Bridging Cross-Layer Interactions Between 5G RAN and MEC for Latency-Critical Video Analytics

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a key component of 5G ecosystem, designed to support applications with stringent latency requirements. The fundamental idea is to deploy servers closer to end-users, such as on the network edge, rather than in remote clouds. While conceptually sound, operational 5G networks often lack coordination with MEC, leading to intolerably long response latency. In this work, we propose Sonata, which tightly integrates 5G RAN and MEC at the user space to ensure the performance of latency-critical video analytics. To achieve this, Sonata precisely customizes users’ service demands by fusing application-layer content changes from MEC servers with instantaneous physical-layer dynamics from the 5G Radio Access Network (RAN). It then enforces a deadline-strict resource provision to meet these service demands through real-time interactions between the 5G RAN and MEC servers, in a lightweight and standard-compatible manner. We prototype and evaluate Sonata on a software-defined 5G MEC platform. Our results demonstrate that Sonata achieves an average reduction in response latency of 67.82% compared to conventional 5G edge systems.