THALES SIX GTS France is leading the Cyber Secure Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning and contributing to cloud native communications security. Within NEMO, Thales will strengthen its expertise and know-how in advanced cyberattack detection and mitigation using Federated Learning, Reinforcement learning, as well as Cloud native communications, while enhancing its Advanced Studies Labs capacities. NEMO is in line with the THALES product and services roadmap and will support the TSG Advanced studies labs, in charge of de-risking novel technologies for Thales inner Product Lines, through advanced prototyping and demonstrations. 

The CFDRL component in NEMO provides capacity of learning decision-making models in a collaborative and distributed way between communicating nodes/entities. It comes with features that strengthens the cyber-security of the learning process by detecting external attacks and deploying appropriate countermeasures. The learning procedure combines two complementary learning paradigms: Federated Learning (FL) and Reinforcement Learning (RL).  

Within the NEMO project, there are two types of applications that are foreseen:

• Living Labs: The living labs of NEMO propose decision-making problem that could be formalized in a RL formalism. Moreover, some of them would fit the Federated Learning framework and thus fill their need for collaborative and privacy preserving learning.
• Meta-Orchestrator:  Part of NEMO is to implement an intelligent open source meta-Orchestrator able to explore the decentralization and distribution of computing workflow over the IoT to edge to cloud continuum. NEMO meta-Orchestrator will utilise intelligence based on CF-DRL to assess strategies for orchestration of different kind of containerized Micro-services or unikernels workflows enabling migration, placement and scaling. Decision will be mainly based on three parameters: a) migration time, b) downtime, and c) overhead time, while additional functional parameters, such as network and resource availability, non-functional requirements, such as policies, energy efficiency, CO2 footprint and FinOps requirements, like networking and hosting cost will also be analysed and evaluated.

The Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation S.A. (OTE), member of the Deutsche Telekom (DT) Group of Companies, is the incumbent telecommunications provider in the Greek market and one of the leading telecom groups in SE Europe, offering a full range of telecommunications services: from fixed-line and mobile telephony, broadband services, to pay television and ICT solutions, while it is also involved in maritime communications, real-estate, energy, insurance services and professional training. 

OTE Group is a pioneer in technological advances and by far the largest investor in telecommunications infrastructure in Greece. OTE Group promotes consistently research and development through its continuous and devoted participation in EU-funded projects – with a dedicated high-skilled R&D team- in several domains (5G/6G, mobile front/backhauling, SDN/NFV, IOT, cloud computing, etc)  aiming to contribute to the shaping and the assessment of nextgen technologies and solutions. 

The OTE Group participated in more than 50 innovative funded R&D EU projects, in various technological areas.  By participating in R&D projects, the OTE Group is expected to boost its technological excellence and upgrade the services provided to its customers, as it gains expertise in cutting-edge technologies from the early stages of development and actively participates in shaping future technology solutions, market applications and innovative business models in areas such as, smart cities, m-health, automotive, infotainment and media. 

As partner in NEMO Project, OTE contributes in the definition and the implementation of the project’s pilots and in particular in the Smart Media/ City & XR pilot and in the Smart Farming pilot.

Federated Learning is identified as a reliable technique for distributed training of ML models. Specifically, a set of dispersed nodes may collaborate through a federation in producing a jointly trained ML model without disclosing their data to each other. Each node performs local model training and then shares its trained model weights with a server node, usually called Aggregator in federated learning, as it aggregates the trained weights and then sends them back to its clients for another round of local training. Despite the data protection and security that FL provides to each client, there are still well-studied attacks such as membership inference attacks that can detect potential vulnerabilities of the FL system and thus expose sensitive data. In this paper, in order to prevent this kind of attack and address private data leakage, we introduce FREDY, a differential private federated learning framework that enables knowledge transfer from private data. Particularly, our approach has a teachers–student scheme. Each teacher model is trained on sensitive, disjoint data in a federated manner, and the student model is trained on the most voted predictions of the teachers on public unlabeled data which are noisy aggregated in order to guarantee the privacy of each teacher’s sensitive data. Only the student model is publicly accessible as the teacher models contain sensitive information. We show that our proposed approach guarantees the privacy of sensitive data against model inference attacks while it combines the federated learning settings for the model training procedures.

