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Mobile-Edge Computing

Zhiyong Chen

Department of Electronic Engineering

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Nov. 27 2017

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MOBILE COMPUTATION DEMANDS

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Navigation

• Monitor and control the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another

• Four general categories

– land navigation

– marine navigation

– aeronautic navigation

– space navigation

• Most popular navigation systems: – Global Positioning System (GPS)

– BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)

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Computations in Navigation

• Obtain location information

– obtain accurate locations of multiple users at the same time

• Plan route

– integrate a series of factors to better plan a path

• Process panoramic images

– process a series of images due to forward, backward and other operations

• High requirements for computation capability and computation power

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Augmented Reality (AR)

• A live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are "augmented" by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data

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Augmented Reality (AR)

• Five critical components in an AR application:– a video source

• obtain raw video frames from mobile camera

– a tracker• track user position

– a mapper • build environment model

– an object recognizer • identify known objects

– a render • prepare processed frame for display

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Virtual Reality (VR)

• Use VR headsets to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that simulate a user's physical presence in a virtual or imaginary environment

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Computations in VR

• Do the rendering-computation with a series of rendered images in real-time to induce the illusion of user’s movement – real-time 3D computer graphics technology– wide-angle (wide field) stereo display technology

• Convey depth perception to the viewer by means of stereopsis for binocular vision– observer head, eye and hand tracking technology

• Measure the position, direction and the motion of user’s head, eye and hand– tactile / haptic feedback technology

• Recreate the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user

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Ultra-high-definition (UHD) Video Streaming

• A video format conceptualized by the Japanese public broadcasting network, NHK, and used for any display with a 16 x 9 ratio with at least 1 digital input cable carrying a minimum resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 square pixels

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Computations in UHD

• Data compression– encode information to reduce bits by identifying and eliminating

statistical redundancy or less important information

• Video decoding– convert base-band analog video signals to digital components

video

• HD image processing– isolate the individual color planes of an image and treating them

as two-dimensional signal and applying standard signal-processing techniques

• High requirements for computation capability and computation power consumption– uncompressed 20-minute UHDTV program has up 4 TB

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• 7.1 billion connected devices today and over 50 billion expected in 2020

• Hallmark of IoT applications

– large volumes of data, devices, and messages

• Most IoT applications have low-latency requirements

Internet of Things (IoT)

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• Oil and gas remote monitoring– access field data to anticipate and prevent disasters in real time

• Automated vehicles– ensure information processing and fast delivery to other vehicles to

avoid car accident-related losses

• Home automation

– integrate or control the home electronic products or systems, such as lighting, coffee ovens, computer equipment, security systems, heating and air-conditioning systems, video and audio systems

IoT Application Examples

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• Internet connectivity for mobile phones, tablets, sensors, security cameras and vehicles has produced a lot of data that can be mined and analyzed

• Clean, process and interpret the vast amount of data which is gathered by the sensors for data analytics

• Process massive computation-intensive and latency-sensitive data in real-time

Computations in IoT

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A TRADITIONAL TECHNOLOGY-- MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING (MCC)

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Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC)

• MCC is the combination of cloud computing, mobile computing and wireless networks to bring rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well as cloud computing providers

• Ultimate goal is to enable execution of rich mobile applications on a plethora of mobile devices, with a rich user experience

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Key Components of MCC

• Four types of cloud-based resources– distant immobile clouds

– proximate immobile computing entities

– proximate mobile computing entities

– hybrid (combination of the above three)

• MCC servers– data centers deployed at the core network

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Limitations of MCC

• Edge networking devices and even user terminals – more powerful in terms of processing, storage, communication capabilities

• Long propagation distance will result in excessively long latency for mobile applications

• Data exchange over long distance will allow the data tsunami to saturate and bring down the backhaul networks

• A large population of ultra-dense edge devices will be idle at every time instant and waste enormous computation and storage resources

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Solution

• Resent: recent attempts to push CC capabilities to the network edge:

– Fog/Edge Computing

– Mobile Edge Computing

– Cloudlents,…

• To discuss:

– What are their fundamentals? Their relationship?

– Competition? Cooperation? Complementary?

