The massive adoption of eXtended Reality (XR) in most of our daily activities regarding education, work, health, entertainment and personal life will heavily transform our society in the following years. Those XR applications will mostly reach the final user - to both consume and create XR contents - through wireless networks, and Wi-Fi in particular, due to their flexibility, mobility support and ease of use. The success of such an XR-enabled society will depend to a great extent on the ability of the wireless networks to support their stringent performance requirements. Real-time, and interactive XR applications - which mainly consist of exchanging high quality video along with metadata - require both high throughput (hundreds of Mbps per user) and low-latency (ms, or even sub-ms), which generally are opposed performance metrics.
Current wireless networks are not yet ready to cope with a massive use of XR applications in an efficient way, and so both academia and industry are pushing to find innovative solutions. The target is to have them ready by 2030. By then, Wi-Fi will likely continue being the preferred wireless access solution in unlicensed bands, and so the most used technology to consume XR experiences. However, although current Wi-Fi technologies are extremely advanced, reaching speeds of several dozens of Gbps, they are far from being ready to efficiently offer low-latency guarantees.
To support XR needs in future Wi-Fi networks a paradigm change is required from throughput-centered to latency-aware networking. This paradigm change can be supported by allowing Wi-Fi to opportunistically use different spectrum bands in a coordinated way, enable cooperation between different Access Points, implement sub-frame resource allocation schemes, exchange control information with other layers, and support the use of Machine Learning for a seamless adaptation to diverse and rapidly evolving scenarios.
This project aims to build on the aforementioned points to offer innovative and practical solutions for next-generation Wi-Fi networks, so they can successfully offer both high-throughput and low-latency guarantees to interactive streaming applications including video contents, cloud gaming, and immersive XR applications, among others. By considering new principles such as multi Access Point cooperation and opportunistic multi-channel/band access, we will be able to design particular solutions able to satisfy the needs of XR applications in dense and dynamic wireless network deployments. Moreover, we will go beyond traditional protocol/mechanism design: motivated by the need to find/learn specific functionalities that suit each unique scenario, we will focus on the design of intelligent protocols/mechanisms by embedding Machine Learning techniques in the different Wi-Fi functionalities.
The generated results will extend our knowledge in wireless networking, Wi-Fi technologies, real-time and interactive video applications (cloud gaming, and XR), and in the design of intelligent protocols. It will also contribute to developing the required new mathematical, simulation and experimental frameworks to be able to characterize the performance gains of the upcoming latency-aware Wi-Fi networks. All in all, this project will help to build a better future society by contributing to enable the use of interactive and real-time XR applications and services.
Journal Publications
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Boris Bellalta, Marc Carrascosa, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci: Delay Analysis of IEEE 802.11be Multi-Link Operation Under Finite Load. IEEE Wirel. Commun. Lett. 12(4): 595-599 (2023) DOI: 10.1109/LWC.2023.3235001
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Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Giovanni Geraci, Edward W. Knightly, Boris Bellalta: Wi-Fi Multi-Link Operation: An Experimental Study of Latency and Throughput. IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw. 32(1): 308-322 (2024) DOI: 10.1109/TNET.2023.3283154
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Seyedeh Soheila Shaabanzadeh, Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Juan Sánchez-González, Costas Michaelides, Boris Bellalta: Virtual reality traffic prioritization for Wi-Fi quality of service improvement using machine learning classification techniques. J. Netw. Comput. Appl. 230: 103939 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2024.103939
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Miguel Casasnovas, Costas Michaelides, Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Boris Bellalta: Experimental evaluation of interactive Edge/Cloud Virtual Reality gaming over Wi-Fi using unity render streaming. Comput. Commun. 226-227: 107919 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2024.08.001
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Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci, Marc Carrascosa, Boris Bellalta: What will Wi-Fi 8 Be? A Primer on IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability. IEEE Commun. Mag. 62(8): 126-132 (2024) DOI: 10.1109/MCOM.001.2300728
