The Germany Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) is sponsoring the TACNET 4.0 – Tactile Internet project with around 6.3 million euros, which will be dispensed to 14 German companies and organizations. Approximately 660,000 euros of this will go to the University of Bremen, where the team lead by Prof. Armin Dekorsy from the Technologie-Zentrum Informatik und Informationstechnik (TZI) will research machine learning methods and processes for processing information and communication networks. TACNET 4.0 will focus on developing concepts and algorithms to enable fast, reliable data transmission via the coming 5G mobile network for communication between man and machines, laying the foundation for further expansion of the network based on the Industry 4.0 concept.

Here, the challenge lies in conceiving a communication system that guarantees reliable data transmission with minimal latency. At the same time, the data volume should be kept as low as possible. The TZI suggests a communication network based on many small, energy-efficient access nodes, a small cell network. For efficient redirection of the high data volume, researchers are looking to develop new machine learning processes so that the access nodes can automatically assess the relevance of a data package.