A Novel OMNeT++-based Simulation Tool for Vehicular Cloud Computing in ETSI MEC-compliant 5G Environments
Angelo Feraudo, Alessandro Calvio, Paolo Bellavista
TL;DR
The paper tackles the need for an integrated simulation framework that combines vehicular cloud computing with ETSI MEC in 5G environments. It proposes a novel OMNeT++-based platform, built on top of OMNeT++ and Simu5G, which extends MEC to leverage far-edge resources such as parked vehicles and models mobility, resource volatility, and application migration. Key contributions include the architectural extension of MEC, the modeling of resource acquisition/allocation/release as Inet Applications, and a flexible scheduling module including a Gaussian residency-based algorithm, all implemented with modular MEC components (MEC-O,MEC-H,MEC-P, VIM, AMS) and a vehicle-aware module design. Performance evaluations in a 5G standalone setting demonstrate realistic timing for resource handoffs and migrations, showing that careful scheduling can significantly reduce migrations and improve MEC application continuity, thus providing a practical tool for researchers and engineers to validate MEC-enabled vehicular cloud solutions. The results suggest that the framework can support realistic experimentation for MEC-in-vehicular contexts and guide the design of future mobility-aware orchestration strategies, with potential impact on edge-cloud deployment planning and standard-compliance testing.
Abstract
Vehicular cloud computing is gaining popularity thanks to the rapid advancements in next generation wireless communication networks. Similarly, Edge Computing, along with its standard proposals such as European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC), will play a vital role in these scenarios, by enabling the execution of cloud-based services at the edge of the network. Together, these solutions have the potential to create real micro-datacenters at the network edge, favoring several benefits like minimal latency, real-time data processing, and data locality. However, the research community has not yet the opportunity to use integrated simulation frameworks for the easy testing of applications that exploit both the vehicular cloud paradigm and MEC-compliant 5G deployment environments. In this paper, we present our simulation tool as a platform for researchers and engineers to design, test, and enhance applications utilizing the concepts of vehicular and edge cloud. Our platform significantly extends OMNet++ and Simu5G, and implements our ETSI MEC-compliant architecture that leverages resources provided by far-edge nodes. In addition, the paper analyzes and reports performance results for our simulation platform, as well as provides a use case where our simulator is used to support the design, test, and validation of an algorithm to distribute MEC application components on vehicular cloud resources.