The interconnection of vehicles in the future fifth generation (5G) wireless ecosystem forms the so-called Internet of vehicles (IoV). IoV offers new kinds of applications requiring delay-sensitive, compute-intensive and bandwidth-hungry services. Mobile edge computing (MEC) and network slicing (NS) are two of the key enabler technologies in 5G networks that can be used to optimize the allocation of the network resources and guarantee the diverse requirements of IoV applications.
As traditional model-based optimization techniques generally end up with NP-hard and strongly non-convex and non-linear mathematical programming formulations, in this paper, we introduce a model-free approach based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to solve the resource allocation problem in MEC-enabled IoV network based on network slicing. Furthermore, the solution uses non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to enable a better exploitation of the scarce channel resources. The considered problem addresses jointly the channel and power allocation, the slice selection and the vehicles selection (vehicles grouping). We model the problem as a single-agent Markov decision process. Then, we solve it using DRL using the well-known DQL algorithm. We show that our approach is robust and effective under different network conditions compared to benchmark solutions.
Tactile Internet (TI) enables the omnipresence and exchange of tactile experiences across the global via the ultra-reliable and ultra-responsive connectivity. This article argues for coordinated multi-point (CoMP) enabled radio access network (RAN) slicing as an efficient solution that satisfies the stringent reliable and responsive connectivity requirements for supporting tactile applications. This article presents the emerging challenges when accommodating CoMP-enabled RAN slicing in the TI ecosystem and expounds the functional split of CoMP-enabled RAN. Besides, this article elaborates on t…
Adaptive Digital Twin and Communication-Efficient Federated Learning Network Slicing for 5G-enabled Internet of Things
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学计算机科学与工程学院）；School of Electro-optical Engineering, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications（重庆邮电大学光电工程学院）；Technische University（工业大学）
Concordia University（康科迪亚大学）；Université du Québec À Montréal（蒙特利尔魁北克大学）
Traditional Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) built with traditional Internet technology are less and less able to cope with today's tremendous growth of content. Information Centric Networks (ICN), a proposed future Internet technology, may aid in remedying the situation. Unlike the current Internet, it decouples information from its sources and provides in-network storage. We expect traditional CDN and ICN-based CDN to co-exist in the foreseeable future, especially as it is now known that it might be possible to evolve traditional CDNs to gain the benefits promised by ICN. 5G providers must t…
Industry 4.0 aims at shaking the current manufacturing landscape by leveraging the adoption of smart industrial equipment with increased connectivity, sensing, and actuation capabilities. By exploring access to real-time production information and advanced remote control features, servitization of manufacturing firms promises novel added value services for industrial operators and customers. On the other hand, industrial networks would face a transformation process in order to support the flexibility expected by the next-generation manufacturing processes and enable inter-factory cooperation. …
Salvador University (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学（UNIFACS））；University of Paris Saclay（巴黎萨克雷大学）；University of Evry（埃夫里大学）
Network slicing is a crucial enabler to support the composition and deployment of virtual network infrastructures required by the dynamic behavior of networks like 5G/6G mobile networks, IoT-aware networks, e-health systems, and industry verticals like the internet of vehicles (IoV) and industry 4.0. The communication slices and their allocated communication resources are essential in slicing architectures for resource orchestration and allocation, virtual network function (VNF) deployment, and slice operation functionalities. The communication slices provide the communications capabilities re…
Network slicing of multi-access edge computing (MEC) resources is expected to be a pivotal technology to the success of 5G networks and beyond. The key challenge that sets MEC slicing apart from traditional resource allocation problems is that edge nodes depend on tightly-intertwined and strictly-constrained networking, computation and storage resources. Therefore, instantiating MEC slices without incurring in resource over-provisioning is hardly addressable with existing slicing algorithms. The main innovation of this paper is Sl-EDGE, a unified MEC slicing framework that allows network opera…
The cellular internet of things (CIoT) has become an important branch to cater various applications of IoT devices. Within CIoT, the radio resource control (RRC) layer is responsible for fundamental functionalities such as connection control and bearer establishment in radio access network (RAN). The emergence of various IoT scenarios and diversified service requirements have made both RAN slicing and intelligent control imperative requirement in RRC layer. This paper focuses on enhancing standardized capabilities of CIoT RRC layer, by designing and implementing a new architecture which accomm…
An Intelligent Native Network Slicing Security Architecture Empowered by Federated Learning
Federal University of Viçosa (UFV)（维索萨联邦大学）；Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES)（圣埃斯皮里图联邦大学）；Salvador University (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学）；Federal University of Ceará (UFC)（塞阿拉联邦大学）；University of São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学）；University of Minho (UMinho)（米尼奥大学）
University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）；Huawei Technologies Canada Inc.（华为技术加拿大公司）
