关键词： Hardware impairments   Rate splitting multiple access   Mobile edge computing   Successful computation probability  

摘要： In this paper, we investigate a cognitive radio (CR) inspired rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) aided mobile edge computing (MEC) network, where hardware impairments (HIs) in all transceivers are considered. Given that allowing the secondary user (SU) to share the resource with the primary user (PU) for data offloading does not degrade the PU's offloading performance, we derive closed-form expressions for the rate-splitting parameter and power allocation coefficient at the SU to maximize its offloading rate. Using the derived parameters, we then derive the successful computation probability (SCP), which is defined as the probability that both the PU and SU can successfully compute their task bits within a given latency budget, into the closed form. To further enhance the performance of the CR inspired RSMA-MEC network with HIs, a SCP maximization-based problem is formulated to jointly optimize the task offloading ratio and task offloading time of both the SU and PU. Leveraging the convex theory, we obtain the optimal solutions in the closed form. Simulation results confirm the following two insights. First, the presence of HIs leads to a decreasing on the SCP and the SCP approaches to a constant which is less than 1 with the increase of the transmit power. Second, with the optimal task offloading ratio and time, the CR inspired RSMA-MEC achieves the highest SCP compared to the existing schemes.

关键词： Autonomous aerial vehicles   Task analysis   Energy efficiency   Laser beams   Heuristic algorithms   Reinforcement learning   Inductive charging   Mobile edge computing   multi-objective reinforcement learning   trajectory optimization   unmanned aerial vehicle   wireless charging  

摘要： This paper investigates the problem of energy-efficient trajectory optimization with wireless charging (ETWC) in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted mobile edge computing system. A UAV is dispatched to collect computation tasks from specific ground smart devices (GSDs) within its coverage while transmitting energy to the other GSDs. In addition, a high-altitude platform with a laser beam is deployed in the stratosphere to charge the UAV, so as to maintain its flight mission. The ETWC problem is characterized by multi-objective optimization, aiming to maximize both the energy efficiency of the UAV and the number of tasks collected via optimizing the UAV's flight trajectories. The conflict between the two objectives in the problem makes it quite challenging. Recently, some single-objective reinforcement learning (SORL) algorithms have been introduced to address the aforementioned problem. Nevertheless, these SORLs adopt linear scalarization to define the user utility, thus ignoring the conflict between objectives. Furthermore, in dynamic MEC scenarios, the relative importance assigned to each objective may vary over time, posing significant challenges for conventional SORLs. To solve the challenge, we first build a multi-objective Markov decision process that has a vectorial reward mechanism. There is a corresponding relationship between each component of the reward and one of the two objectives. Then, we propose a new trace-based experience replay scheme to modify sample efficiency and reduce replay buffer bias, resulting in a modified multi-objective reinforcement learning algorithm. The experiment results validate that the proposed algorithm can obtain better adaptability to dynamic preferences and a more favorable balance between objectives compared with several algorithms.

关键词： Task analysis   Autonomous aerial vehicles   Optimization   Energy consumption   Collaboration   Planning   Iterative methods   Age of information   mobile edge computing   path planning   proximal policy optimization   reinforcement learning   task offloading   unmanned aerial vehicle  

摘要： This paper studies the age of information (AoI) and energy tradeoff (AET) problem in an aerial-ground collaborative mobile edge computing system, where a high-altitude platform and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) work together to offer computing services for ground devices (GDs). The AET problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) that aims at simultaneously minimizing the total AoI of GDs and total energy consumption of the UAV by optimizing its flight paths and task offloading ratios. Addressing the AET problem poses a significant challenge due to the inherent conflict between the two objectives. The existing methods cannot well address the MOP because they adopt the linear combination to transform an MOP into a single-objective optimization problem using fixed weights (i.e., preferences), ignoring the conflict between objectives. Moreover, user preferences may change over time in dynamic MEC systems. To overcome these challenges, we first build a multi-objective Markov decision process model with a vectorial reward for the AET problem. There are one-to-one relationships between each component of the reward and one of the two objectives. Then, we propose a multi-objective learning algorithm based on proximal policy optimization (PPO), which primarily comprises a training phase and an evolutionary phase. The former adopts multi-objective PPO to iteratively optimize multiple learning individuals, aiming to obtain a nondominated policy set. The latter employs a genetic operator to further improve the quality of each policy in the set. Specifically, the crossover and mutation operators operate at the parameter level of policy networks, avoiding stagnation and premature convergence. The experiment results validate that the proposed approach obtains a set of excellent nondominated policies and a favorable balance between objectives. Moreover, the proposed approach achieves improvements of at least 39.8%, 2.1%, and 15.3% regarding AoI, energy c

关键词： Mobile edge computing   Edge federation   Tripartite game   Resource pricing approach  

摘要： Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) deploys edge servers close to end-users to address their computing requirements, with an emphasis on minimizing latency and enhancing security. However, the significant deployment costs associated with edge servers and the potential for resource wastage due to redundant deployment by various Edge Infrastructure Providers (EIPs) highlight the importance of adopting edge federation architecture. This architectural approach aims to deliver superior computing services tailored for MEC scenarios. Nevertheless, effective resource allocation and pricing strategies are crucial to ensure optimal resource sharing within the edge federation. This paper presents a game-theoretic model involving three primary stakeholders: terminal users, resource demanders within the federation, and resource providers within the federation. The game among these stakeholders is structured into two levels, with negotiation rounds playing a pivotal role. At the first level, the game outlines the initial resource demands of terminal users and the initial pricing by EIPs, while also considering the influence of historical pricing trends on resource demands. The second level focuses on defining the psychological expectations of resource demanders within the federation and the initial pricing by resource providers. To solve this game model, this paper introduces the Tripartite Game Pricing Approach (TGPA). Simulation results corroborate that TGPA outperforms existing pricing approaches, yielding higher total revenue for the edge federation and ensuring a certain utilization of computational resources within acceptable time constraints.

