Quick response to disasters is crucial for saving lives and reducing loss. This requires low-latency uploading of situation information to the remote command center. Since terrestrial infrastructures are often damaged in disaster areas, non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) are preferable to provide network coverage, and mobile edge computing (MEC) could be integrated to improve the latency performance. Nevertheless, the communications and computing in MEC-enabled NTNs are strongly coupled, which complicates the system design. In this paper, an edge information hub (EIH) that incorporates communication, computing and storage capabilities is proposed to synergize communication and computing and enable systematic design. We first address the joint data scheduling and resource orchestration problem to minimize the latency for uploading sensing data. The problem is solved using an optimal resource orchestration algorithm. On that basis, we propose the principles for resource configuration of the EIH considering payload constraints on size, weight and energy supply. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed scheme in reducing the overall upload latency, thus enabling quick emergency rescue.

翻译：快速响应灾害对于拯救生命和减少损失至关重要。这需要将现场信息低延迟上传至远程指挥中心。由于地面基础设施在灾区常遭破坏，非地面网络（NTN）更适用于提供网络覆盖，并可集成移动边缘计算（MEC）以提升延迟性能。然而，在支持MEC的NTN中，通信与计算紧密耦合，增加了系统设计复杂性。本文提出一种融合通信、计算与存储能力的边缘信息枢纽（EIH），以协同通信与计算并实现系统性设计。我们首先解决联合数据调度与资源编排问题，以最小化传感数据上传延迟，并通过最优资源编排算法求解该问题。在此基础上，我们提出考虑尺寸、重量和能源供给有效载荷约束的EIH资源配置原则。仿真结果表明，所提方案在降低总体上传延迟方面具有优越性，从而支持快速应急救援。