Federating UE Resources in 6G Networks: A Crowdsourced Approach

In the context of federating 6G infrastructures and experimentation facilities, this paper presents a novel approach to integrating User Equipment (UE) computing resources into the Management and Orchestration (MANO) system of Beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G networks. Our solution enables UEs to declare their willingness to share their compute resources with the network and to receive the necessary information to join a Kubernetes cluster within the network. This integration allows for the deployment and management of containerized edge applications directly on the UEs, transforming them into active participants in a distributed computing network. This approach leverages the advanced computational capabilities of modern UEs, enhancing network flexibility, scalability, and resilience while enabling real-time, latency-sensitive applications at the extreme edge. Our solution includes a procedure designed specifically for the federated architecture being considered in the SUNRISE-6G project [9].