ESA ARTES 5G TINA

Status

Ongoing
Status date

2023-04-26
Activity Code

3A.120

Objectives

Enable 5G satellites nodes by extending terrestrial 5G network functions, protocols and Software-Defined Networking (SDN)/Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC)/edge computing and storage and distributed control and management concepts to space.

Develop mechanisms to address the secure instantiation, control and management of the network functions on 5G satellite nodes in order to enable optimised connectivity, coverage and capacity allocations.

Develop a testbed to demonstrate an end-to-end network with integrated 5G NTN nodes.

Identify, describe and analyse:

Scenarios of 3D NTN satellite network architectures and their services;
Context aware and advanced routing protocols;
H/W and S/W solutions for software defined reprogrammable satellite payloads;
H/W and S/W solutions of onboard edge computing;
Enhancements of Software Defined Networking control and management and data plane forwarding functions.

The activity shall design and specify a System Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and implement a representative 3D NTN testbed to validate and analyse the performance of the MVP. The testbed could also be interconnected with 5G integrated satellite terrestrial test platform to assess the performance of end-to-end services and show case representative use cases.

The activity will propose development roadmap for the identified critical technology elements as well as technology demonstration missions.

Challenges

The 2 main challenges that are the focus of this project are:

constraints on the 5G node types that can be fitted to NTN payloads, or are worthwhile fitting to payloads, and their performance and capacity as a result of the payload constraints on mass and power;
network aspects due to the scale, layout and movement in the topology, such as deployment and configurations of distributed functions over the global system, handover management, and end-to-end service slice management.

Benefits

The Targeted Improvement is enabling technical assessment and validation of solutions for 5G satellite nodes to implement flexible NTN space Systems.The main TINA features can be summarised as:
•   Proposal and evaluation of Network Scenarios where 5G Core Network functions are distributed across the 3D NTN Networks, based on real world Use Cases Concept of Operations
•   A test bed capable of emulating various satellite constellation traffic conditions as well as 5G Network Functions according to the use case requirements.
•   Evaluation of the critical technology elements for hosting Core Network functions in the Satellite payload

Features

The main TINA features can be summarised as:

Proposal and evaluation of Network Scenarios where 5G Core Network functions are distributed across the 3D NTN Networks, based on real world Use Cases Concept of Operations
A test bed capable of emulating various satellite constellation traffic conditions as well as 5G Network Functions according to the use case requirements.
Evaluation of the critical technology elements for hosting Core Network functions in the Satellite payload

System Architecture

High Level Testbed Architecture

Plan

The project is 18 months in duration and is broken into 5 Work Packages with 7 deliverables:

3D NTN Network Scenarios and Critical Technology Elements September 2022 (complete)
Finalised Technical Specification / Design completed December 2022 (complete)
3D NTN testbed development and functionally complete June 2023
3D NTN Testing and Validation complete September 2023
Use-case and scenarios evaluation & Testbed software November 2023
White Papers March and November 2023