The OpenIreland Testbed, a nationally significant and internationally connected research infrastructure supporting experimental research in open and programmable networking, is entering a new phase within Trinity’s ADAPT Research Ireland Center.

This move will ensure the long-term sustainability of the testbed while strengthening core research in artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to network control, in line with ADAPT’s focus on AI-driven digital technologies.

Network-enabled sensing

As part of this evolution, OpenIreland is expanding its scope to network-enabled sensing, reflecting the increasing role of networks in not only transferring data but also sensing and understanding the world around them.

The OpenIreland test bed, located within ADAPT in Trinity University’s School of Computer Science and Statistics, will demonstrate how modern AI-enabled network infrastructures can operate as active sensing platforms.

The testbed goes beyond traditional data transfer to enable real-time monitoring and analysis of environments, physical infrastructure, and complex systems, demonstrating how AI and machine learning can be applied to network sensing as a natural extension of intelligent network control.

Professor Marco Ruffini and Professor Olivia Waters (front, seated) with Professor Merim Zaferagic and Professor Declan McKibben (back, standing) at ADAPT in Trinity University’s School of Computer Science and Statistics.

OpenIreland is characterized by its use of fiber-based infrastructure, which provides a shared foundation for experimentation. Traditionally, fiber networks have been used to transmit large amounts of data quickly and reliably. Now, the same infrastructure is being used in new ways, allowing researchers to explore how networks can detect change, measure condition, and support real-time analytics.

Can combine optical, wireless and software-driven technologies

By enabling sensing directly on networks, researchers can combine optical, wireless, and software-driven technologies to study how distributed systems behave, respond, and adapt. This change makes research more relevant to real-world challenges and increasingly requires communications, surveillance, and intelligence to work together.

This evolution into networking and sensing opens new research opportunities across areas such as smart infrastructure, environmental monitoring, resilient systems, and AI-driven optimization, while maintaining the testbed’s inherent strengths in open and programmable network experimentation.

The research team has collaborated with a wide range of academic partners, including Dublin City University (DCU), University College Dublin (UCD), Federal University of Espirito Santo (UFES, Brazil), Chalmers University of Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, Politecnico di Milano, and the University of Bristol.

The availability of shared real-world research infrastructure is also a key element for successful industry engagement. To date, collaborations include major research institutions such as Fraunhofer, NICT (Japan), and IMEC, as well as organizations such as NTT, NEC, Intel, and ESB. Additional industry collaborations with Dell-EMC and Telefonica are also in development.

Supporting long-term skill development

The testbed builds on significant national investment in advanced telecommunications and networking research in Ireland and supports long-term capacity development and international collaboration.

Professor Marco Ruffini said: “What we are seeing at OpenIreland is a natural progression from networking research to integrated networking and sensing. By building a fiber-based infrastructure, we can support experiments that combine communications, sensing and intelligent systems in ways that are highly relevant to both research and industry. Having this kind of open, shared infrastructure within ADAPT will make it much easier to collaborate internationally and engage with companies early in the research process.”

As OpenIreland continues to grow, it will play an increasingly important role in supporting experimental research, international collaboration and industry engagement, while contributing to Ireland’s profile in next generation networking and sensing technologies. This testbed exemplifies how shared research infrastructure can drive innovation and enable new forms of collaboration across academia, industry, and society for the benefit of all.