Citation: Musa, S.S.; Zennaro, M.;
Libsie, M.; Pietrosemoli, E.
Mobility-Aware Proactive Edge
Caching Optimization Scheme in
Information-Centric IoV Networks.
Sensors 2022, 22, 1387. https://
doi.org/10.3390/s22041387
Academic Editors: Tommaso
Pecorella and Benedetta Picano
Received: 29 December 2021
Accepted: 6 February 2022
Published: 11 February 2022
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Article
Mobility-Aware Proactive Edge Caching Optimization Scheme
in Information-Centric IoV Networks
Salahadin Seid Musa
1
, Marco Zennaro
2,
* , Mulugeta Libsie
1
and Ermanno Pietrosemoli
2
1
Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa P.O. Box 1176, Ethiopia;
salubinseid@gmail.com (S.S.M.); mulugeta.libsie@aau.edu.et (M.L.)
2
STI Unit, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, 34151 Trieste, Italy; ermanno@ictp.it
* Correspondence: mzennaro@ictp.it
Abstract:
Edge caching is a promising approach to alleviate the burden on the backhaul of network
links. It has a significant role in the Internet of Vehicle (IoV) networks performance by providing
cached data at the edge and reduce the burden of the core network caused by the number of partici-
pating vehicles and data volume. However, due to the limited computing and storage capabilities
of edge devices, it is hard to guarantee that all contents are cached and every requirement of the
device are satisfied for all users. In this paper, we design an Information-Centric Network (ICN) with
mobility-aware proactive caching scheme to provide delay-sensitive services on IoV networks. The
real-time status and interaction of vehicles with other vehicles and Roadside Units (RSU) is modeled
using a Markov process. Mobility aware proactive edge caching decision that maximize network
performance while minimizing transmission delay is applied. Our numerical simulation results show
that the proposed scheme outperforms related caching schemes in terms of latency by 20–25% in
terms of latency and by 15–23% in cache hits.
Keywords:
internet of vehicles; proactive content caching; mobility; vehicular caching; roadside unit;
edge caching; information centric networks; QoS
1. Introduction
With the advancement of wireless communication, edge computing and caching, as
well as the Internet of Things, the automotive industry continues to accelerate towards the
goal of connected vehicles, named Internet of Vehicles (IoV). IoV is an active research area
and has been considered a key enabling technology to provide the Intelligent Transport
Systems (ITS) required to improve road traffic efficiency, enhance road safety, and reduce
traffic congestion. Moreover, IoV networks promise to enable a wide range of applica-
tions including infotainment and road safety applications [
1
]. To improve the driving
and traveling experience, significant volumes of information will be exchanged between
vehicles and roadside units in the IoV ecosystem. Consequently, these applications require
specific computational and communication resources such as bandwidth and storage, while
keeping low latency to meet the Quality of Experience (QoE) of IoV users. In IoV networks
the movement of vehicles causes dynamic topology changes which require the rerouting of
the content. These dynamic topology changes due to the mobility of vehicles, added to the
poor quality of the wireless links, are the hurdles to overcome in order to provide optimal
IoV services.
ICN has been proposed to address the shortcomings of the current host-centric In-
ternet architecture. It is an emerging network paradigm that decouples content from its
storage location by distributing one or more copies of the content across the network [
2
].
The dynamic nature of IoV and factors such as device mobility and possible link failure,
changing network bandwidth requirements, and dynamic data exchange, demand a new
Internet architecture beyond the current TCP/IP based networks. ICN makes the content
directly addressable and routable in the network. Enabling ICN with edge computing
Sensors 2022, 22, 1387. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22041387 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
