Project FRONTIER

Overview

Large-scale cyber-physical systems, such as electrical grids, will become increasingly interconnected and computer-controlled. Since these systems are critical, their communications cannot rely on the public Internet, which provides no performance guarantees. The FRONTIER project aims to address the scientific challenges that currently prevent time-sensitive networks— the only ones capable of providing such guarantees—from scaling to the size of these systems.

📅 1er october 2026

• Rafik Zayani, IETR : coordinateur

The FRONTIER project aims to develop innovative communication architectures and technologies to control large-scale cyber-physical systems efficiently. Current solutions cannot manage critical systems that are massively distributed, heterogeneous, and large-scale. FRONTIER seeks to overcome these barriers by exploring emerging concepts: globally scalable architectures with deterministic latency, multi-dimensional technologies with guaranteed latency, including satellite constellations dedicated to cyber-physical systems, and an innovative control approach combining a multi-level infrastructure with predictive control. 

These advancements will enable overcoming the current limitations inherent to cyber-physical systems. By guaranteeing deterministic latency and introducing control paradigms tailored to large-scale systems, FRONTIER will achieve better stability and resource optimization in large-scale cyber-physical systems. Specifically, FRONTIER will demonstrate the impact of these innovative technologies on electrical systems by enabling spatiotemporal smoothing of renewable energy production variations.