The authors of this paper are Zacharias Anastasakis, Terpsichori-Helen Velivassaki, Artemis Voulkidis, Stavroula Bourou, Konstantinos Psychogyios, Dimitrios Skias and Theodore Zahariadis.

The whole article can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/15/9/296

Software Imagination & Vision (SIMAVI) is a Romanian ICT company with extensive expertise in: Cybersecurity & Security, Critical Infrastructures, eHealth, Energy, Mobility and Smart Cities, Industry 5.0, Circular Economy, Computing Technologies, eAgriculture & Food, Smart Communities and Water ecosystems, Green Deal & Environmental Monitoring, Cultural Heritage, XR, Training, ERP & BI, eCustoms, and eGovernment.

SIMAVI has strong experience in R&D projects (LINK https://www.simavi.ro/en/rd-projects), having been involved as coordinator, technological partner & integrator in over 60 Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 projects.

SIMAVI team’s experience is vast, taking over all software development activities in: education, health, customs, nuclear, business, banking, utilities, production etc.

An organization built on a European model, with unique competence centers and internationally competitive specialists, SOFTWARE IMAGINATION & VISION is the Romanian software company that provides IT services directly to European Commission organization.

In NEMO, SIMAVI is responsible for the Requirements analysis, use case refinement and target KPIs task, dedicated to the analysis and design stage of implementing the NEMO solution. In the deliverable dedicated to this analysis, SIMAVI followed a unitary approach to describe and monitor the specific activities of the Pilots, based on uniform templates for gathering relevant information about pilots’ description, use Cases description, Use Cases target KPIs, Functional requirements and Non-Functional requirements.
Apart from the requirements analysis, SIMAVI will support the implementation of the Smart Industry 4.0 use case trial #4, led by Continental, following to realize the fully automated indoor logistics/supply chain by integrating the 3D-Vision Cameras, barcode scanners, Cobots, AGVs, IoT applications and federated ML hosted locally.

Also, SIMAVI is expected to have its contribution in Cybersecurity & Digital Identity attestation task which allows the implementation of the NEMO platform based on a “by design” cybersecurity approach.

Novomatix (NOVO) is a dynamic and forward-thinking software development SME founded on the principles of innovation and excellence. With a passion for technology and a customer-centric approach, we aim to deliver cutting-edge solutions that meet the unique requirements of our clients. Novomatix is a strategic R&D partner and commercial reseller of Novoville Ltd. The Novoville ecosystem includes a portfolio of various solutions which bridge the gap between citizens and their local authorities, including among other CiRM, smart mobility and parking, shared repairs, and easier payments to authorities. 

Novoville one of Europe’s top 10 GovTech start-up in 2016 and winner of the NHS Tech Force 2019, offers its Smart City Solutions to more than 80 municipalities across Europe, digitizing local services and making them more citizen centric. Some of the benefits of using Novoville’s services include:

• Personalised and citizen-centric services
• Cost savings
• Digital transformation achievement
• Effective communication
• Data-Driven Decision-Making:

Role in ΝΕΜΟ

In NEMO project, NOVO plays a pivotal role as the leader in continuously monitoring and analyzing the market trends in the AIoT/Edge/Cloud industry. Our primary responsibility is to assess the socio-economic impact of these trends and promptly inform all project partners about any new or changing trends. This ensures that the project remains up to date with the latest advancements and enables timely adaptive actions in project planning. Furthermore, under the leadership of NOVO, the consortium will define the market characteristics and develop a new business model that maximizes the exploitation of the project’s results. The aim is to position the proposed solution in a way that creates significant value for its stakeholders. The socio-economic analysis conducted by NOVO and the consortium will provide vital information for the formulation of NEMO’s exploitation strategy. This analysis will serve as a foundation for understanding market dynamics, identifying target markets, and outlining approaches for effectively capitalizing on the project’s outcomes.

