Goals
Performance assessments of the 5G network by considering connectivity and capacity analysis of the three 5G communication paradigms, with particular attention to the mMTC solution for IoT applications. Performance analysis included traffic management by “Network Slicing” virtualization techniques and IoT search engine methodologies in order to define suitable models for the acquisition, management and processing of data within the energy sector.
Impact
5G evaluation in terms of experimental trials and simulation analyses will be useful instruments for the energy sector for obtaining information on the availability, performance and connectivity of 5G services in order to promote innovative services in this sector, such as advanced power grid monitoring (smart grid application) or effective consumption monitoring end-users, in the light of the proliferation of IoT applications (smart meter application).
Description
Preliminary 5G performance analyses were conducted and examined in this study in order to define a suitable “network slicing” paradigm for different types of energy applications.
This evaluation was made possible by defining the elaboration of a proprietary Network System developed by the FUB in the NS-3 environment, known as a “5G Planning Tool”, obtained by considering the 5G network architecture at several levels: the service level, for the definition of network functions in accordance with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the specific energy application; the control level, to check the correspondence between the requirements of the application and the “orchestration” of physical resources; the physical level, for the identification of all physical resources useful for the service implementation, given that physical resources used in the evaluation are based on both high capacity above 6 GHz, and high coverage below 6 GHz.
In practice, the purpose of our work was to investigate the 5G connectivity capability in typical energy scenarios in terms of maximum throughput and maximum latency. Subsequently, the results obtained were used to verify data traffic management policies, based on an SDN approach. Specifically, an SDN approach was investigated in both cases: in a low data traffic situation, to efficiently manage the medium access (i.e. optimization of resources), or in a heavy data traffic situation, to enable the timeless isolation of a flow of interest (i.e. a guarantee of QoS). Performance evaluations showed remarkable improvement compared to current LTE technology and therefore will be able to meet the connectivity (mMTC), capacity (eMBB) and latency (uRLLC) requirements for the different innovative energy services implemented.