What are Cloudlets? – Cloudlet Communications, Computing & Control, C4

What are Cloudlets?

I have proposed a system for managing communications, navigation and control among Autonomous Objects, called C⁴, pronounced “See Forth” – Cloudlet Communications, Computing & Control?

Here are observations about the requirements for Autonomous Vehicles to communicate and navigate, and their implications:

• Each Autonomous Vehicle is responsible for its own actions è each Autonomous Vehicle needs to calculate based on its own information, e.g., sensor data
• Each Autonomous Vehicle typically has a limited Point-of-View and limited information è share information with nearby Autonomous Objects to make good decisions
• Local navigation requires sharing information with very low delays è “standard” high speed, low delay local networks
• Accuracy, and timeliness, of the information and calculations are matters of life-and-death è each Autonomous Object checks all local navigation calculations and monitors all transmissions, flagging discrepancies
• Based on the limited Points-of-View, different Autonomous Objects may reach different conclusions è protocols for building consensus, conflict resolution, and management in case of problems
• Most navigation information is only needed very locally, but some is needed more globally è a hierarchy of communications
• Deciding what information to share more globally requires calculating and transmitting the information è the Cloudlet appears as a unified entity from outside with each Autonomous Object checking the calculations and transmissions
• A local area could contain any numbers and types of Autonomous Objects è each Autonomous Object needs all these abilities
• Need common, “standard”, mechanisms to represent location and motion data among Autonomous Objects è “Maps” already exist and are widely used so use Maps as a mechanism for sharing information

Taken together, these suggest that each Autonomous Object in a “small” local area must: share its navigation information, perform common navigation calculations, and build a consensus local navigation map. This sounds like cloud computing, but focused on a local area and with full redundancy, so I’ve used the term “Cloudlet”.

The work of each Cloudlet encompasses Communications, Computing, and Control, hence C⁴. One obvious way of pronouncing the expression C⁴ is “Cee Fourth”, which can be written homophonically as, “See Forth”, which has an appropriate meaning for a system that aids navigation. J