Forum Numerica - Challenges and opportunities stemming from the adoption of radio resource slicing and edge computing paradigms

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Network slicing and multi-access edge computing (MEC) offer unprecedented flexibility to build and maintain network services without any need to run a telecom infrastructure. Slicing techniques have been recently addressed by a number of works, although little has been done in terms of slicing and handling radio resources in the radio access network (RAN), which is key to enable multi-tenancy for industrial verticals like connected vehicles and smart factories. Similarly, the use of edge computing and the definition of MEC architectures has attracted the attention of researchers and standardization bodies, although there is yet no clear assessment of its performance and no clear vision on how to use MEC to enhance services in concrete and dynamic wireless network scenarios.The talk addresses specifically the cases of connected cars and the coexistence of human-type and machine-type traffic using radio technologies, so to illustrate challenges and opportunities offered by 5G-style network slicing in the RAN and by the deployment of a distributed MEC that follows ETSI specifications. The coexistence of heterogeneous services and, consequently, heterogeneous slices is further analyzed by means of models that capture the behavior of access protocols in a 3GPP-compliant RAN system, and that allow to characterize capabilities and limits of the network processor, i.e., the packet service engine that handles all user data bearers at a base station.

Vincenzo Mancuso is Research Associate Professor at IMDEA Networks, Madrid, Spain, and recipient of a Ramon y Cajal research grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. He built his research experience with INRIA (France), Rice University (USA) and University of Palermo (Italy), from where he obtained his Ph.D. in 2005. Vincenzo has participated in many national and European RsembioD initiatives, and has been the technical manager of the CROWD and MONROE projects. He has authored more than 110 peer-reviewed scientific journal and conference papers, focusing on analysis, design, and experimental evaluation of opportunistic wireless architectures and mobile broadband services.