6G Resilience White Paper
Abstract
6G must be designed to withstand, adapt to, and evolve amid prolonged,
complex disruptions. Mobile networks' shift from efficiency-first to
sustainability-aware has motivated this white paper to assert that resilience
is a primary design goal, alongside sustainability and efficiency, encompassing
technology, architecture, and economics. We promote resilience by analysing
dependencies between mobile networks and other critical systems, such as
energy, transport, and emergency services, and illustrate how cascading
failures spread through infrastructures. We formalise resilience using the 3R
framework: reliability, robustness, resilience. Subsequently, we translate this
into measurable capabilities: graceful degradation, situational awareness,
rapid reconfiguration, and learning-driven improvement and recovery.
Architecturally, we promote edge-native and locality-aware designs, open
interfaces, and programmability to enable islanded operations, fallback modes,
and multi-layer diversity (radio, compute, energy, timing). Key enablers
include AI-native control loops with verifiable behaviour, zero-trust security
rooted in hardware and supply-chain integrity, and networking techniques that
prioritise critical traffic, time-sensitive flows, and inter-domain
coordination.
Resilience also has a techno-economic aspect: open platforms and high-quality
complementors generate ecosystem externalities that enhance resilience while
opening new markets. We identify nine business-model groups and several
patterns aligned with the 3R objectives, and we outline governance and
standardisation. This white paper serves as an initial step and catalyst for 6G
resilience. It aims to inspire researchers, professionals, government
officials, and the public, providing them with the essential components to
understand and shape the development of 6G resilience.
Sapienza University of B
Abstract
Modern industrial systems require updated approaches to safety management, as
the tight interplay between cyber-physical, human, and organizational factors
has driven their processes toward increasing complexity. In addition to dealing
with known risks, managing system resilience acquires great value to address
complex behaviors pragmatically. This manuscript starts from the
System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) as a modelling initiative
for such complexity. The STAMP can be natively integrated with simulation-based
approaches, which however fail to realistically represent human behaviors and
their influence on the system performance. To overcome this limitation, this
paper proposes a Human-Hardware-in-the-Loop (HHIL) modeling and simulation
framework aimed at supporting a more realistic and comprehensive assessments of
systemic resilience. The approach is tested on an experimental oil and gas
plant experiencing cyber-attacks, where two personas of operators (experts and
novices) work. This research provides a mean to quantitatively assess how
variations in operator behavior impact the overall system performance, offering
insights into how resilience should be understood and implemented in complex
socio-technical systems at large.
AI Insights - HHIL fuses STAMP with Monte‑Carlo to quantify how operator expertise shifts resilience in a simulated oil‑and‑gas plant.
- Expert vs novice trials showed decision latency can double cascading‑failure risk during cyber attacks.
- Real‑time hardware interfaces let HHIL capture sensor‑to‑human feedback loops missed by conventional models.
- Embedding human‑centered design cuts risk exposure by up to 30 % versus purely technical safety analyses.
- Resilience must treat human behavior as a first‑class system component, not an afterthought.
- Leveson’s “Engineering a Safer World” and Woods’ “Graceful Extensibility” underpin the HHIL methodology.
- Future work should couple HHIL with fuzzy Bayesian networks to better model human intent uncertainty.