8th Training School

Scope

Decision-Making via Lossy Wireless Communications assumes that observations from multiple terminals are sent to a fusion centre, where the original observations may not be losslessly constructed at the receiver side. This is particularly useful in IoT, Sensor Networks, and Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RAN), where the goal is not to reproduce information losslessly but to make correct decisions based on the distorted data sequences collected.

The Summer School covers decision making through end-to-end lossy distributed wireless cooperative networks, distributed multi-sensor-based geolocation-and-tracking techniques, 5G private network for industrial applications, goal-oriented sensing and wireless networks, binary DHT using linear binary codes, integrated sensing and communications, drone/UAV applications, vehicle-to-everything communications, and practical sessions on cooperative, connected, and automated mobility.

This 18 hour training combines lectures, exercises, field tests, and practical computer-based sessions along with a social event.

Targeted Audience

The course is primarily targeted at PhD students but is open to researchers with an interest in these topics, from industry or academia.

The prerequisites are: basic knowledge of wireless communications, along with some knowledge of stochastic processes and appropriate engineering mathematics.

Dates

September 17-19, 2025

Speakers

• Prof. Rafael Caldeirinha, Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Politécnico de Leiria
• Prof. Tad Matsumoto, Professor Emeritus of JAIST
• Doctor Ismaila Salihou Adamou, Télécom Paris
• Prof. Christos Masouros, University College London
• Prof. Pedro Sebastião, Instituto de Telecomunicações and ISCTE-IUL
• Doctor João Miguel Pereira de Almeida, Instituto de Telecomunicações – Aveiro

General Programme

General Programme (updated version)

17 Sep (WEDNESDAY)

12h00 – Meet-up and Opening Lunch (12h30)

14h00 – 5G Open Innovation Lab – Workshop on 5G Private Network for Industrial Applications by Rafael Caldeirinha

14h00 – 14h30: Part I – Welcome and Introduction to the 5G Open Innovation Lab

Presenter: Prof. Rafael Caldeirinha (Politécnico de Leiria & IT)
• Vision and goals of the 5GOIL initiative
• Technical overview of the 5G SA private network
• Role in national and European innovation: Digital Innovation Hub CONNECT5; INOV.AM Academy and ALBATROZ project

14h30 – 16h15: Part II – Hands-On Activity

5G Antenna Simulation and Measurement
Supervisors: João Reis and Tiago Oliveira
• Design and simulate a compact antenna for N78 and/ or FR2 bands
• Antenna testing in IT’s anechoic chamber
• Tools: CST, VNA, Anechoic Chamber

16h15 – 16h30: Coffee & Networking Break

16h30 – 17h20: Part III – Hands-On Testing of 5G Performance in the 5GOIL Testbed

Led by IT/5GOIL Technical Team
Supervisors: Luis Duarte, João Reis and Telmo Fernandes
• Real-time throughput, latency, and coverage measurements
• Interaction with live network slicing and edge computing
• Use of dashboards and mobile test UEs

17h20 – 17h30: Wrap-Up

Presenter: Prof. Rafael Caldeirinha
• Summary of key outcomes
• Acknowledgment of partners and participants

17h45 – 18h45: Part IV – Panel on 5G Innovation: Use Cases with Relevance to Industry – Sister programme with Seattle ComSoc Joint Chapter

Moderator: Prof. Rafael Caldeirinha, Politécnico de Leiria / Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal

Panelists:
• Samuel Madaíl, Altice Labs, Portugal
• Tiago Marques, Fundação Champalimaud, Portugal
• João Duque, ANACOM, Portugal

Includes discussion of innovations and use cases, architecture, deployment strategies, business value, and operational constraints.

19h00 – Welcome reception

18 Sep (THURSDAY)

9h00 – IEEE Portugal Workshop on Integrated Sensing and Communications: : Signalling, Network Design and Security, by Christos Masouros, ComSoc – University College London (1 slot) – Sister programme with Seattle ComSoc Joint Chapter

10:30 – Coffee-break

11:00 – Goal-Oriented Sensing and Wireless Networks (part I), by Tad Matsumoto, Professor Emeritus of JAIST, Japan

12h30 –Lunch

14h00 – Goal-Oriented Sensing and Wireless Networks (part II), by Tad Matsumoto, Professor Emeritus of JAIST, Japan

15:45 – Coffee-break

16:30 – IEEE Portugal Workshop on Distributed Hypothesis Testing using Linear Binary Codes, by Ismaila Salihou Adamou, Telecom-Paris – Sister programme with Seattle ComSoc Joint Chapter

18:15 – End of the second day

19h00 – Social event (location to be announced)

19 Sep (FRIDAY)

9h00 – Drone/UAV Applications: An Entrepreneurship Perspective (part I), by Pedro Sebastião, ISCTE-IUL and Instituto de Telecomunicações

10:20 – Coffee-break

10:45 – Drone/UAV Applications: An Entrepreneurship Perspective (part II), by Pedro Sebastião, ISCTE-IUL and Instituto de Telecomunicações

12h15 –Lunch

13h45 – Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communications for Maneuver Coordination of Autonomous Vehicles, by João Miguel Pereira de Almeida, Instituto de Telecomunicações – Aveiro

15:15 – Coffee-break

15h45 – Practical Session on Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) Applications, by João Miguel Pereira de Almeida, Instituto de Telecomunicações – Aveiro

17h15 Closing Ceremony

General Schedule

The activities will run daily from 9h00 to 13h00 and from 14h00 to ~17h30, with a 30 minute break at each morning and afternoon period.

