English

In-Network Artificial Computing Enhanced Light Model-Switching for Emergency Communications Networks

Networking and Internet Architecture 2026-05-12 v1

Abstract

Emergency communications networks require in-network intelligence for timely traffic handling under dynamic demands and runtime constraints. In these environments, packets may need different inference behaviors, and conventional model replacement via control-plane updates is too slow for responsive operation. We propose an in-network artificial computing framework with lightweight model-switching, where multiple Binary Neural Network (BNN) models are kept resident within a shared execution framework. Packet metadata selects the active model at packet granularity with O(1) selection cost. A fixed 1024-byte payload is aligned with x86 AVX-512, enabling efficient memory access. The framework is realized on an eBPF/XDP + AF_XDP stack. Experimental results show that the system sustains 1.894 Mpps with a 0.528 us inference latency, while model selection adds only 0.005 us. Our results demonstrate that different resident models induce distinct packet-processing behaviors, that scaling to 16 slots preserves low switching overhead, and that online model switching completes without wrong-verdict packets. These results show the practicality of lightweight in-network artificial computing on commodity hardware.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.10070,
  title  = {In-Network Artificial Computing Enhanced Light Model-Switching for Emergency Communications Networks},
  author = {Yuehan Li and Zhiyuan Ren and Tao Zhang and Wenchi Cheng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.10070},
  year   = {2026}
}