PESCO aims to develop foundations and concrete technological enablers:

  • for the future pervasive Internet, a complex environment, integrating communication, IoT and networking functionality
  • for heterogeneous sensing integrated with communication functions, thanks to the abundance of wireless technologies with pervasive sensing capabilities
  • based on a framework architecture and consistent performance evaluation for a pervasive Internet
  • for making results sustainable, via linking its results with the international research and industrial communities

PESCO is part of Spoke 1 – Pervasive and Photonic Network Technologies and Infrastructures 

Project PI: Andrea Passarella

Overall, the key results achieved until September 2023 are:
  • Activities on all the scientific dimensions of the project.
    In particular, PESCO has achieved:
    (i) initial design of novel paradigms for the pervasive Internet based on the Metaverse emerging concepts;
    (ii) solutions for efficient realisation of the FaaS concept at the edge of the pervasive Internet;
    (iii) an extended set of solutions for communication-efficient and resource-efficient AI at the edge of the network, with the inclusion of beyond-edge devices in the service provision fabric;
    (iv) initial results on novel forms of localisation and sensing also based on coordination among UAV swarms;
    (v) novel solutions of pervasive sensing integrated with diverse wireless communication technologies.
  • Extended discussion among the partner on collaboration on the use cases. The final set consists of use cases providing the ground for significant collaboration among partners;
  • Definition of an initial version of the reference architecture and 10 shared reference use cases;
  • Starting of joint activities on 6 emerging topics among the project partners focusing on edge computing, decentralised AI, novel sensing and communication approaches;
  • Publication of 41 papers on the topics of PESCO, one of which received the Best Paper Award at an IEEE International Conference;
  • Definition of 2 innovation use cases, in the areas of
    (i) novel architectures supporting edge computing through telco PoPs;
    (ii) novel solutions for multiband and multidevice integrated communication and sensing.
  • the organisation of one PhD summer school by UniPD (SSIE = https://ssie.dei.unipd.it/)
[M1-M9]

Among the results mentioned in the section “Main Activities”, PESCO has defined the project use cases. 

The 10 use cases are:
  • Datacenter on edge;
  • Drone swarm sensors synchronization;
  • Future pervasive Internet for the Metaverse;
  • Autonomous Intelligent Network of inertial sensors for real-time, high-precision environmental sensing (AISENSE-NET);
  • Laser synchronization and secure key distillation in a free-space infrastructure;
  • Smart Fleet Management for Logistic Systems;
  • Computation and Communication Resources Optimization in Distributed Sensing and Learning;
  • Indoor Human Movement Monitoring for Holographic Telepresence;
  • Harbour surveillance: early identification and tracking of illegal activities;
  • PESCO for Automated Mobile Robots in Smart Manufacturing Environments.


[M10 - today]

PESCO is significantly advancing the state of the art on all the scientific dimensions highlighted. Across the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, special focus has been devoted to launching transversal activities among the partners, which have also resulted in proposals for the RESTART Grand Challenges.

Specifically, the main areas where joint activities are progressing are the following:
  • optimisation of the emerging Function as a Service (FaaS) paradigm for edge computing
  • decentralised unlearning in pervasive networks
  • the effects of network topologies and energy optimisation aspects of decentralised learning
  • collaborative federated learning
  • data processing and analysis of coherent distributed MIMO radar systems
  • development of a near-field sensing testbed to validate near-field localization and sensing algorithms.


Also thanks to these activities, PESCO has contributed four proposals for the following RESTART Grand Challenges:
  • Make artificial intelligence distributed and networked
  • Sensing and protecting the world with communication signals
  • Make your surroundings a programmable networked platform for customized services
  • Publications
    Expected: >=1 journal publication/partner/year
    Accomplished: 17 journal publications + 24 conference publications
    Readiness: 227%
  • Joint Publications
    Expected: >=15% joint publications/year
    Accomplished: 3 joint publications over 41
    Readiness: 48%
  • Talks/communication events
    Expected: 2 talks/partner/year reporting PESCO activities
    Accomplished: 24 talks delivered or already scheduled
    Readiness: 160%
  • Demo/PoC
    Expected: 0 (2 PoCs expected by the end of the project)
    Accomplished: 0 (Guiding use cases defined)
    Readiness: N.A. (work according to plan)
  • Project meetings
    Expected: 9 [1 plenary meeting/month]
    Accomplished: 38
    Readiness: 253%
  • MS1: Use cases & requirements, initial architecture draft
    Expected: 1 within M6
    Accomplished: 1 within M6
    Readiness: 100%
  • MS2: Architecture specified, initial algorithms and models
    Expected: 1 within M12
    Accomplished: 1 within M12
    Readiness: 100%

Collaboration proposals:
PESCO has defined a large set of technical Use Cases, as examples of the combination of technical components it will deliver, with respect to relevant application areas foreseen by project partners.

The project is happy to consider external collaborations with industries (and with SMEs in particular) to further enhance the current definition of the Use Cases, their extension, and/or possible trials based on the technical components planned for delivery.

The main areas for collaboration are:

  • Novel paradigms, solutions and protocols for pervasive Internet, based on post-5G architectures
  • Efficient pervasive AI at the edge of the network
  • Novel IoT, sensing and localisation technologies
  • Novel pervasive sensing solutions, also integrated with communication technologies

For any proposal of collaboration within the project please contact the project PI.

PESCO News: