Funding of individual researchers takes the form of awarded Grants, Scholarships and Fellowships. These awards are similar to externally-funded research in their openness and the strict selection processes used. These awards confer prestige on the awardee as well as on the organization he is affiliated to.
RAMÓN Y CAJAL GRANTS | I3 SUBVENTIONS | “MARIE CURIE” AMAROUT EUROPE PROGRAMME | FPU SCHOLLARSHIPS |
Participating entity: FunIMDEA Networks
Awardees:
- Dr. Sergey Gorinsky(Senior Researcher, IMDEA Networks)
Contact: Ana González, Projects and Funding Manager, (ana.gonzalez@imdea.org)
Official website: (click here)
Funded by: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación – MICINN)
Description: The Ramón y Cajal program’s main objective is to strengthen the research capacity of R&D groups and organizations from the public as well as the private sectors, by means of the hiring of researchers who have been awarded a Ph.D. and who have applied presenting a research line they wish to develop. The Ramón y Cajal program provides grants which are gradually and progressively co-financed by the receiving organizations, which shall in turn identify and define their research strategies and those areas in which they wish to specialize. These grants are awarded on merit of scientific achievements of doctorates in all areas of knowledge , by Spanish R&D organizations.
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks
Awardees:
- José Félix KUKIELKA (Senior Researcher, IMDEA Networks)
Contact: Ana González, Projects and Funding Manager, IMDEA Networks (ana.gonzalez@imdea.org)
Official website: (click here)
Funded by: Department of Education, Regional Government of Madrid (Consejería de Educación, Comunidad de Madrid)
Description: I3 subventions are aimed to promote the incorporation of researchers and the intensification of the relation of cooperation and coordination of their research activities, technological innovation and development, as a specific strategic goal of the Spanish National Plan for Scientific Research and Technological Development and Innovation (R&D) 2008-2011. The objectives of this program are the following:
- To increase the long-term incorporation of lecturers/researchers
- To encourage the hiring and repatriation of Spanish or foreign researchers renowned for their experience
- To promote the incorporation to the Spanish National R&D system of young researchers
I3 beneficiaries are non-for-profit organizations.
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks
Awardees:
- Dr. Reza Rejaie (Visiting Researcher, IMDEA Networks)
- Dr. Balaji Rengarajan (Staff Researcher, IMDEA Networks)
- Dr. Gianluca Rizzo (Staff Researcher, IMDEA Networks)
Contact: IMDEA Software (program coordinator)
Project website: (click here)
Duration: March 2009 – March 2012
Funded by: European Union. ICT Programme FP7-PEOPLE COFUND
Project partners: IMDEA institutes (IMDEA Energy; IMDEA Food; IMDEA Materials; IMDEA Nanoscience; IMDEA Networks; IMDEA Social Sciences; IMDEA Software; IMDEA Water)
Description: AMAROUT Europe is a Marie-Curie Action (7FP - PEOPLE-COFUND) for researcher mobility, which aims to foster and consolidate the European Research Area by attracting to Europe and, in particular, to the region of Madrid (Spain) top research talent. AMAROUT contributes with IMDEA to turning Madrid into one of the top knowledge generation regions in Europe. To accomplish this, during 4 years, the AMAROUT program will finance up to 132 researchers to join the IMDEA network of research institutes for one year (renewable for two or three) and beginning on March 1st, 2009.
(Becas del Programa de Formación de Profesorado Universitario)
Participating entity: Fundación IMDEA Networks
Awardees: IMDEA Networks has been granted 4 out of 26 (15%) scholarships awarded nationally to researchers in "Electronic Technology and Communications".
- Paul PATRAS (Research Assistant, IMDEA Networks)
- Alex BIKFALVI (Research Assistant, IMDEA Networks)
- Michal KRYCZKA (Research Assistant, IMDEA Networks)
- Marco GRAMAGLIA (Research Assistant, IMDEA Networks)
Contact: Ana González, Projects and Funding Manager, IMDEA Networks (ana.gonzalez@imdea.org)
Project website: (click here)
Funded by: Spanish Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación)
Description: FPU scholarships are part of the Spanish program for professional training of university lecturers (Programa de Formación del Profesorado Universitario - FPU), and their object is to provide academic and research training within the parameters of the Spanish Statute for research personnel (Estatuto del personal investigador). These scholarships are awarded on merit of academic achievements.