Supporting Texts

• Prof. Tad Matsumoto will cover topics such as Decision-Making via End-to-End Lossy Wireless Communications Network. The broad aim is to combine knowledge from Network Information Theory and Distributed Hypothesis Testing for Decision Making as a Statistical Inference. Since in Beyond 5G and 6G wireless networks, the network throughput efficiency is expected to be very high, the covered topics will exploit the sources information correlation for the Decision-Making. The lecture includes the topics related to Decision Making via End-to-End Lossy Distributed Wireless Cooperative Networks: From Turbo Equalization to Distributed Hypothesis Testing, Machine Learning and Semantic Communications – with the special emphasis on how they are connected?  Age-of-Information (AoI) is also covered in the lecture, representing the average probability that the decision centre cannot make decisions due to the network delay.  The lecture will provide mathematical and information theoretic backgrounds, analytical methods, and numerical calculations for evaluating their performances.

Distributed Hypothesis Testing using Linear Binary Codes, by Ismaila Salihou Adamou, Telecom-Paris

In distributed hypothesis testing (DHT), the goal is to compress observed data so that a decision (e.g., classification or detection) can be reliably made at a remote decoder. This talk explores how DHT formalizes decision-making over coded data from an information-theoretic perspective. The first part of the lecture discusses the fundamental limits of DHT, including error exponents and rate constraints. The second part presents practical coding schemes based on linear block codes, demonstrating how short-length codes can be effectively used for decision tasks under communication constraints.

• Doctor Ismaila SALIHOU ADAMOU is a postdoctoral fellow at Télécom Paris, within the Comunications and Electronics (COMELEC) Department. His research focuses on information theory, coding, goal-oriented communication, and the use of machine learning techniques for information-theoretic and coding problems. Prior to joining Télécom Paris, Dr. SALIHOU ADAMOU earned a Ph.D. in information theory, with an emphasis on practical short-length code design for goal-oriented tasks such as decision-making. He also holds an M.Sc. in Signal, Information, and Communication from Cergy Paris University, and a B.Sc. in Networks and Telecommunications from Djillali Liabès University. 
• Doctor João Almeida will provide a conceptual talk on Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communications for Maneuver Coordination of Autonomous Vehicles, and a Practical Session on Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) Applications. V2X communications enable Cooperative, Connected and Automated Vehicles (CCAVs) to achieve comprehensive environmental awareness and well-informed decision-making. This technological advancement is crucial for minimizing road accidents caused by poor perception or inadequate communication. With the growing importance of vehicle collaboration, new standardized messages and services for V2X communications have been introduced to enhance the coordination of CCAVs’ actions. This way, and together with the utilization of consensus algorithms and trust assessment mechanisms, CCAVs will be able to rely on each other for the execution of cooperative traffic maneuvers.

• Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications enable Cooperative, Connected and Automated Vehicles (CCAVs) to achieve comprehensive environmental awareness and well-informed decision-making. This technological advancement is crucial for minimizing road accidents caused by poor perception or inadequate communication. With the growing importance of vehicle collaboration, new standardized messages and services for V2X communications have been introduced to enhance the coordination of CCAVs’ actions. This way, and together with the utilization of consensus algorithms and trust assessment mechanisms, CCAVs will be able to rely on each other for the execution of cooperative traffic maneuvers.

• Title: Integrated Sensing and Communications: Signalling, Network Design and Security

   

  Abstract: The future global cellular infrastructure will underpin a variety of applications, such as smart city solutions, urban security, infrastructure monitoring, and smart mobility, among others. These emerging applications require new network functionalities that go beyond traditional communication. Key network KPIs for 6G include Gb/s data rates, cm-level localization, μs-level latency, and Tb/Joule energy efficiency. Additionally, future networks must support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to ensure sustainability, net-zero emissions, resilience, and inclusivity.

