Virtual Resource Allocation for URLLC in MEC-enabled UAVs: A Reliability and Availability Analysis

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communication networks and Multiaccess Edge Computing (MEC) will occupy an important position in the future wireless communication system. Unlike regular datacenter environments, MEC can help mobile devices improve computing and communication capabilities, and its combination with UAVs helps to deal with the Line of Sight (LoS) issues, besides allowing node mobility. This work addresses the dynamic resource provisioning in a UAV equipped with MEC resources (MEC-enabled UAV) that provides on demand communication capabilities to Ultra-reliable and Low-latency Communication (URLLC) services. We adopt a Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC) to analyze the overall node availability and reliability, while taking into account virtual host setup (repair) delays and failure events for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) hosted on MEC-enabled UAVs. Our results show that the containerized VNF setup delays critically impact the admission process, whereas reliability is more prone towards VNF failures.