Abstract
The advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology have empowered mobile operators to deploy LTE (long-term evolution) base stations (BSs) on UAVs and provide on-demand, adaptive connectivity to hotspot venues as well as emergency scenarios. However, today's evolved packet core (EPC) that orchestrates LTE's radio access network (RAN) faces fundamental limitations in catering to such a challenging, wireless, and mobile UAV environment, particularly in the presence of multiple BSs (UAVs). In this work, we argue for and propose an alternate, radical edge EPC design, called SkyCore that pushes the EPC functionality to the extreme edge of the core network---collapses the EPC into a single, lightweight, self-contained entity that is colocated with each of the UAV BS. SkyCore incorporates elements that are designed to address the unique challenges facing such a distributed design in the UAV environment, namely the resource constraints of UAV platforms, and the distributed management of pronounced UAV and UE mobility. We build and deploy a fully functional version of SkyCore on a two-UAV LTE network and showcase its (i) ability to interoperate with commercial LTE BSs as well as smartphones, (ii) support for both hotspot and stand-alone multi-UAV deployments, and (iii) superior control and data plane performance compared to other EPC variants in this environment.
- AT&T is deploying white box hardware in cell towers to power mobile 5G era, 2017. https://goo.gl/snRW6M.Google Scholar
- CBRS Spectrum, 2017. https://goo.gl/3zbYyo.Google Scholar
- Flying COW connects Puerto Rico, 2017. https://goo.gl/NEq1HA.Google Scholar
- Lagopus: SDN switch, 2017. http://www.lagopus.org/.Google Scholar
- LTE signaling storm, 2017. http://goo.gl/qk6Bp9.Google Scholar
- OpenEPC, 2017. http://www.openepc.com/.Google Scholar
- Oracle communications LTE diameter signaling index, 2017. https://goo.gl/6BZ8Fo.Google Scholar
- Verizon trials drones as flying cell towers, 2017. https://goo.gl/q9YjNv.Google Scholar
- When COWs fly: AT&T sending LTE signals from drones, 2017. https://goo.gl/9u33qC.Google Scholar
- Banerjee, A., Mahindra, R., Sundaresan, K., Kasera, S., Van der Merwe, K., Rangarajan, S. Scaling the LTE control-plane for future mobile access. In Proceedings of the ACM CoNEXT, 2015.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Berde, P., Gerola, M., Hart, J., Higuchi, Y., Kobayashi, M., et al. ONOS: towards an open, distributed sdn os. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on HotSDN, 2014.Google Scholar
- Bosshart, P., et al. P4: Programming protocol-independent packet processors. ACM CCR, 2014.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cho, J., et al. ACACIA: Context-aware edge computing for continuous interactive applications over mobile networks. In Proceedings of the ACM CoNEXT, 2016.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dhekne, A., et al. Extending cell tower coverage through drones. In Proceedings of the ACM HotMobile, 2017.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hong, C.-Y., Kandula, S., Mahajan, R., et al. Achieving high utilization with software-driven WAN. ACM CCR, 2013.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jain, S., Kumar, A., Mandal, S., et al. B4: Experience with a globally-deployed software defined WAN. ACM CCR, 2013.Google Scholar
- Lin, X., Yajnanarayana, V., Muruganathan, S.D., et al. The sky is not the limit: LTE for unmanned aerial vehicles. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07534, 2017.Google Scholar
- Moradi, M., Sundaresan, K., Chai, E., Rangarajan, S., Mao, M. Skycore: Moving core to the edge for untethered and reliable UAV-based LTE networks. In Proceedings of the ACM MobiCom, 2018.Google Scholar
- Moradi, M., Wu, W., Li, L.E., Mao, Z.M. SoftMoW: Recursive and reconfigurable cellular wan architecture. In Proceedings of the ACM CoNEXT, 2014.Google Scholar
- Nguyen, B., Zhang, T., Radunovic, B., et al. MSR Technical Report. A Reliable Distributed Cellular Core Network for Hyper-Scale Public Clouds, 2018.Google Scholar
- Patel, M., et al. Mobile-edge computing introductory technical white paper. White Paper, Mobile-edge Computing (MEC) Industry Initiative, 2014.Google Scholar
- Pfaff, B., Pettit, J., Koponen, T., et al. The design and implementation of open vswitch. In Proceedings of the USENIX NSDI, 2015.Google Scholar
- Qazi, Z.A., Krishna, P., Sekar, V., Gopalakrishnan, V., Joshi, K., Das, S.R. Klein: A minimally disruptive design for an elastic cellular core. In Proceedings of the ACM SOSR, 2016.Google Scholar
- Qazi, Z.A., Walls, M., Panda, A., et al. A high performance packet core for next generation cellular networks. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM, 2017.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wu, Q., Zeng, Y., Zhang, R. Joint trajectory and communication design for multi-UAV enabled wireless networks. IEEE/ACM TON, 2018.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- SkyCore: moving core to the edge for untethered and reliable UAV-based LTE networks
Recommendations
SkyCore: Moving Core to the Edge for Untethered and Reliable UAV-based LTE Networks
MobiCom '18: Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and NetworkingThe advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology have empowered mobile operators to deploy LTE base stations (BSs) on UAVs, and provide on-demand, adaptive connectivity to hotspot venues as well as emergency scenarios. However, today's evolved ...
Skycore: Moving Core to the Edge For Untethered and Reliable UAV-Based LTE Networks
Deploying LTE networks on modern UAVs requires a redesign of the key components of the LTE architecture. In this article, we propose a radical, edge-EPC design, called SkyCore, that pushes one of its central functionalities, namely its evolved packet ...
Comments