Software-defined railway wireless communication network

Abstract

Railway wireless data communications have problems with insufficient bandwidth and poor reliability. This paper describes a railway software-defined wireless communication network (RailSDN) which separates the control plane from the data plane, enables heterogeneous network interoperability among operators, provides user logical isolation using virtualization, and provides transparent data transmission for users. A network resource scheduling model is developed based on a Markov decision process which takes into account various factors such as the infrastructure network status and the user requirements. The system searches for the optimal link allocation with the optimization goal being to satisfy user demand and dynamically adapts to the user requirements for the network resources. Tests show that this railway wireless communication network is scalable, enables flexible customization of user demand, and improves the network resources utilization efficiency. 摘要 针对铁路无线数据通信带宽不足、可靠性不高等问题, 提出一种基于软件定义的铁路无线通信网络 (RailSDN), 将控制平面和数据平面分离, 实现跨运营商异构网络协同工作, 采用虚拟化技术实现用户的逻辑隔离, 为用户提供透明的数据传输服务。基于Markov决策过程建立网络资源调度模型, 该模型考虑基础设施网络状态及用户需求等因素, 以用户需求的满足程度为优化目标, 搜索最优的链路分配决策, 将用户需求与网络资源动态适配。测试结果表明：所提出的铁路无线通信网络具有很强的可扩展性, 实现了用户需求的弹性定制, 提高了网络资源的利用效率。