To meet the growing demand for wireless services with diverse throughput, latency, and reliability requirements, network providers employ virtualization to create multiple virtual networks over a shared physical infrastructure. Network slicing (NS) builds on this by partitioning the infrastructure into logically isolated, end-to-end slices, each tailored for specific use cases. Leveraging software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), these slices can dynamically allocate computing, storage, and networking resources across the radio access, transport, and core networks. As systems evolve toward multi-domain, multi-technology architectures integrating terrestrial, aerial, and satellite components, NS must intelligently allocate radio, computing, and storage resources to diverse applications- including virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, Industry 4.0, digital twins, telemedicine, immersive education, and intelligent transportation- across heterogeneous infrastructures, while addressing device mobility and dynamic channel conditions. This work evaluates a novel NS framework that dynamically manages resources across fog, edge, and cloud layers within terrestrial domains and adapts allocation between terrestrial and nonterrestrial domains to improve reliability and reduce outages. The framework incorporates resilience and covert communication mechanisms for enhanced security in heteroge-neous IoT scenarios. Simulations show improved reliability, lower latency, and strong security, enabling effective support for diverse use cases in integrated multi-domain networks.
Haitham H. Esmat (Fri,) studied this question.