Client-Based Intelligence for Resource Efficient Vehicular Big Data Transfer in Future 6G Networks

In IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, February 2021

Abstract:

Vehicular big data is anticipated to become the “new oil” of the automotive industry which fuels the development of novel crowdsensing-enabled services. However, the tremendous amount of transmitted vehicular sensor data represents a massive challenge for the cellular network. A promising method for achieving relief which allows to utilize the existing network resources in a more efficient way is the utilization of intelligence on the end-edge-cloud devices. Through machine learning-based identification and exploitation of highly resource efficient data transmission opportunities, the client devices are able to participate in overall network resource optimization process. In this work, we present a novel client-based opportunistic data transmission method for delay-tolerant applications which is based on a hybrid machine learning approach: Supervised learning is applied to forecast the currently achievable data rate which serves as the metric for the reinforcement learning-based data transfer scheduling process. In addition, unsupervised learning is applied to uncover geospatially-dependent uncertainties within the prediction model. In a comprehensive real world evaluation in the public cellular networks of three German Mobile Network Operator (MNO), we show that the average data rate can be improved by up to 223% while simultaneously reducing the amount of occupied network resources by up to 89%. As a side-effect of preferring more robust network conditions for the data transfer, the transmission-related power consumption is reduced by up to 73%. The price to pay is an increased Age of Information (AoI) of the sensor data.