A hybrid GA-game-theoretic approach for joint UPF placement and traffic routing in next generation networks

Eddine Gouaouri, Mohammed Dhiya; Bagaa, Miloud; Ouameur, Messaoud Ahmed; Hugo, Bertrand; Massicotte, Daniel; Ksentini, Adlen
IWCMC 2026, 22nd International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference, 1-6 June 2026, Wuzhou, China

The 5G core network relies on flexible deployment of User Plane Functions (UPFs) across geo-distributed edge servers to meet latency and efficiency demands. We study the joint optimization of UPF placement and traffic routing, aiming to minimize deployment cost, energy consumption, and userplane latency. The problem is modeled as a bilevel optimiztion program, where the upper level determines UPF placement, while the lower level assigns gNBs to UPFs and decides traffic load balancing scheme between UPFs. Due to the problem’s NPhardness, we design two hybrid approaches: (i) GA-MILP, which
couples a genetic algorithm with exact MILP-based routing, and (ii) GA±game-theoretic, which replaces the MILP with matching and auction models for scalability. Simulations show that GAMILP achieves the most cost- and energy-efficient deployments, while the game-theoretic variants provide faster convergence with competitive latency performance.

DOI
Type:
Conference
City:
Wuzhou
Date:
2026-06-01
Department:
Communication systems
Eurecom Ref:
8856
Copyright:
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PERMALINK : https://www.eurecom.fr/publication/8856