   

  The multifunctionality and net-zero emissions agenda call for a redesign of multi-access technologies for 6G and beyond. In this talk, I focus on enabling multifunctionality in signals and wireless transmissions as a means of reducing hardware redundancy and minimizing carbon footprint. We will explore the emerging field of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), which represents a paradigm shift towards combining sensing and communication functionalities within a single transmission, utilizing a single spectrum and ultimately sharing a common infrastructure. In this talk I briefly present the opportunities of ISAC as a natural evolution of the two technologies, with obvious gains in energy-, hardware- and cost- efficiency through the use of dual-functional hardware. I further explain that their co-design also offers opportunities in flexible trade-offs and new synergies between sensing and communication. I then discuss unprecedented security vulnerabilities that ISAC brings about, that need to be urgently addressed before its large scale deployment. I present some results from my team’s work in the area, that underline the benefits of the co-design in offering a graceful trade-off between the communications, sensing and security, and some prototyping results. I conclude with some thoughts on research opportunities and the road ahead.

Language

The Training School will be entirely held in English.

Location

The technical activities will be held in Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, located at:

Campus 2, Morro do Lena – Alto do Vieiro, Apartado 4163, 2411-901 Leiria – Portugal – GPS 39°44’03.2″N 8°49’18.1″W

The location of the social activities will be announced during the Training School.

MAP OF THE CAMPUS

Visa

Portugal is part of the Schengen area. For a full visa information, please refer to https://vistos.mne.gov.pt/en/short-stay-visas-schengen/general-information/who-needs-a-visa#countries

Travel

Leiria is a small and safe city located in the Center Region of Portugal, near to the sea shore. It can be easily reached from Lisbon or Porto, the closest cities with an international airport.

FROM LISBON AIRPORT

You may catch the metro subway at Lisbon Airport and go to Oriente railway and bus station or Sete Rios bus station (must to change line once). Either in Oriente or Sete Rios, take the bus (Express lines) to Leiria. The FlixBus is, also, a good option to consider.

See the city map of Lisbon here.

If you are coming by car, configure the GPS to take the Highway A8 straight to Leiria. Along the way you can make a pause in Torres Vedras city, Óbidos city, and visit their beatiful monuments or, taste their fine food and exquisite desserts or, simply, go for a walk in their antique squares and fortresses.

FROM OPORTO AIRPORT

You may catch the metro subway at Porto Airport to Campo 24 de Agosto to take the bus (Express lines) to Leiria.

The FlixBus is, also, a good option to consider.

See the city map of Oporto here.

If you are coming by car, configure the GPS to take the Highway A1 to Leiria. You may take the A25 and make a pause in Aveiro, the “Portuguese Venice”, where you can taste the famous and delicious “ovos moles” egg cream, amoung other gastronomy, or take a boat trip, or simply go for a walk by the river.

Accommodation

There are a wide variety of accommodation options available within easy walking/commuting distance. Some recommendations include the following hotels:

Hotel Eurosol Leiria and Eurosol Jardim***
T +351 244 849 849 | leiria@eurosol.pt

Discount code: ITS2025

Hotel São Luís *** 
T +351 tel:351 244 848 370|hotelsluis@gmail.com

Hotel D. Dinis**
T +351 244 815 342 / 3 | info@hotelddinis.pt

La Palma Hostel

T +351 910 171 815 | lapalmaleiria@gmail.com

Hotel Ibis Leiria-Fátima **
T +351 244 816 700 | h3340@accor.com

Eurosol Residence – Hotel Apartamento ****
T +351 244 860 460 | residence@eurosol.pt

Hotel B&B-Leiria ***
T +351 800 110 422 | hotel.leiria@hotelbb.com

Grants

Grants, in the form of reduced to zero registration fee and a Daily Allowance (80€ per day), are available. Applicants should send their application (see the Grant Application form in this page) to Krzysztof.cichon@put.poznan.pl and natascia.defenzo@wilab.cnit.it until August 10, 2025.

Grant notification: August 18, 2025.

Please note: the payment of the Daily Allowance will be processed at the end of the Training School and you will receive your money up to two months after the event.

Grants will be provided according to COST rules and the full presence at TS lectures is needed.

To submit your application, please send an email with the subject “CA20120 – 8th Training School Application” attaching one full document in PDF format. Please rename the file with this criteria:

– Ordinary number of the Training School
– TS
– Surname
– Name

Please find here an example: 8thTS_Surname_Name

Registration

Click HERE to register.

Social Events

There will be a course dinner on the Thursday night. A welcome reception is also planned on Wednesday evening.

Contacts

Prof. Fernando José Velez (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Universidade da Beira Interior) and Prof. Nuno Rodrigues (Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria)

Organisation and Scientific Programme Committee

• Fernando J. Velez – Universidade da Beira Interior and Instituto de Telecomunicações
• Nuno M. M. Rodrigues – ESTG/IP Leiria and Instituto de Telecomunicações
• Tad Matsumoto – Professor Emeritus of JAIST
• Luís Bernardo – Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Instituto de Telecomunicações
• Paulo Pereirinha – Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra
• Rafael Caldeirinha – ESTG/IP Leiria and Instituto de Telecomunicações