Expanding Edge Computing deeper into Beyond 5G Radio Access Networks

Relevant services envisaged for beyond 5G (B5G) systems, such as extended reality and holographic communications, present stringent user experience requirements with high computational and communication demands. While edge computing aims to address the computation requirements by offloading the computational tasks to edge servers close to the user, the communication will leverage the technologies developed for 5G New Radio together with an unprecedented level of network densification. This paper advocates for deploying relays equipped with edge computing capabilities. The potentials of this approach for B5G are identified and a system model is presented to characterize both computational and communications perspectives. Based on this, results are provided to show the benefits and limitations of the proposed approach from a system-level perspective.