The touch-enabled Tactile Internet, also known as the Internet of Skills, is anticipated to bring an unprecedented economic and social impact to the digitized world. TOAST will train the next generation of doctoral candidates to tackle the critical challenges of Tactile Internet through interdisciplinary research. Addressing these challenges requires the doctoral candidates to gain a broad understanding of haptics, teleoperation, haptic communication, networking, edge computing, machine learning and human perception.

By bringing together world-class researchers from academia and industry, TOAST will (a) provide an innovative training program to the doctoral candidates with a balance of fundamental research questions, pragmatic industrial research perspectives, interdisciplinary cooperation through the development of a joined testbed, which will not only benefit the doctoral candidates by enabling remote training and experiments, demonstrations and public engagement, but also generate stronger synergies and extend TOAST’s impact beyond its conclusion; (b) develop E2E solutions for the Tactile Internet by leveraging the complementary competences of the partners, which will be transferred into IPR, new products and services; and (c) contribute to the development of the doctoral candidates’ skills and network, enhancing their career perspectives and employability.