Cache-Enabled Coordinated Mobile Edge Network: Opportunities and Challenges

Cache-enabled coordinated mobile edge network is an emerging network architecture, wherein serving nodes located at the network edge have the capabilities of baseband signal processing and caching files at their local cache. The main goals of such an emerging network architecture are to alleviate the burden on fronthaul links, while achieving low-latency high rate content delivery, say on the order of the millisecond level end-to-end content delivery latency. Consequently, the application of delay-sensitive and content-aware has been executed in close proximity to end users. In this article, an outlook of research directions, challenges, and opportunities is provided and discussed in depth. We first introduce the cache-enabled coordinated mobile edge network architecture, and then discuss the key technical challenges and opening research issues that need to be addressed for this architecture. Then, to reduce the delivery latency and the burden on fronthaul links, new cache-enabled physical layer transmission schemes are discussed. Finally, artificial intelligence based cache-enabled communications are discussed as future research directions. Numerical studies show that several gains are achieved by caching popular content at the network edge with proper coordinated transmission schemes.