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Kamil Szczech, Maksymilian Wojnar, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Krzysztof Rusek, Szymon Szott, Dileepa Marasinghe, Nandana Rajatheva, Richard Combes, Francesc Wilhelmi, Anders Jonsson, Boris Bellalta: Toward Specialized Wireless Networks Using an ML-Driven Radio Interface. IEEE Access 13: 141814-141831 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3597400
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Francesc Wilhelmi, Szymon Szott, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Boris Bellalta: Machine Learning and Wi-Fi: Unveiling the Path Toward AI/ML-Native IEEE 802.11 Networks. IEEE Commun. Mag. 63(7): 114-120 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/MCOM.001.2400292
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Maksymilian Wojnar, Wojciech Ciezobka, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Krzysztof Rusek, Szymon Szott, David Nunez, Boris Bellalta: IEEE 802.11bn Multi-AP Coordinated Spatial Reuse With Hierarchical Multi-Armed Bandits. IEEE Commun. Lett. 29(3): 428-432 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/LCOMM.2024.3521079
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Maksymilian Wojnar, Wojciech Ciezobka, Artur Tomaszewski, Piotr Cholda, Krzysztof Rusek, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Jetmir Haxhibeqiri, Jeroen Hoebeke, Boris Bellalta, Anatolij Zubow, Falko Dressler, Szymon Szott: Coordinated Spatial Reuse Scheduling With Machine Learning in IEEE 802.11 MAPC Networks. IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun. 43(11): 3666-3682 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/JSAC.2025.3584555
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David Nunez, Pasquale Imputato, Stefano Avallone, Malcolm Smith, Boris Bellalta: Enabling Reliable Latency in Wi-Fi 8 Through Multi-AP Joint Scheduling. IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc. 6: 2090-2101 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/OJCOMS.2025.3549586
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Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Francesc Wilhelmi, Gianluca Fontanesi, Anders Jonsson, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta: XR Streaming Performance With Wi-Fi 7 Multi-Link Operation. IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc. 6: 6477-6490 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/OJCOMS.2025.3594950
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Boris Bellalta, Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci: Modeling and Performance Analysis of Non-Primary Channel Access in Wi-Fi Networks. IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc. 6: 7782-7794 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/OJCOMS.2025.3609964
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Giovanni Geraci, Francesca Meneghello, Francesc Wilhelmi, David López-Pérez, Iñaki Val, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Carlos Cordeiro, Monisha Ghosh, Edward W. Knightly, Boris Bellalta: Wi-Fi: 25 Years and Counting. Proceedings of the IEEE 113(11): 1290-1336 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/JPROC.2026.3662513
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Costas Michaelides, Miguel Casasnovas, David Nunez, Boris Bellalta: Lessons Learned From a Large-Scale Virtual Reality Experience Over Wi-Fi. IEEE Trans. Netw. 33(6): 3257-3269 (2025) DOI: 10.1109/TON.2025.3582033
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David Nunez, Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta: Improving Wi-Fi 8 Latency with Coordinated Spatial Reuse. IEEE Communications Standards Magazine. 2025 DOI: 10.1109/MCOMSTD.2025.3637901
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Boris Bellalta, Miguel Casasnovas, Ferran Maura, Alejandro Rodríguez, Juan Sebastián Marquerie, Pablo Luis García, Francesc Wilhelmi, Josep Blat: Understanding the Wi-Fi and VR streaming interplay: A comprehensible simulation and experimental study. J. Netw. Comput. Appl. 245: 104391 (2026) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104391
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Costas Michaelides, Boris Bellalta: On the Communication Problems of Virtual Reality: Responsiveness, Timeliness, and Effectiveness. IEEE Trans. Games 18(1): 66-76 (2026) DOI: 10.1109/TG.2025.3607753
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Costas Michaelides, Boris Bellalta: Demystifying the Peeker's Advantage in Multiplayer First-Person Shooter Games. IEEE Trans. Games 18(1): 197-206 (2026) DOI: 10.1109/TG.2026.3656267
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David Nunez, Francesc Wilhelmi, Maksymilian Wojnar, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Szymon Szott, Boris Bellalta: Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Scheduling for Wi-Fi Multi-Access Point Coordination. IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning for Communication and Networking (2026). DOI: 10.1109/TMLCN.2026.3682239
