CloudEmu: A Trace-Driven Cloud-Native Emulation Testbed for Vehicle Video Uplink over Cellular Networks
2026-05-11 • Networking and Internet Architecture
Networking and Internet Architecture
AI summaryⓘ
The authors created CloudEmu, a tool that helps test how vehicles send video over cellular networks in a way that is both realistic and easy to repeat. Unlike physical tests that are expensive or simulations that may not be accurate, CloudEmu uses real data from cars and plays it back on virtual machines to mimic real network and location changes. This method allows testing video upload performance under exactly the same conditions multiple times without needing more field trials. Their demonstration showed that CloudEmu can run real video uploading software, making tests cheaper and more reliable.
cloud-native emulationcellular networksvideo uplinktrace-driven replaynetwork softwarizationvirtual vehiclesLinux virtualizationautonomous vehiclesnetwork dynamicsproduction-grade software
Authors
Takashi Torii, Soto Anno, Masaki Okada, Takuma Tsubaki, Nobuhiro Azuma, Takuya Tojo
Abstract
We present CloudEmu, a trace-driven, cloud-native cellular-emulation testbed for vehicle video uplink communication. Reliable, low-latency video uplink over cellular networks is essential for remote monitoring of autonomous vehicles. However, existing testbeds fall into two extremes. Physical-vehicle platforms provide realism but are costly and make validation under identical network conditions difficult, whereas simulations are inexpensive and reproducible but generally cannot replay field-measured end-to-end performance dynamics without substantial calibration or readily run production video-uplink stacks. A software-defined, cloud-native emulation approach can combine the fidelity of trace-driven replay with the agility and scalability that network softwarization principles offer. To this end, we propose CloudEmu that replays time-synchronized cellular and position traces, collected once from vehicles, on commodity Linux-based virtual vehicle and video-receiver nodes. A Linux-based emulation framework couples traffic replay with position replay, tying network dynamics to each point along the route and enabling repeatable, route-aware experiments without repeated on-road trials. Our demo deploys a production-grade video-uplink stack on CloudEmu, allowing attendees to experience low-cost, repeatable trials and controlled comparisons under identical replayed network conditions.