TRON: Traffic Management and Resource Allocation for SDN-Enabled 5G/6G Networks

Abstract

The evolution of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and network slicing has revolutionized network management in Fifth-Generation (5G) and Sixth-Generation (6G) systems to enable flexible and programmable resource control. However, efficient traffic management and dynamic resource allocation under heterogeneous traffic demands remain challenging. This paper proposes TRON, an adaptive traffic management and resource allocation framework that leverages OpenFlow Group Tables to optimize link utilization across network slices for data and VoIP traffic. Integrated with the Ryu SDN controller, TRON employs real-time flow redirection and intelligent traffic splitting. Experimental evaluations using Mininet and Open vSwitch show that TRON improves link utilization by 22.5%-43.25% and network throughput by 31.64%-56.55% compared to baseline approaches. The simulation results highlight that TRON provides a lightweight and real-time traffic management framework for SDN-enabled 5G/6G networks. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.