In this paper, we investigate a radio access network (RAN) slicing problem for Internet of vehicles (IoV) services with different quality of service (QoS) requirements, in which multiple logically-isolated slices are constructed on a common roadside network infrastructure. A dynamic RAN slicing framework is presented to dynamically allocate radio spectrum and computing resource, and distribute computation workloads for the slices. To obtain an optimal RAN slicing policy for accommodating the spatial-temporal dynamics of vehicle traffic density, we first formulate a constrained RAN slicing prob…
Recent standardization efforts in IEEE 802.15.4-2015 Time Scheduled Channel Hopping (TSCH) and the IETF 6TiSCH Working Group (WG), aim to provide deterministic communications and efficient allocation of resources across constrained Internet of Things (IoT) networks, particularly in Industrial IoT (IIoT) scenarios. Within 6TiSCH, Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been identified as means of providing centralized control in a number of key situations. However, implementing a centralized SDN architecture in a Low Power and Lossy Network (LLN) faces considerable challenges: not only is control…
Intelligent Data-Driven Architectural Features Orchestration for Network Slicing
Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)（维索萨联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU)（乌贝兰迪亚联邦大学）；Universidade do Minho（米尼奥大学）；Universidade de São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学）；Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学）
As progressive densification of cells, deployment of Cloud-RAN and \ac{MEC} are coming into reality to support the ultra-low latency with high reliability in 5G and beyond, it generates mesh traffic pattern across fronthaul network. This led to evolution of PON architectural enhancements with virtualization in order to support such mesh traffic pattern. However, allocation of virtual PON slices dynamically over such mesh-PON based fronthaul transport is becoming a research challenge. In this paper, we provide a mixed analytical-iterative model to compute optimal virtual PON slice allocation, p…
As the next-generation Internet paradigm, Web 3.0 encapsulates the expectations of user-centric immersion and interaction experiences in a decentralized manner. Metaverse, a virtual world interacting with the physical world, is becoming one of the most potential technology to push forward with Web 3.0. In the Metaverse, users expect to tailor immersive and interactive experiences by customizing real-time Metaverse services (e.g., augmented/virtual reality and digital twin) in the three-dimensional virtual world. Nevertheless, there are still no unified solutions for the Metaverse services in t…
Enhancing Network Slicing Architectures with Machine Learning, Security, Sustainability and Experimental Networks Integration
Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS)（萨尔瓦多大学（UNIFACS））；Universidade de São Paulo (USP)（圣保罗大学（USP））；Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)（维索萨联邦大学（UFV））；Universidade Federal do Vale dos Sinos (UNISINOS)（锡诺斯河谷联邦大学（UNISINOS））；Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC)（塞阿拉联邦大学（UFC））；Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)（伯南布哥联邦大学（UFPE））；Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG)（戈亚斯联邦大学（UFG））；Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA)（帕拉联邦大学（UFPA））；Universidade Federal do Espírito Santos (UFES)（圣埃斯皮里图联邦大学（UFES））；Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)（米纳斯吉拉斯联邦大学（UFMG））；Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)（弗鲁米嫩塞联邦大学（UFF））；Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)（南里奥格兰德联邦大学（UFRGS））；Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)（南里奥格兰德天主教大学（PUCRS））；Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU)（乌贝兰迪亚联邦大学（UFU））；Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP)（国家研究网络（RNP））；Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA)（巴伊亚联邦大学（UFBA））；Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)（里约热内卢联邦大学（UFRJ）}]} {）
University of South Florida（南佛罗里达大学）；Electrical Engineering Department, University of South Florida（南佛罗里达大学电气工程系）；University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA（南佛罗里达大学，美国佛罗里达州坦帕市，邮编33620）
Intelligent vehicular systems and smart city applications are the fastest growing Internet of things (IoT) implementations at a compound annual growth rate of 30%. In view of the recent advances in IoT devices and the emerging new breed of IoT applications driven by artificial intelligence (AI), fog radio access network (F-RAN) has been recently introduced for the fifth generation (5G) wireless communications to overcome the latency limitations of cloud-RAN (C-RAN). We consider the network slicing problem of allocating the limited resources at the network edge (fog nodes) to vehicular and smar…
Radio access network (RAN) slicing is an effective methodology to dynamically allocate networking resources in 5G networks. One of the main challenges of RAN slicing is that it is provably an NP-Hard problem. For this reason, we design near-optimal low-complexity distributed RAN slicing algorithms. First, we model the slicing problem as a congestion game, and demonstrate that such game admits a unique Nash equilibrium (NE). Then, we evaluate the Price of Anarchy (PoA) of the NE, i.e., the efficiency of the NE as compared to the social optimum, and demonstrate that the PoA is upper-bounded by 3…
Nowadays, the internet of vehicles (IoV) has been evolved into the stage of vehicle to everything (V2X). However, the majority of existing work focuses on the motor-vehicles. In contrast, the sharing bicycle system is vastly and rapidly deployed as a feasible internet of things (IoT) application scene for the last mile problem (e.g., from station to home/office). Moreover, the internet access of current V2X is relied on the back-haul to roadside unit (RSU) connections. In this paper, other than prior work, we propose a versatile V2X system with a distributed framework and heterogeneous caching…
