Analysis of Strategies for Minimising End-to-End Latency in 4G and 5G Networks

Afonso Lopes Vieira de Carvalho

Key information

Authors:

Afonso Lopes Vieira de Carvalho (Afonso Lopes Vieira de Carvalho)

Supervisors:

António Manuel Raminhos Cordeiro Grilo (António Manuel Raminhos Cordeiro Grilo); Luís Manuel De Jesus Sousa Correia (Luís Manuel De Jesus Sousa Correia)

Published in

November 17, 2021

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to identify and study a variety of strategies that effectively reduce end-to-end latency in both 4G and 5G networks. This latency reduction will allow operators to provide URLLC services to users, such as remote surgeries, the Intelligent Transport Systems and factory automation. To verify if those services can be implemented using 4G and 5G systems, the developed model considers several variables: MEC node deployment option, functionality splitting options, radio techniques and network architectures. The MEC technology appears in the thesis as the solution that allows end-to-end latency values to reach 1 ms, which is required for some of the URLLC services. The results obtained show that the 4G system does not have the capability to allow the existence of these upcoming services. Even with the MEC node deployment that minimises latency, the LTE network is not able to provide the URLLC services under study. Simulations show that using the adequate latency reduction strategies and radio techniques, the 5G system has enough capacity and sufficiently low latencies to provide the upcoming services.