NSLab co-organizes ERN 2026, the 1st Workshop on Experimental Research on Networking

NSLab is co-organizing ERN 2026, the 1st Workshop on Experimental Research on Networking, held in conjunction with NoF 2026 on 29 September 2026 in Rome, Italy.

ERN is a full-day forum for research grounded in real hardware, real protocol stacks and realistic testbeds: testbed-driven, reproducible and hardware-in-the-loop work across 5G/6G, O-RAN, optical, quantum and programmable networks. It addresses the growing experimental validation gap of a field where most results still rely on analytical models and simulation.

The programme features 10 peer-reviewed papers in four technical sessions and three keynotes:

• Prof. Luca Valcarenghi (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa): Next-Generation Mobile Network Experiments: The Potential of Coordinating Federated Learning and RAN Transport
• Luigi Briguglio (CyberSocial Lab): Sustainability-by-design in 6G Technology
• Dr. Emilio Calvanese Strinati (CEA-Leti, Grenoble): Secrets of Semantic Communications: From Theory to Experiments and Standardization

The workshop is chaired by Andrea Marotta (NSLab, University of L'Aquila) together with Koteswararao Kondepu (IIT Dharwad) and Riccardo Bassoli (TU Dresden). NSLab members Alex Piccioni and Carlo Centofanti serve on the Technical Program Committee. Accepted papers will be published in the NoF 2026 proceedings and submitted to IEEE Xplore.

Full programme and details: ERN 2026 workshop website.