UE Relay Selection for Edge Session Continuity During Mobility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing technologies face challenges in providing edge services with session continuity during mobility in wireless telecommunications systems, particularly in scenarios where user equipment (UE) acts as a relay or edge service host.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves identifying the offloading capability or edge service hosting capability of user equipment, selecting a suitable UE to act as a relay between the apparatus and a network, establishing or modifying sessions for traffic relaying and local offloading, and managing requests and responses for offloading capability services.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If user equipment acts as a relay for edge services during mobility, then service continuity and coverage are improved, but session management complexity and signaling overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a session management function (SMF) as an intermediary entity in the network that centrally manages relay sessions. The SMF receives relay service requests, determines appropriate relay UEs, and establishes PDU sessions with relay bearers. This mediator approach allows relay functionality to be added without increasing complexity at the UE level, as the network core handles the complex session management tasks.
2Speed
If traffic is offloaded locally at the edge through relay UEs, then network latency is reduced and bandwidth efficiency improves, but control and management overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the network architecture into distinct functional components: access and mobility management function (AMF) for connection management, session management function (SMF) for session control, and user plane function (UPF) for data forwarding. This segmentation allows traffic offloading to be implemented in a modular way where each component handles specific tasks, reducing overall system complexity while enabling efficient local traffic handling at the edge.
3Productivity
If relay UEs are selected based on offloading capability, then service quality and efficiency improve, but the complexity of capability identification and selection increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having relay UEs pre-indicate their relay service capabilities through capability information elements before actual service deployment. The UE's relay capability, including support for PDU session relay and edge service hosting, is identified and stored in advance. When relay services are needed, the network can quickly match available UEs with appropriate services using this pre-collected capability information, avoiding complex real-time assessment.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for sidelink edge services with session continuity during mobility are provided. For example, a method can include method may include identifying, at a remote user equipment, offloading capability or edge service hosting capability of a user equipment. The method may also include selecting, by the remote user equipment, the user equipment to be used as a relay between the remote user equipment and a network element based on the identified offloading or service hosting capability.