Network Element Placement for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network: A Tutorial

GENG Yuhui; CAO Xianbin; CUI Huanxi; XIAO Zhenyu

doi:10.1049/cje.2021.00.346

Volume 31 Issue 6

Nov. 2022

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Article Navigation > Chinese Journal of Electronics > 2022 > 31(6): 1013-1024

GENG Yuhui, CAO Xianbin, CUI Huanxi, et al., “Network Element Placement for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network: A Tutorial,” Chinese Journal of Electronics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 1013-1024, 2022, doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.346

Citation:

GENG Yuhui, CAO Xianbin, CUI Huanxi, et al., “Network Element Placement for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network: A Tutorial,” Chinese Journal of Electronics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 1013-1024, 2022, doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.346

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Network Element Placement for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network: A Tutorial

doi: 10.1049/cje.2021.00.346

1.
School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China

Funds: This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program (2020YFB1806800), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (L212003), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (62171010, 61827901)

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Author Bio:
Yuhui GENG is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the School of Electronic and Information Engineering of Beihang University. Her research interests include intelligent placement of virtualized network function (VNF) in space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN), software defined network, and SAGIN communications. (Email: gyh0214@buaa.edu.cn)

Xianbin CAO is the Dean and a Professor at the School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China. His current research interests include intelligent transportation systems, airspace transportation management, and intelligent computation. (Email: xbcao@buaa.edu.cn)

Huanxi CUI is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at Beihang University. His main research interests include mobility management of the heterogeneous network, space-air-ground integrated network architecture, network slicing, optimization theory, and deep reinforcement learning. (Email: haoxuancui@buaa.edu.cn)

Zhenyu XIAO (corresponding author) received the B.E. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2011. From 2011 to 2013, he held a Post-Doctorial Position with the Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University. From 2013 to 2016, he was a Lecturer with the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China, where he is currently an Associate Professor. Dr. Xiao has published over 60 papers, and served as a Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Communications Letters, etc. He has been TPC members of IEEE GLOBECOM’12, IEEE WCSP’12, IEEE ICC’15, etc. His research interests are communication signal processing and practical system implementation for wideband communication systems. Currently he is dedicated in millimeter-wave 5G and airborne communications. (Email: xiaozy@buaa.edu.cn)
Received Date: 2021-09-16
Accepted Date: 2022-08-11

Available Online: 2022-09-20

Publish Date: 2022-11-05

Abstract

Abstract

With the demand for Internet connectivity in remote areas, the space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) was proposed to achieve ubiquitous coverage and enhance service capabilities of extant terrestrial networks. The paradigm of virtual network element placement (NEP) is applied into SAGIN. It can save energy and operating costs by placing specific network elements (NEs) as software instances. In addition, it helps to provide services in end-to-end networks with its ability to allocate and manage resources flexibly. However, NEP faces some challenges in SAGIN. The network topologies can be dynamic, and links such as the satellite-to-ground and air-to-ground ones are prone to fail. These will make NEP management more complicated. Moreover, the static NEP schemes are hard to accommodate the time-varying traffic. In this context, this work explains the NEP problem in SAGIN from three aspects, i.e., the SAGIN radio access network (RAN), the SAGIN core network (CN), and the SAGIN barrier network (BN). First, the physical and networking architectures of SAGIN are introduced. Then the status of the network element placement and corresponding challenges are described from these two aspects. Finally, this paper discusses future research directions and key technical challenges.

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References(20)

References

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