Cloud-Native 5G Infrastructure and Network Applications (NetApps) for Public Protection and Disaster Relief: The 5G-EPICENTRE Project

Abstract

5G will lay the foundations for the mainstream broadband wireless technology of the next decade, a leverage toward ensuring the eficiency, effectiveness and adaptability of everyday high-demanding operations, such as those in Public Protection and Disaster Relief. The ITU considers LTE-Advanced systems and 5G as a mission critical PPDR technology able to address the needs of MC intelligence, providing support for MC voice, data and video services as an IMT radio interface. In this paper, we introduce 5G-EPICENTRE, an innovation action funded by the EC under the Horizon 2020 research framework, which aims to deliver an open, federated 5G end-toend experimentation platform specifically tailored to the needs of PPDR software solutions. The envisioned platform will allow SMEs and developers a lower entry barrier to the PPDR market, enabling them to build-up and experiment with their solutions in a cost effective way. The 5G-EPICENTRE platform will be based on an open Service Oriented Architecture and will accommodate open access to 5G networks' resources, acting this way as an open source repository for PPDR 5G Network Applications (NetApps). The purpose of the federated platform is to provide sufficient resources to cover the entire range of the 3 ITU-defined service types (i.e. eMBB, mMTC and URLLC) and to deliver secure interoperability capabilities beyond vendor-specific implementation.

Remote Monitoring at Distribution Network of Dynamically Constrained Working Areas

“…They are centred on the NetApps and vertical context, as shown by the two 5G-PPP initiatives, VITAL-5G and 5GASP, the incremental evolution of the 5G network to serve all of these complex NetApps and vertical Use Cases (UCs). The 5G-EPICENTRE [5] platform will be based on an open Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and supports open access to 5G network resources, serving as an open source repository (OSR) for Public Protection and Disaster Recovery (PPDR) 5G NetApps. The objective of the federated platform is to provide adequate resources to cover the full spectrum of the three ITU-defined service types (eMBB, mMTC, and URLLC) and to deliver secure interoperability capabilities that extend beyond vendor-specific implementation.…”

A network application approach towards 5G and beyond critical communications use cases

“…To address such specific requirements by different 5G network tenants, a host of 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) initiatives have worked over the past 3 years toward realising a vision for direct interaction of vertical-specific software and the 5G network control plane, under the collective term Network Applications (5G-PPP Software Network Working Group, 2022). For PPDR in particular, Network Applications can bring programmability of network slices to adjust their properties to the needs of 5Genabled services developed for PPDR end-users (Apostolakis et al, 2021;Cordeiro et al, 2023).…”

NetApps Approach for Accelerating Vertical Adoption of 5G Networks: A UAV Case

“…For instance, VITAL-5G targets to showcase the benefits of 5G-based NetApps using real-life trials over state of the art vertical facilities (warehouse, hubs, ports) and advanced European 5Gtestbeds [1]. 5G-EPICENTRE [2] employs cloud-native 5G infrastructure and NetApps for public protection and disaster relief. In [3], Smart5Grid introduces a 5G solution for supporting integration, testing and validation of existing and new 5G services and NetApps from third parties for smart energy grids of the future.…”

“…In 2022 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM) (pp. [1][2][3][4][5][6]. (IEEE Conference Proceedings).…”