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Mahboubeh Irannezhad Parizi, Mostafa Rahmani Ghourtani, David Nunez, Francesc Wilhelmi, Boris Bellalta, Frank Scahill, Kanapathippillai Cumanan: DQN-based Fair Resource Unit Allocation for Multi-AP Coordinated OFDMA Wi-Fi Networks. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society 2026. DOI: 10.1109/OJCOMS.2026.3687844
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Conference/Workshop Publications
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Rashid Ali, Boris Bellalta: A Federated Reinforcement Learning Framework for Link Activation in Multi-Link Wi-Fi Networks. IEEE BlackSeaCom 2023: 360-365 DOI: 10.1109/BlackSeaCom58138.2023.10299778
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Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Anders Jonsson, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta: Performance and Coexistence Evaluation of IEEE 802.11be Multi-link Operation. IEEE WCNC 2023: 1-6 DOI: 10.1109/WCNC55385.2023.10118829
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Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Giovanni Geraci, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Anders Jonsson, Boris Bellalta: Understanding Multi-link Operation in Wi-Fi 7: Performance, Anomalies, and Solutions. IEEE PIMRC 2023: 1-6 DOI: 10.1109/PIMRC56721.2023.10293865
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David Nunez, Malcolm Smith, Boris Bellalta: Multi-AP Coordinated Spatial Reuse for Wi-Fi 8: Group Creation and Scheduling. MedComNet 2023: 203-208 DOI: 10.1109/MedComNet58619.2023.10168857
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Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta, Gianluca Fontanesi, David Nunez: Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11bn Coordinated Spatial Reuse. IEEE CSCN 2023: 401-407 DOI: 10.1109/CSCN60443.2023.10453190
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C Michaelides, M Casasnovas, D Marchitelli, Boris Bellalta; "Is Wi-Fi 6 Ready for Virtual Reality Mayhem? A Case Study Using One AP and Three HMDs" IEEE Future Networks 2023. [Best Paper Award] DOI: 10.1109/FNWF58287.2023.10520633
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Ferran Maura, Miguel Casasnovas, Boris Bellalta: Experimenting with Adaptive Bitrate Algorithms for Virtual Reality Streaming over Wi-Fi. ACM MobiCom 2024: 1930-1937 https://doi.org/10.1145/3636534.3697322
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David Nunez, Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta: Spatial Reuse in IEEE 802.11bn Coordinated Multi-AP WLANs: A Throughput Analysis. IEEE CSCN 2024. DOI: 10.1109/CSCN63874.2024.10849731
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Costas Michaelides, Boris Bellalta: Responsive and Timely Virtual Reality Gaming: Which Frame Rate Should One Choose? IEEE CoG 2024: 1-4 DOI: 10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645558
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Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Francesc Wilhelmi, Gianluca Fontanesi, Anders Jonsson, Giovanni Geraci, Boris Bellalta: Performance Evaluation of MLO for XR Streaming: Can Wi-Fi 7 Meet the Expectations? IEEE CAMAD 2024: 1-6 DOI: 10.1109/CAMAD62243.2024.10943088
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Alejandro Rodríguez, Pablo Luis García, Juan Sebastián Marquerie, Ricardo Marques, Josep Blat: A Cross-Platform, WebGPU-Based 3D Engine for Real-Time Rendering and XR Applications. Web3D 2025: 1-9 https://doi.org/10.1145/3746237.374630
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Miguel Casasnovas, Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois, Boris Bellalta: Can cloud-based VR streaming handle Wi-Fi OBSS contention? IEEE CSCN 2025: 1-6 DOI: 10.1109/CSCN67557.2025.11230689
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Ferran Maura, Francesc Wilhelmi, Boris Bellalta: Evaluating Wi-Fi Performance for VR Streaming: A Study on Realistic HEVC Video Traffic. PEMWN 2025: 1-7 DOI: 10.23919/PEMWN67312.2025.11304039
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Erfan Mozaffariahrar, Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenzo Galati-Giordano, Pasquale Imputato, Michael Menth, Stefano Avallone: R-TWT in Wi-Fi 7 and Beyond: Enabling Bounded Latency, Energy Efficiency, and Reliability. IEEE 30th International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA) 2025 DOI: 10.1109/ETFA65518.2025.11205686
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Book Chapter
Bellalta, Boris, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, Szymon Szott, and Francesc Wilhelmi. "Towards an AI/ML-defined Radio for Wi-Fi: Overview, Challenges, and Roadmap." arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.12675 (2024). [Link] [Objectives 1 & 2] - Paper published as part of the IEEE International Network Generations Roadmap (INGR) - AI/ML Working Group 2024 [Link]
Rooms, wgpuEngine, and NeSt-VR
Rooms and wgpuEngine are open-source under the MIT license and is being actively maintained at GitHub:
Tutorials & Talks
IEEE ICMLCN 2025: "Towards an AI/ML-Native Wi-Fi: Overview, Challenges and Roadmap" (tutorial), with F. Wilhelmi, Szymon Szott, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, and Boris Bellalta. March 2025.
