Cloud to the edge computing continuum exploiting the third spatial dimension: a practical approach

Abstract

The requirements imposed when supporting ubiquitous communications, both in time and space, drives to the research community to conceive new approaches aiming at fitting service and user demands. It is becoming more usual to provide support to spontaneous communication needs raised by a community of IoT devices, crowds or even to cope with the consequences, in terms of infrastructure communications, of a natural disaster. In this context, the availability of agile network management techniques boosted by the artificial intelligence as well as exploiting the third spatial dimension can provide key assets matching the corresponding requirements. Hence, this paper presents drone-based solutions which embed the eNodeB and the Evolved Packet Core infrastructure to support such spontaneous communication needs as well as a monitoring system of critical infrastructure.