SLA-Aware Traffic Steering in Hybrid TN-NTN 5G Backhaul: A Potential Game Approach

2026-05-26

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of differentiated SLA assurance for heterogeneous network slices and efficient utilization of high-cost satellite links in 5G backhaul within integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks (TN-NTN). To this end, it introduces exact potential game theory into TN-NTN backhaul scheduling for the first time and proposes a decentralized traffic allocation mechanism with low signaling overhead. By designing a coupled utility function that jointly accounts for throughput, latency, packet loss, and SLA violation penalties, each slice autonomously adjusts its traffic split between terrestrial and satellite paths, converging to a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium without centralized coordination. Experimental validation on a real-world 5G testbed demonstrates that SLA violation rates for V2X and emergency slices are reduced to 1.7% and 0.7%, respectively, while video, IoT, and best-effort services achieve zero violations.

Abstract

The integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) with Terrestrial Networks (TN) is a key enabler for resilient 5G-Advanced and future 6G backhaul infrastructures. However, managing traffic across these highly asymmetric links remains a significant routing challenge, as systems must support heterogeneous network slices with conflicting service-level agreements (SLAs) while selectively utilizing costly NTN resources. This paper presents a computationally lightweight SLA-aware traffic-steering framework for a hybrid TN-NTN backhaul that models the load-balancing problem as an exact potential game. This mathematical foundation inherently enables decentralized coordination between uplink and downlink load-balancing agents without control-message overhead. By formulating traffic steering as a coupled optimization problem, per-slice (or per-user group) traffic fractions are dynamically distributed across terrestrial and satellite paths based on utility functions that capture throughput, latency, packet loss, and SLA penalties. The resulting game admits a pure Nash equilibrium, ensuring stable and predictable traffic adaptation under non-stationary load conditions. The framework is evaluated on a geographically distributed 5G testbed, using bidirectional traffic generated for five representative slices. Experimental results show that the proposed controller significantly outperforms heuristic and conventional baselines, reducing SLA violations to 1.7% for V2X and 0.7% for the emergency slice while completely eliminating them for video, IoT, and best-effort traffic.

Problem

• SLA-aware traffic steering
• Hybrid TN-NTN backhaul
• Service-Level Agreement (SLA)
• Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)
• 5G backhaul

Innovation

• Potential Game
• SLA-aware Traffic Steering
• Hybrid TN-NTN Backhaul
• Decentralized Coordination
• Network Slicing