5G-STARDUST · Satellite and Terrestrial Access for Distributed, Ubiquitous, and Smart Telecommunications

5G evolution is expected to deliver services to a diverse gamma of verticals and to the overall society according to a anywhere, anytime, anydevice paradigm, hence calling for a polymorphic and flexible architecture. Such an ambitious deployment plan calls for the convergence of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, especially for providing connectivity to un(der)served areas, which is the motivation of 5G-STARDUST.5G-STARDUST’s ambition is to is to deliver a fully integrated 5G-NTN autonomous system with novel self-adapting end-to-end connectivity model for enabling ubiquitous radio access, importantly leveraging on 1) new highly flexible multi-constellation (multi-orbit) architectures integrated with 5G terrestrial segments, 2) fully 5G-compliant regenerative SatCom capabilities, 3) unified radio interfaces 4) data driven AI-based techniques for multi-connectivity and radio resource management tasks 5) 3GPP and O-RAN architecture and concepts.To this aim 5G-STARDUST will design, develop, and demonstrate, up to TRL 5, a flexible satellite system integrated with the terrestrial infrastructure by means of self-organised network architecture. This allows for autonomous and intelligent multi-connectivity framework able to adapt to diverse vertical requirements. This innovative framework will also support the operation of multi-orbit constellations, with transparent and regenerative space nodes, to deliver 5G/6G NTN services.5G-STARDUST positions itself in the worldwide 5G/6G ecosystem timeline development, both from the standardization and market perspective. From the global standardization perspective, 5G-STARDUST results are planned to support Non-Terrestrial Network inclusion in the 3GPP Release 19 on the basis of the results of Release 18 and to influence initiation of activities in 3GPP Release 20 and 21. From the deployment and market perspective, 5G-STARDUST lines up with the market introduction, i.e., deployment by MNOs, of the 3GPP release 16, 17 and 18.