A testbed for CCAM services supported by edge computing, and use case of computation offloading

Abstract

Mobile technologies have undergone a great leap forward in a few years, and while 5G networks are already being deployed, there are not yet many proven applications that can fully utilize the advantages of this new technology. Connected and autonomous vehicles are a specific and demanding case, particularly in terms of delay and bandwidth requirements, which can leverage not only 5G but also edge computing technologies. Therefore, the development of testbeds to demonstrate future applications is crucial to enable the full deployment of 5G and edge computing possibilities. In this paper, we present a flexible and modular testbed, targeted towards the evaluation of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) applications, and we demonstrate a use case (using a 4G system) where an autonomous vehicle offloads processing tasks to an edge server which analyzes images, makes routing decisions, and sends guidance commands back to the vehicle, thus proving the possibilities of edge computing and wireless technologies.