Wireless network slicing (i.e., network virtualization) is one of the potential technologies for addressing the issue of rapidly growing demand in mobile data services related to 5G cellular networks. It logically decouples the current cellular networks into two entities; infrastructure providers (InPs) and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). The resources of base stations (e.g., resource blocks, transmission power, antennas) which are owned by the InP are shared to multiple MVNOs who need resources for their mobile users. Specifically, the physical resources of an InP are abstracted int…
Network slicing to enable resource sharing among multiple tenants --network operators and/or services-- is considered a key functionality for next generation mobile networks. This paper provides an analysis of a well-known model for resource sharing, the 'share-constrained proportional allocation' mechanism, to realize network slicing. This mechanism enables tenants to reap the performance benefits of sharing, while retaining the ability to customize their own users' allocation. This results in a network slicing game in which each tenant reacts to the user allocations of the other tenants so a…
The networking community continues to create new technologies and update existing ones to improve the quality, reliability, and "tailorability" of data networks. However, whenever Internet service providers attempt to productize "tailorability" and sell it explicitly to end customers as a premium service over best effort connectivity, they either fail to overcome net neutrality concerns or struggle to gain market traction. For this article, we focus only on those networking protocols, technologies, or standards whose goal is to offer tailored connectivity to paying customers on a public networ…
Network slicing is emerging as a promising method to provide sought-after versatility and flexibility to cope with ever-increasing demands. To realize such potential advantages and to meet the challenging requirements of various network slices in an on-demand fashion, we need to develop an agile and distributed mechanism for resource provisioning to different network slices in a heterogeneous multi-resource multi-domain mobile network environment. We formulate inter-domain resource provisioning to network slices in such an environment as an optimization problem which maximizes social welfare a…
Network slicing is the key to enable virtualized resource sharing among vertical industries in the era of 5G communication. Efficient resource allocation is of vital importance to realize network slicing in real-world business scenarios. To deal with the high algorithm complexity, privacy leakage, and unrealistic offline setting of current network slicing algorithms, in this paper we propose a fully decentralized and low-complexity online algorithm, DPoS, for multi-resource slicing. We first formulate the problem as a global social welfare maximization problem. Next, we design the online algor…
We present an architecture for the provision of video Content Delivery Network (CDN) functionality as a service over a multi-domain cloud. We introduce the concept of a CDN slice, that is, a CDN service instance which is created upon a content provider's request, is autonomously managed, and spans multiple potentially heterogeneous edge cloud infrastructures. Our design is tailored to a 5G mobile network context, building on its inherent programmability, management flexibility, and the availability of cloud resources at the mobile edge level, thus close to end users. We exploit Network Functio…
We consider a system consisting of a large network of $n$ users and a library of files, wherein inter-user communication is established based upon gossip mechanisms. Each file is initially present at exactly one node, which is designated as the file \emph{source}. The source gets updated with newer versions of the file according to an arbitrary distribution in real time, and the other users in the network wish to acquire the latest possible version of the file. We present a class of gossip protocols that achieve $O(1)$ age at a typical node in a single-file system and $O(n)$ age at a typical n…
Software switching, a.k.a virtual switching, plays a vital role in network virtualization and network function virtualization, enhances configurability, and reduces deployment and operational costs. Software switching also facilitates the development of edge and fog computing networks by allowing the use of commodity hardware for both data processing and packet switching. Despite these benefits, characterizing and ensuring deterministic performance with software switches is harder, compared to physical switching appliances. In particular, achieving deterministic performance is essential to ado…
University of Swabi（斯瓦比大学）；Northumbria University（诺森比亚大学）；University of Hull（赫尔大学）；Institute of Management Sciences（管理科学学院）；Instituto De Telecomunicaces（电信研究所）
In the current era, the next-generation networks like 5th generation (5G) and 6th generation (6G) networks require high security, low latency with a high reliable standards and capacity. In these networks, reconfigurable wireless network slicing is considered as one of the key elements for 5G and 6G networks. A reconfigurable slicing allows the operators to run various instances of the network using a single infrastructure for a better quality of services (QoS). The QoS can be achieved by reconfiguring and optimizing these networks using Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.…
Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven zero-touch network slicing is envisaged as a promising cutting-edge technology to harness the full potential of heterogeneous 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) communication systems and enable the automation of demand-aware resource management and orchestration (MANO). In this paper, we tackle the issue of B5G radio access network (RAN) joint slice admission control and resource allocation according to proposed slice-enabling cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) setup by invoking a continuous deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method. We present a no…
Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven zero-touch massive network slicing is envisioned to be a disruptive technology in beyond 5G (B5G)/6G, where tenancy would be extended to the final consumer in the form of advanced digital use-cases. In this paper, we propose a novel model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework, called collaborative statistical Actor-Critic (CS-AC) that enables a scalable and farsighted slice performance management in a 6G-like RAN scenario that is built upon mobile edge computing (MEC) and massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO). In this intent, the proposed…
Intelligent Hybrid Resource Allocation in MEC-assisted RAN Slicing Network
School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University（东南大学信息科学与工程学院）；Purple Mountain Laboratories（紫金山实验室）；Singapore University of Technology and Design（新加坡科技设计大学）
In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review and updated solutions related to 5G network slicing using SDN and NFV. Firstly, we present 5G service quality and business requirements followed by a description of 5G network softwarization and slicing paradigms including essential concepts, history and different use cases. Secondly, we provide a tutorial of 5G network slicing technology enablers including SDN, NFV, MEC, cloud/Fog computing, network hypervisors, virtual machines & containers. Thidly, we comprehensively survey different industrial initiatives and projects that are pushing forwar…
An important novelty of 5G is its role in transforming the industrial production into Industry 4.0. Specifically, Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) will, in many cases, enable replacement of cables with wireless connections and bring freedom in designing and operating interconnected machines, robots, and devices. However, not all industrial links will be of URLLC type; e.g. some applications will require high data rates. Furthermore, these industrial networks will be highly heterogeneous, featuring various communication technologies. We consider network slicing as a mechanism t…
Radio access network (RAN) slicing is a key technology that enables 5G network to support heterogeneous requirements of generic services, namely ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB). In this paper, we propose a two time-scales RAN slicing mechanism to optimize the performance of URLLC and eMBB services. In a large time-scale, an SDN controller allocates radio resources to gNodeBs according to the requirements of the eMBB and URLLC services. In a short time-scale, each gNodeB allocates its available resources to its end-users and requests, if nee…
The commercialization of Cloud-RAN, and Open-RAN in particular, is a key factor to enable 5G cell densification, by providing lower cost and more agile deployment of small cells. In addition, the adoption of MEC is important to support ultra-low latency and high reliability required by mission-critical applications, which constitute a milestone of the 5G and beyond vision of a fully connected society. However, connecting antenna site, C-RAN processing and MEC at low cost is challenging, as it requires high-capacity, low latency connectivity delivered through a highly inter-connected topology. …
Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) facilitates the deployment of critical applications with stringent QoS requirements, latency in particular. This paper considers the problem of jointly planning the availability of computational resources at the edge, the slicing of mobile network and edge computation resources, and the routing of heterogeneous traffic types to the various slices. These aspects are intertwined and must be addressed together to provide the desired QoS to all mobile users and traffic types still keeping costs under control. We formulate our problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear p…
With the explosive increment of computation requirements, the multi-access edge computing (MEC) paradigm appears as an effective mechanism. Besides, as for the Internet of Things (IoT) in disasters or remote areas requiring MEC services, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and high altitude platforms (HAPs) are available to provide aerial computing services for these IoT devices. In this paper, we develop the hierarchical aerial computing framework composed of HAPs and UAVs, to provide MEC services for various IoT applications. In particular, the problem is formulated to maximize the total IoT dat…
Radio access network (RAN) virtualization is gaining more and more ground and expected to re-architect the next-generation cellular networks. Existing RAN virtualization studies and solutions have mostly focused on sharing communication capacity and tend to require the use of the same PHY and MAC layers across network slices. This approach has not considered the scenarios where different slices require different PHY and MAC layers, for instance, for radically different services and for whole-stack research in wireless living labs where novel PHY and MAC layers need to be deployed concurrently …
Network slicing is considered a key mechanism to serve the multitude of tenants (e.g. vertical industries) targeted by forthcoming 5G systems in a flexible and cost-efficient manner. In this paper, we present a SDN/NFV architecture with multi-tenancy support. This architecture enables a network slice provider to deploy network slice instances for multiple tenants on-the-fly, and simultaneously provision them with isolation guarantees. Following the Network Slice as-a-Service delivery model, a tenant may access a Service Catalog, selecting the slice that best fits its needs and ordering its dep…
