Mobile Edge Communications, Computing, and Caching (MEC3) Technology in the Maritime Communication Network

With the increasing maritime activities and the rapidly developing maritime economy, the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication system is expected to be deployed at the ocean. New technologies need to be explored to meet the requirements of ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) in the maritime communication network (MCN). Mobile edge computing (MEC) can achieve high energy efficiency in MCN at the cost of suffering from high control plane latency and low reliability. In terms of this issue, the mobile edge communications, computing, and caching (MEC3) technology is proposed to sink mobile computing, network control, and storage to the edge of the network. New methods that enable resource-efficient configurations and reduce redundant data transmissions can enable the reliable implementation of computing-intension and latency-sensitive applications. The key technologies of MEC3 to enable URLLC are analyzed and optimized in MCN. The best response-based offloading algorithm (BROA) is adopted to optimize task offloading. The simulation results show that the task latency can be decreased by 26.5' ms, and the energy consumption in terminal users can be reduced to 66.6%.