The ENVELOPE project advanced and opened up the reference 5G-Advanced architecture, transform it into a CAM-oriented one. The key advances beyond the state of the art include:
• Vertical-specific open implementations for network exposure and programmability: the project identified, designed and produced open implementations for a series of technical enablers and corresponding APIs specifically tailored for the automotive/CAM vertical. This is a contribution beyond the vertical-agnostic, and in most cases lacking open implementations, state of the art approaches e.g. CAMARA, SEAL. The enablers and APIs focused on the following areas: Edge computing operations, Device location, Quality on Demand (QoD), Performance Metrics, Predictive QoS, Access Traffic Steering-Switching-Splitting (ATSSS) Multi-connectivity.
• End-to-end performance monitoring: ENVELOPE enables the delivery of monitored end to end performance metric values, such as UE throughput or end-to-end latency, to the CAM vertical service. A Performance Metrics API has been developed towards this end, allowing CAM services to receive the desired information. Going beyond state of the art approaches, the solution extends the scope of the supported metrics, to include the full end to end path between the UE and the Application Server i.e. include the service layer.
• QoS prediction: beyond monitoring information, the ENVELOPE project has further developed the 3GPP-compliant mechanisms for the support for predictive QoS notifications, enabling CAM services to receive notifications about expected degradations of the delivered QoS. Through the exposure of a Predictive QoS northbound interface, the solution allows CAM services to subscribe to such notifications from the network or to follow a request response model. Going beyond state of the art approaches, the solution: (i) extends the scope of the supported metrics, allowing the CAM service to receive notifications about the end-to-end, service level performance predictions; and (ii) allows notifications to be scoped to a specific UE or any UE.
• Reconfigurable multi-connectivity with selective traffic duplication: ENVELOPE has designed and implemented an ATSSS-like multi-connectivity solution that enables UE/terminal devices to take advantage of the potential co-existence of 3GPP and non-3GPP access networks. The solution extends the current state of the art by: (i) enabling selective traffic duplication, instead of the current binary solution i.e. either full or no duplication across the available networks; (ii) allowing the vertical service to adjust/re-configure traffic duplication according to its needs and conditions; and (iii) offering an MPQUIC transport solution, beyond typical MPTCP implementations.
