Implementing Edge Computing Architectures for Railway Applications: An example Using the Emu5GNet Platform

Data processing architectures are currently evolving to enable the deployment of critical real-time applications, particularly in the railway environment. Indeed, these new computing architectures could contribute to the definition of innovative services: platooning, remote driving, autonomous trains, etc. This is why many studies today aim at setting up optimal Edge Computing architectures that would allow critical services to be deployed as close as possible to the end user. It is therefore necessary to design a powerful simulation/emulation environment that could be used to validate the proposed solutions. In this paper we demonstrate how the platform we have implemented, Emu5GNet, could be used to enable the rapid design and evaluation of new Edge Computing solutions. We present the potential applications of Emu5GNet and a reusable use case comparing Edge and Cloud deployment as well as different strategies for Edge resources management.