Digital Twins for Intelligent Space-Air-Ground Integrated Vehicular Network: Challenges and Solutions
Yilong Hui, Yi Qiu, Zhou Su, Zhisheng Yin, Tom H. Luan, Khalid Aldubaikhy
Abstract
With the rapid development of 6G, the intelligent space-air-ground integrated vehicular network (ISAGIVN) has been proposed to efficiently provide vehicles with ubiquitous services. Faced with the new features such as massive nodes, heterogeneous networks, and diverse data presented by the ISAGIVN, a new network architecture is urgently needed to enhance the flexibility of the network, the efficiency of decision-making and the orderliness of data management. In this article, we design a digital twin (DT)-enabled architecture to facilitate the practical deployment and application of ISAGIVN. We first review the conventional network architecture of ISAGIVN. Then, we discuss the challenges of combining DTs and ISAGIVN. On this basis, we design the framework of DT-enabled ISAGIVN, where the creation, deployment, update and migration of DTs in ISAGIVN are analyzed in detail. Finally, we conclude the article and discuss future research directions.