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A NEW TECHNOLOGY -- MOBILE-EDGE COMPUTING (MEC)

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Mobile Edge Computing (MEC)

• MEC is a network architecture concept that enables cloud computing capabilities and an IT service environment at the edge of the cellular network

• The basic idea behind MEC is that by running applications and performing related processing tasks closer to the cellular customer, network congestion is reduced and applications perform better

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Key Components of MEC

• Mobile devices

– end users, clients, service subscribers

• MEC servers

– small-scale data centers deployed at the network edges (e.g., base stations and access points)

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Architecture of MEC Systems

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MCC vs. MEC

• Similarities

– integrate the concept of cloud computing into mobile networks

– enhance the resource-poor mobile hardware

– reduce the development cost of mobile applications

• Differences

– MCC runs computing services of mobile devices at the remote cloud data center

– MEC provides IT and cloud-computing capabilities at the edge of the mobile network

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• Offer applications and content providers cloud-computing capabilities and an IT service environment at the edge of the mobile network

• Proximity (close to end users)

• Ultra-low latency

• High bandwidth

• Real-time access to radio network and context information

• Location awareness

Advantages of MEC

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Why Mobile Edge Computing?

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Can be leveraged by applications to create value

• Efficient utilization of radio and network resources

• Innovative applications and services

MEC Use Case 1: Augmented Reality

• Overlay AR content onto objects viewed on camera

• Provide local object tracking and AR content caching

• Local content delivered locally

• Improved QoE and overall efficiency

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MEC Use Case 2: Video Analytics

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• Analyze live Video streams at base station

• Trigger events (e.g. movement, abandoned bags, missing objects, crowd) automatically

• Accelerate detection and protect network from verbose traffic

• Relevant in public safety, smart cities

MEC Use Case 3: Location Tracking

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• Get Mobile Device location in real time and in a passive way (no GPS)

• Understand how the crowd is distributed or locate specific users

• Relevant in Smart City (Macro cells), Retail (Micro cells), and advertising

MEC Use Case 4:Intelligent Video Acceleration

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• Use information to assist TCP congestion control decisions

• Ensure the application-level coding matches the estimated downlink capacity

• Improve video quality and throughput

MEC Use Case 5：Connected Vehicles

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• Extend the existing cloud services into the highly distributed mobile base station environment, leveraging the existing LTE connectivity

• The MEC application operates as a roadside unit for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)

• Enable a nearby car to receive data in a matter of

milliseconds, and the driver to react instantly

MEC Platform

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• MEC scope focuses on enabling third-party applications to be hosted in the mobile network edge

• The architecture includes components and functional

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

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Technical Requirements

• Network integration

– User Equipment (UE) and Core Network elements that comply with the existing 3GPP specifications should not be affected by the presence of the MEC server as well as the applications being hosted on it

• Application portability

– applications should be seamlessly loaded and executed in MEC platform that may be provided by different vendors

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Technical Requirements

• Security– ensure isolation between Virtual Machines

– ensure that the Virtual Machines only access platform resources and services for which they have authorization

– ensure that platform software and firmware, as well as hosted application software, are not modified in any way by a malicious party

– ensure that communication between applications, as well as between applications and the platform, is secured

– ensure traffic isolation so that only the intended recipient(s) have access to traffic and data

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Technical Requirements

• Performance

– MEC platforms should have enough capacity to process user traffic handled by 3GPP Network Element

– MEC applications should be transparent to the UE and provide improved QoE

• Resilience

– MEC platform should not affect network availability

– MEC solution vendors should address the high-availability requirements demanded by their network operators

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Technical Requirements

• Operations

– implemented management framework should consider the diversity of potential deployments

– implemented management framework should consider existing management framework of radio access network

• Regulatory and legal considerations

– privacy-restricted information should not be passed to the application if the user hasn’t given consent

– introduction of a MEC server in the radio access network should not reduce the provision of lawful interception

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Conclusion

• MEC complements SDN and NFV and advances the transformation of the mobile-broadband network into a programmable world, ensuringimplemented management framework should consider the diversity of potential deployments

– highly efficient network operation and service delivery

– ultimate personal experience

– new business opportunities

• MEC is a key enabler for IoT and mission-critical, vertical solutions.

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Conclusion

• MEC is a key architectural concept and technology for 5G, helping to satisfy the demanding requirements for the 5G era in terms of expected throughput, latency, scalability and automationEC is a key enabler for IoT and mission-critical, vertical solutions.

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