Partner ICCS – Institute of Communication and Computer Systems – is a Greek non-profit Academic Research Body carrying research and development activities in the fields of all the diverse aspects of telecommunications and computer systems. ICCS participates in the NEMO project through the Computing Systems Laboratory (CSLab) of the Computer Science Department of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). CSLab members possess great expertise on several aspects of the cloud-to-edge continuum; from low level components, such as the Linux kernel,  virtualization solutions(e.g., QEMU/KVM, XEN, Firecracker), and containers software (e.g., Docker, lxc, Kata Containers) to higher level components, such as Kubernetes, OpenStack, OpenWhisk, OpenFaaS, and Knative.

In the context of NEMO, ICCS members participate in the initial specification and design of the next generation meta-Operating System (mOS), which will be the end result of the project. The main contribution of ICCS is in the definition, design and implementation of the kernel space components of the mOS, which include the Secure Execution Engine (SEE) and the container runtime component. In addition, ICCS participates in the integration and penetration testing activities of the NEMO mOS and contributes to one of the NEMO use cases, in particular the smart farming pilot.

Netcompany-Intrasoft is a leading European IT Solutions and Services Group with strong international presence and expertise, offering innovative and added-value solutions of the highest quality to a wide range of international and national public and private organizations. The Company’s Head Offices are located in Luxembourg. As of November 2021, Netcompany-Intrasoft became a member of the Netcompany Group, a Denmark located IT company founded in 2000. Netcompany is the fastest growing and most successful IT services company in the Nordics, owning vast technology experience and deep industry-specific knowledge, creating innovative solutions tailored to meet business goals.

Netcompany-Intrasoft employs more than 3,200 highly skilled professionals, representing over 50 different nationalities and mastering more than 30 languages. With headquarters in Luxembourg, Netcompany-Intrasoft operates through its operational branches, subsidiaries and offices in 10 countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Luxembourg, Romania, RSA, Scandinavia, UAE and USA. More than 500 organizations in over 70 countries worldwide (Institutions and Agencies of the European Union, National Government Organizations, Public Agencies, Financial Institutions, Telecommunication Organizations, and Private Enterprises) have chosen the company’s services and solutions to fulfill their business needs. 

Netcompany-Intrasoft’s expertise and strength lie in its proven capacity and successful track record in undertaking and delivering, complex, mission – critical projects. Netcompany-Intrasoft’s RID Department actively contributes to the development of innovative pre-industrial products and services through its participation in EU Research Programmes, posing a successful track record in managing large and complex collaborative research projects, implementing innovative research prototypes, and effectively communicating research results in Europe and beyond. Serving this mission, the Research and Innovation Development (RID) Department contributes to the R&I activities related to Big Data, Data Analytics, Block-chain, AI and DevSecOps.

In NEMO Netcompany-Intrasoft leads WP4 which concerns the design and development of NEMO’s DevZeroOps Service Management Space. The associated technical activities will define and implement the Plugins Installation Manager, the MOCA component to boost pre-commercial exploitation and NEMO’s Intent Migration as a Service and ZeroOps deployment. Moreover, Netcompany-Intrasoft will set up the CI/CD/CP environment and perform verification and validation tests to all software components before they are integrated in the NEMO framework.

Netcompany-Intrasoft also leads the task that aims to realize the NEMO’s PRESS, Safety & Policy enforcement framework to enforce compliance of the NEMO-hosted micro-services to the policies defined by the service and the application providers. In addition, Netcompany-Intrasoft will design and develop a cybersecurity technical solution that will focus on the protection of Federated Learning data/model poisoning attacks. Last but not least, Netcompany-Intrasoft is in charge of the coordination of NEMO’s Open Calls. The main objective of this task is to launch 2 Open Calls to engage cross-sector and cross-border IoT-driven 3rd parties to be part of NEMO programme.

