Paving the way towards safer and more efficient maritime industry with 5G and Beyond edge computing systems

Abstract

The Maritime and Road Transport and Logistics (T&L) vertical industries account for 92.5% of the European total freight transport. Therefore, efficient T&L systems in busy port environments are critical for Europe's global competitiveness. The emergence of 5G and Beyond, including Standalone (SA) with data rates up to 20 Gbps, latencies as low as 5 milliseconds (ms), and exceptional reliability (99.999%), offers a significant opportunity for innovation in the Maritime sector, in terms of smarter and safer operations. In this paper, we investigate the enhancements brought forth by Edge Network-aware Applications (EdgeApps) strategically positioned at the network edge, focusing on a practical maritime use case denominated as "Assisted Vessel Navigation", all within the overarching framework of the edge-cloud/core continuum paradigm. We utilize the so-called edge network softwarization and intelligence that allows us to create EdgeApps, capable of running on 5G and Beyond-enabled edge and cloud infrastructure to increase the safety and efficiency of maritime operations. The EdgeApp framework simplifies the creation of complex 5G and Beyond vertical services and fosters collaboration between industry stakeholders, network experts, and EdgeApp developers. The contributions of this paper are threefold: i) this paper focuses on the significance of edge computing systems within the 5G ecosystem and their role in enhancing vertical industries such as transport and logistics (T&L), with a specific focus on maritime applications, ii) the core contribution of this paper lies in the design and implementation of EdgeApps tailored to vertical industries. We explore their deployment in a real-life maritime environment, and iii) we share valuable insights derived from our real-life experiments conducted in the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, analyzing network and service performance results based on the use case requirements. Therefore, we examine the deployment options of EdgeApps, comparing edge versus cloud environments to assess where they need to run in the edge-cloud continuum. The outcomes and lessons learned from this article hold important implications for vertical industries.