Centralized Edge Enabler Client for 5G UE Complexity Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current EDGEAPP architectures face challenges such as increased complexity, power consumption, and overlap of functionality within user equipment (UE) due to the inclusion of Edge Enabler Client (EEC) components, which complicates hardware and software design and makes it difficult to share EEC across multiple UEs, especially for constrained devices.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a centralized EEC within the Edge Enabler Layer to serve multiple UEs and application clients, with distributed EEC functionalities between the Edge Enabler Layer and UE, reducing internal messages and enabling better application context relocation and edge caching, while allowing EEC to connect with multiple UEs and predict movement for optimal edge application server selection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If EEC components are included within user equipment to enable edge application functionality, then edge application capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the EEC functionality from the UE and places it in the network side (gNB). The UE retains only minimal client functionality to interact with the EEC, while the complex edge application management, context relocation, and caching operations are performed by the network-based EEC. This extraction significantly reduces UE complexity while maintaining full edge application capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary EEC node in the network that mediates between the UE and the edge application servers. This intermediary handles all complex operations including application context relocation, edge caching management, and movement correlation, allowing the UE to remain simple while still accessing sophisticated edge applications.
2Adaptability or versatility
If EEC components are included within user equipment to manage application contexts, then application context relocation capability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts power-intensive EEC functions including application context management, relocation decisions, and edge caching operations from the UE to the network. The UE only performs lightweight client operations to interact with the EEC, significantly reducing power consumption while maintaining full context relocation capability through network-based processing.
3Adaptability or versatility
If EEC components are included within user equipment to enable edge caching, then edge caching capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts edge caching functionality from the UE and implements it in the network-based EEC. The network EEC manages cache storage, retrieval, and invalidation operations for multiple UEs, eliminating the need for each UE to maintain complex caching mechanisms while still providing effective edge caching for application data.
4Productivity
If EEC components are included within user equipment to predict movement and select edge servers, then application performance is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts movement prediction and edge server selection capabilities from the UE to the network-based EEC. The network EEC leverages its broader visibility into user movement patterns and network conditions to make intelligent server selection decisions, improving application performance without requiring complex algorithms in the UE.
Solution Approach 2:
The network-based EEC serves multiple UEs simultaneously, providing universal service across different devices. This multi-functional approach allows the system to correlate movement patterns across multiple UEs and make more accurate predictions about application needs, improving overall system performance while keeping individual UE complexity low.
Data Source
AI summary
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE) to configure the UE for communication with an edge data network (EDN) in a 5G NR and beyond network, and to cause the UE to perform operations. The operations include decoding configuration information for an edge application server (EAS) of the EDN. The configuration information is received from an edge enabler client (EEC) node within an edge enabling layer (EEL) of the EDN. A communication link is established between at least one application client (AC) of the UE and the EAS based on the configuration information. Application data for the at least one AC received from the EAS via the communication link is decoded.