Design of a DetNet Framework in a 3GPP 5G System

Ultra-low latency communication is fundamentally required to reduce end-to-end (E2E) latency related to the transportation of time-critical or time-sensitive traffic in 5G networks. Time-sensitive networking has significant prospects in factory automation and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as a key technology that can provide low-latency, highly reliable, and deterministic communications over Ethernet, whereas IETF deterministic networking (DetNet) seeks to provide a complementary network layer to support ultra-low latency communications. DetNet, as standardized in the IETF, provides time-sensitive characteristics that assure extremely low packet loss and latency for ultra-reliable low-latency communications. This study develops a novel framework to enable 3GPP support for DetNet functionalities. First, the proposed framework seeks to support IP-based DetNet traffic and urgent data transmission in the network overload conditions of 3GPP 5G systems. Additionally, the proposed design supports DetNet service connectivity between non-DetNet and DetNet service areas. Based on simulation results, the proposed framework can guarantee deterministic latency requirements and critical data transmission for DetNet compared with conventional approaches. The proposed scheme can achieve more effective performance for moving DetNet devices.