An integrated satellite–terrestrial 5G network and its use to demonstrate 5G use cases

TLDR

The paper develops a satellite‑integrated 5G testbed and MEC solutions to demonstrate the SaT5G project’s four key use cases. The testbed combines a 3GPP Rel 15/6 mobile core and RAN at Surrey with virtualized satellite NTN UE and gateway components, creating a fully end‑to‑end 5G network that supports MEC integration. Trials over a live GEO satellite confirm that the hybrid network successfully supports cell backhaul, edge multimedia delivery, multicast/caching, and multilinking, yielding measurable performance gains.

Abstract

Summary In this paper, we present a satellite‐integrated 5G testbed that was produced for the EU‐commissioned Satellite and Terrestrial Networks for 5G (SaT5G) project. We first describe the testbed's 3GPP Rel. 15/6‐compliant mobile core and radio access network (RAN) that have been established at the University of Surrey. We then detail how satellite NTN UE and gateway components were integrated into the testbed using virtualization and software‐defined orchestration. The satellite element provides 5G backhaul, which in concert with the terrestrial/mobile segment of the testbed forms a fully integrated end‐to‐end (E2E) 5G network. This hybrid 5G network exercised and validated the four major use cases defined within the SaT5G project: cell backhaul, edge delivery of multimedia content, multicast and caching for media delivery and multilinking using satellite and terrestrial. In this document, we describe the MEC implementations developed to address each of the aforementioned use cases and explore how each MEC system integrates into the 5G network. We also provide measurements from trials of the use cases over a live GEO satellite system and indicate in each case the improvements that result from the use of satellite in the 5G network.