HiPEAC 2025: "Towards Highly Reliable Wi-Fi". Boris Bellalta. January 2025.
IEEE PIMRC 2024: “Where Wi-Fi Meets Ultra-High Reliability” (tutorial), with L. Galati. and F. Wilhelmi; and ”How Wi-Fi 8 Will Look Like in 2028?” (panel), with L. Galati, I. Val, F. Meneghello and B. Bellalta. Sept. 2024.
IEEE MedComNet 2024: “On the Way to Wi-Fi 8: From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati. F. Wilhelmi and B. Bellalta Sept. 2023.
IEEE ICMLCN 2024: “Will ML Disrupt Wi-Fi? Status and Future of ML Adoption in Wi-Fi”. With K. Kosek-Szott, S. Szott, F. Wilhelmi, and B. Bellalta. May 2024
”What will Wi-Fi 8 be? From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”. Resilent Wordls. B. Bellalta. April 2024.
IEEE PIMRC 2023: “On the Way to Wi-Fi 8: From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati, F. Wilhelmi, and B. Bellalta. Sept. 2023.
ACM Mobicom 2023: “Machine Learning and Wi-Fi: Confluences, Ongoing Activities, and Ways Forward”. With S. Szott, K. Kosek-Szott, F. Wilhelmi, and B. Bellalta. Madrid. October 2023.
IEEE ICC 2023: “On the Way to Wi-Fi 8: From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati, and B. Bellalta. June 2023.
IEEE WCNC 2023: “Towards Wi-Fi 8: From Extremely High Throughput to Ultra High Reliability”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati and B. Bellalta. March 2023.
IEEE CCNC 2023: “IEEE 802.11be and Beyond: All You Need to Know about Next-generation Wi-Fi”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati, and B. Bellalta. Jan. 2023.
IEEE Globecom 2022: “IEEE 802.11be and Beyond: All You Need to Know about Next-generation Wi-Fi”. With G. Geraci, L. Galati, and B. Bellalta. Sept. 2022.
IEEE 802.11 standardization
Co-authors of the "IEEE 802.11 AIML TIG Technical Report." IEEE 802.11-22/0987r925, 2023. https://mentor.ieee.org/802.11/dcn/22/11-22-0987-02-aiml-aiml-tig-technical-report-draft.doc
Others
Special Session in the 21st International IEEE Conference on Factory Communication Systems (WFCS 2025): SS04 - Unlicensed Spectrum Technologies: The Next Frontier for Reliable Industrial Wireless. ORGANIZED BY: Lorenzo Galati Giordano, Nokia Bell Labs, Germany, Stefano Avallone, University of Naples, Italy, Boris Bellalta, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, Volker Jungnickel, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Germany, Rainer Strobel, Maxlinear, Germany; [link]
PhD thesis
2026: "Communication Problems in Networked Virtual Reality Gaming Systems." by Costas Michaelides. [Defense planned for May 27, 2026]
2025: "From Heuristic-based Policies to Machine Learning: Advancing Multi-Access Point Coordination for Future Wi-Fi Networks." by David Nuñez. [link]
2024: "Multi-Link Operation for Low-Latency Real-time Applications" by Marc Carrascosa-Zamacois [link].
2022: "The Next Wi-Fi Generation: Towards Intelligent and Multi-Link Enabled Networks" by Álvaro López-Raventos [link]
