Network Slicing as the Ultimate Enabler of Enhanced Service Quality in Vehicular-to-Everything (V2X) World

Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are revolutionizing the automotive industry by improving real-time situational awareness, and road safety. Connectivity and latency are critical for the secure and efficient operation of CAVs. The evolution of Cellular Vehicular-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, particularly through Long Term Evolution V2X (LTE-V2X) and its successor New Radio-V2X (NR-V2X), is essential to address these challenges. LTE-V2X and NR-V2X are intended to coexist, complementing each other to cover a broad spectrum of vehicular communication needs. However, network overload is a critical issue, which risks severely degrading the performance of V2X applications and compromising road safety. This study delves into the practical implementation of Network Slicing within a real-world 5G environment, incorporating a modular Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture on the radio side, and Service-Based Architecture (SBA) principles on the core. We present a Network Slicing configuration that deploys a synergy between the 5G Core (5GC) and the Radio Access Network (RAN). Through strategic placement and policy application across multiple User Plane Functions (UPFs), our configuration enhances network performance and reliability for V2X applications. We validate our approach by demonstrating how this setup effectively manages the high demands of diverse and rigorous applications, ensuring the network requirements for enhanced V2X scenarios under various network conditions. Our results highlight the importance of synergy between 5GC and RAN for the application of an efficient network slicing mechanism in NR-V2X networks.