Conti Temic microelectronic GmbH (CONTI) is a global market leader in the automotive supplier industry for driver assistance systems in the areas of driving safety and driving comfort. Autonomous driving is one of the most important future fields for the automotive industry. The latest sensor generations, including camera, radar and LiDAR systems, are manufactured in the Group-wide ADAS lead plant (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) in Ingolstadt. Approximately 1,600 employees are employed in the areas of development, administration and production. After successful verification, innovative manufacturing processes and smart technologies are transferred to other ADAS locations worldwide. In addition to extensive SMD/front-end and back-end production as well as state-of-the-art environmental simulation and test laboratories, Ingolstadt also has the company’s largest prototype construction for the basic development up to the SOP maturity of the sensors. In addition to the wide range of experience in the development and series launch of innovative vehicle electronics, microassembly and functional analysis, Conti Temic microelectronic GmbH is actively building up competence in the field of artificial intelligence. Due to the existing high level of automation in production with the use of collaborating robots and automated guided vehicle systems, Ingolstadt site can provide a real industrial connection to the project. A Smart Technology & Application Room is available to test I4.0 technologies. Robotics in general and particularly Cobots have a strong impact within highly automated production facilities. As market demands transformation and demographic change induce new challenges on mass production, CONTI has already undergone feasibility and profitability assessment for the application of flexible Cobots in upcoming assembly facilities. Conti Temic microelectronic in Ingolstadt provides the Industry 4.0 Use Cases in NEMO project with the focus on fully automated indoor logistics/supply chain and Human-centred indoor factory environment safety.

Wind Tre S.p.A. (hereinafter “WindTre”), is the first mobile operator in Italy and among the main fixed  network operators (voice/data); WindTre is a reference player in fixed-mobile integration and in the development of next-generation fiber networks, thanks also to the agreement with OpenFiber for the construction of the BUL (Ultra-WideBand) network in Italy.In mobile market, WindTre invested in the consolidation process of its network, defined as ‘Top Quality’ by leading independent  international  institutes,  specialized  in  the  evaluation  of  network  performance,  such  as  OOKLA, OPENSIGNAL, UMLAUT, NPERF. In particular, in 2021 the company obtained OOKLA recognition as the best performing mobile network in Italy for the third consecutive time. Within 20,000’5G ready’ transmission sites, the WindTre network rapidly implemented the fifth-generation standard, together with a previously highly reliable voice service. WindTre is therefore able to support the most innovative ICT services,  dedicated  to both the  consumer  and  business  markets  (Companies and  Public  Administration).  The WindTre mobile network guarantees coverage of the population in 4G equal to 99.7%, in 5G 95.4%.WindTre is a market leader in the connectivity (fiber internet connection, Wi-Fi systems, LTE / 5G cellular mobile service) and in the internet services (Unified Communication Service, IaaS Cloud server)

WindTre has a long-standing experience in fixed and mobile networks and wireless technologies. With the major telco network manufacturers and ICT manufacturers designed the 5G telco operators ‘architecture and tested new services as in the 5G experimentation project. WindTre provides the scientific-technological skills and experience in relation to design ideas which represents the company’s core business commercial solutions.

Demonstrated ability to  manage  and  implement  projects  in  fundamental  and/or  applied  research  with particular reference to the area of the partnership WindTre has track records in working on EC-funded framework programs, such as H2020. Participation has quite often involved in use-case definition and test. WindTre has also managed the 5G experimentation program promoted by MISE and consisting in the pilot project in Prato and L’Aquila. WindTre as Telco operator provided the 5G infrastructure and orchestrated the partner (universities and start-ups) to achieve new 5G services and applications.