Vehicular Cloud Slicing for Resource Coordination

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing network traffic between connected vehicles and cloud servers due to data exchange for services like automated driving and infotainment puts a significant load on radio access networks and backbone networks, necessitating efficient resource management within vehicular micro clouds to provide cloudification services without degrading other services.

Innovation Solution

A resource manager and orchestrator system is implemented across connected endpoints in vehicular micro clouds to coordinate resource usage by determining needed services, available resources, and generating resource slices for efficient task execution, ensuring that multiple cloudification services can be provided without degrading existing services.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of energy

If distributed data storage and computing are implemented across vehicular micro clouds to reduce network traffic load, then network load on radio access and backbone networks is reduced, but resource coordination complexity across multiple connected endpoints increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvenetwork loadVSAvoidresource coordination complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of energyVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments resource management into two distinct components: a resource orchestrator that performs high-level resource allocation and slicing decisions, and resource managers deployed at each connected endpoint that handle local resource execution and monitoring. This segmentation reduces the coordination complexity at each individual component while achieving system-wide resource optimization and network load reduction.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

2Adaptability or versatility

If multiple cloudification services are provided simultaneously by connected endpoints, then service versatility and functionality are improved, but resource usage coordination and service quality maintenance become more difficult

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice versatilityVSAvoidresource coordination complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements resource slicing that allocates specific portions of computing resources to different cloudification services at each connected endpoint. Each service receives dedicated resource slices with guaranteed performance characteristics, allowing multiple services to run simultaneously with different resource allocations. This local quality differentiation enables service versatility while maintaining coordination through standardized slicing mechanisms.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

3Productivity

If resource slices are created and distributed to connected endpoints for service provisioning, then service deployment speed and responsiveness are improved, but the complexity of resource allocation and slice management increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice deployment speedVSAvoidresource allocation complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The resource orchestrator pre-creates resource slices and pre-configures allocation policies before services are actually deployed to connected endpoints. These pre-configured resource slices are stored and ready for rapid instantiation when services need to be deployed. This preliminary action enables fast service deployment while the complex allocation logic is handled in advance by the orchestrator rather than in real-time at each endpoint.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP3949459B1Vehicular cloud slicing
Publication Date: 2024.10.16 TOYOTA JIDOSHA KK
  • EP3949459B1 patent drawingFigure 1A
  • EP3949459B1 patent drawingFigure 1B
  • EP3949459B1 patent drawingFigure 1C

AI summary

The disclosure includes embodiments for coordinating a resource usage of a connected endpoint based on a resource slice. In some embodiments, a method for a connected endpoint that contributes to a provisioning of a cloudification service in a vehicular micro cloud includes modifying an operation of a communication unit of the connected endpoint to receive a Yehicle-to-Everything (V2X) message that includes a command to implement a resource slice for provisioning the cloudification service. The resource slice describes a set of onboard resources to be reserved by the connected endpoint. The method further includes providing the set of onboard resources to execute one or more tasks for the cloudification service based on the resource slice so that a resource usage of the connected endpoint is coordinated based on the resource slice to improve performance of the connected endpoint.