PRIME-6G

PRIME-6G (Pilot for Resilient Industrial Manufacturing Environments with 6G Technologies) addresses the enablement of key 6G technologies in advance manufacturing vertical industries towards production batch one. The project will develop and validate an integrated E2E Sustainable Platform Blueprint integrated 6G architecture based on a Cloud-Edge Continuum, enabling seamless and agile service provisioning. This is achieved through two core industrial use cases.

The AURORA use case focuses on i) AI-driven Network and Compute Optimization for Collaborative Industrial Agents, ii) End-to-End Deterministic Connectivity over Hybrid Domains, and iii) Cobotic control placement across the Telco Edge Cloud. The SENTINEL use case explores the use of Real-time Multi-modal sensor fusion with ISAC for Robot Control and Environment Mapping to create dynamic, real-time digital twins of industrial environments, enhancing situational awareness and operational efficiency. The project will conduct a TRL 7 pilot at the ARENA 2036 facility in a real-world manufacturing environment. This trial will serve as a key demonstration of the PRIME-6G capabilities towards the flexible factory, validating SNS Key Value and Performance Indicators (KVIs and KPIs).

A strong focus will be placed on showcasing the solution’s tangible benefits to key manufacturing stakeholders, providing a clear business case and facilitating the creation of a sustainable business ecosystem. By delivering a mature, close-to-market solution, PRIME-6G will ensure the wide exploitation of 6G technologies in the industrial vertical, addressing specific industry pain points and paving the way for future innovations.

Within the PRIME-6G project, Robotnik acts as the industrial robotics technology provider, contributing both robotic platforms and advanced software technologies to validate next-generation 6G-enabled industrial automation. Robotnik provides three RB-KAIROS autonomous mobile robots and develops the software required to implement and validate the AURORA use case, which focuses on deterministic communications and distributed robotic control over 5G/6G networks.

Robotnik’s main research contribution is centred on Innovation Area 4: Cobotic Control Placement across the Telco Edge Cloud. In particular, Robotnik leads the development of a Virtualized Robotic Controller (vRC) based on containerized ROS technology. This controller can be deployed, migrated, and executed dynamically across edge-cloud infrastructures according to network conditions, computing resources, and mission requirements. The objective is to demonstrate that robotic control can be moved from onboard hardware to telecom edge-cloud platforms while maintaining deterministic performance and reliability.

Expected Contributions

• Development of a containerized ROS-based virtual robot controller (vRC).
• Validation of remote and distributed robot control over deterministic 5G/6G communications.
• Integration of mobile robots into the AURORA industrial demonstrator.
• Demonstration of cloud-native robotic control architectures for future Industry 5.0 factories.
• Contribution to the final TRL 6–7 pilot at ARENA2036, validating the feasibility of virtualized cobotic control in real manufacturing environments.

Strategic Value

Robotnik enables PRIME-6G to move beyond telecommunications research and demonstrate a concrete industrial application: mobile robots whose control functions can be dynamically orchestrated across telecom edge-cloud infrastructures. This contributes to more scalable, flexible and cost-efficient manufacturing systems while helping establish future 6G standards for industrial robotics.