Joint VNF Deployment and Resource Allocation in Integrated Terrestrial-Aerial Access Networks Enabled by Network Slicing

Abstract

In this paper, we consider an integrated terrestrial-aerial access network where multiple access points (APs) such as cellular base stations (BSs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and high altitude platforms (HAPs) coordinate to serve various ground users. Advanced forms of typical data services for 5G and beyond such as enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), are provided via network slicing (NS) to cope with the heterogeneity brought by the terrestrial-aerial integration. To satisfy various requirements of users, network slices consist of different virtual network functions (VNFs), each of which consumes different amounts of compute resource at APs. To achieve a tradeoff between data rate and consumed compute resource of VNFs, we aim to maximize the compute resource utilization efficiency by jointly optimizing the VNF deployment, power and spectrum resource allocation. The mutual relation between VNF deployment and user scheduling is modelled, based on which an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a better tradeoff than benchmark ones. Influence of the VNF deployment and size on the system performance is revealed as well.