Integrating Deterministic Networking with 5G

TL;DR

This paper presents an integrated 5G-DetNet system that guarantees real-time communication requirements, demonstrating its implementation with low-cost hardware and open-source software for accessible deployment.

Contribution

It introduces a fully integrated 5G-DetNet architecture with novel network management and application functions, enabling deterministic communication over 5G networks.

Findings

Successful demonstration of end-to-end latency and packet loss guarantees.

Implementation using low-cost hardware and open-source software.

Components include a network manager, 5G core application function, and user-plane translator.

Abstract

The rising prevalence of real-time applications that require deterministic communication over mobile networks necessitates the joint operation of both mobile and fixed network components. This joint operation requires designing components that interact between the two technologies to provide users with latency and packet loss guarantees. In this work, we demonstrate a fully integrated 5G-DetNet that can guarantee the end-to-end demands of different flows. Moreover, we show how such a network can be implemented using low-cost hardware and open-source software, making it accessible to many 5G testbeds. The features demonstrated in this work are a network manager that does the routing and scheduling, an application function in the 5G core that interfaces with the network manager, and a network-side translator for user-plane management and de-jittering of the real-time streams.