关键词： Mobile edge computing   active/sleep control   Lyapunov optimization   deep reinforcement learning   Mobile edge computing   active/sleep control   Lyapunov optimization   deep reinforcement learning  

摘要： In this paper, we investigate the energy minimization problem in cell-free mobile edge computing (MEC) networks under dynamic channel conditions and random arrival tasks. We aim to minimize the total energy consumption of user equipment (UEs) and MEC servers (MECSs) by jointly optimizing MECS active/sleep mode selection, UE-MECS association decision (MSAD), and task offloading, communication, and computation resource allocation (TORA) across two different timescales. Considering that the involved optimization variables affect the system performance in different timescales, we decouple the formulated stochastic optimization problem into two subproblems: MSAD operating in the large timescale and TORA in the small timescale. Leveraging the Lyapunov method, the stochastic TORA problem is decoupled into a series of deterministic problems, of which the closed-form solutions are presented. Furthermore, the MSAD problem is reformulated as a constrained Markov decision process (MDP). Then, we propose a double dueling deep Q-network (D3QN) to learn the optimal MSAD based on the TORA results. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed online TORA-assisted MSAD learning algorithm has effective convergence and achieves substantial energy reductions for the MEC networks compared with the benchmark schemes.

关键词： Optimization   Servers   Artificial intelligence   Resource management   Batteries   Energy consumption   Delays   Latency minimization   delay minimization   mobile edge computing   resource allocation   user association   task offloading   energy efficiency   edge AI  

摘要： The growth in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has attracted substantial interests in latency-aware task offloading of mobile edge computing (MEC)-namely, minimizing service latency. Additionally, the use of MEC systems poses an additional problem arising from limited battery resources of MDs. This paper tackles the pressing challenge of latency-aware distributed task offloading optimization, where user association (UA), resource allocation (RA), full-task offloading, and battery of mobile devices (MDs) are jointly considered. In existing studies, joint optimization of overall task offloading and UA is seldom considered due to the complexity of combinatorial optimization problems, and in cases where it is considered, linear objective functions such as power consumption are adopted. Revolutionizing the realm of MEC, our objective includes all major components contributing to users' quality of experience, including latency and energy consumption. To achieve this, we first formulate an NP-hard combinatorial problem, where the objective function comprises three elements: communication latency, computation latency, and battery usage. We derive a closed-form RA solution of the problem;next, we provide a distributed pricing-based UA solution. We simulate the proposed algorithm for various resource-intensive tasks. Our numerical results show that the proposed method Pareto-dominates baseline methods. More specifically, the results demonstrate that the proposed method can outperform baseline methods by 1.62 times shorter latency with 41.2% less energy consumption.

关键词： Unmanned aerial vehicles   Mobile edge computing   Trajectory planning   V-shaped and S-shaped transfer functions   K -medoids clustering algorithm  

摘要： The mobile edge computing system supported by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has gained significant interest over the last few decades due to its flexibility and ability to enhance communication coverage. In this system, the UAVs function as edge servers to offer computing services to Internet of Things devices (IoTDs), and if they are located distant from those devices, a significant amount of energy is consumed while data is transmitted. Therefore, optimizing UAVs' trajectories is an indispensable process to minimize overall energy consumption in this system. This problem is difficult to solve because it requires multiple considerations, including the number and placement of stop points (SPs), their order, and the association between SPs and UAVs. A few studies in the literature have been presented to address all of these aspects;nevertheless, the majority of them suffer from slow convergence speed, stagnation in local optima, and expensive computational costs. Therefore, this study presents a new trajectory optimization algorithm, namely ITPA-GBOKM, based on a newly proposed transfer-based encoding mechanism, gradient-based optimizer, and K-Medoids Clustering algorithm to tackle this problem more accurately. The K-medoid clustering algorithm is used to achieve better association between UAVs and SPs since it is less sensitive to outliers than the K-means clustering algorithm;the transfer function-based encoding mechanism is used to efficiently define this problem's solutions and manage the number of SPs;and GBO is utilized to search for the best SPs that could minimize overall energy consumption, including that consumed by UAVs and IoTDs. The proposed ITPA-GBOKM is evaluated using 13 instances with several IoTDs ranging from 60 to 700 to show its effectiveness in dealing with the trajectory optimization problem at small, medium, and large scales. Furthermore, it is compared to several rival optimizers using a variety of performance metrics, including av

关键词： Servers   Resource management   Uplink   Performance evaluation   NOMA   Interference cancellation   Internet of Things   Decoding   Channel allocation   Minimax techniques   Mobile edge computing   rate splitting multiple access   max-min fairness   matching theory  

摘要： Rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) provides a flexible transmission framework that can be applied in mobile edge computing (MEC) systems. However, the research work on RSMA-assisted MEC systems is still at the infancy and many design issues remain unsolved, such as the MEC server and channel allocation problem in general multi-server and multi-channel scenarios as well as the user fairness issues. In this regard, we study an RSMA-assisted MEC system with multiple MEC servers, channels and devices, and consider the fairness among devices. A max-min fairness computation offloading problem to maximize the minimum computation offloading rate is investigated. Since the problem is difficult to solve optimally, we develop an efficient algorithm to obtain a suboptimal solution. Particularly, the time allocation and the computing frequency allocation are derived as closed-form functions of the transmit power allocation and the successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding order, while the transmit power allocation and the SIC decoding order are jointly optimized via the alternating optimization method, the bisection search method and the successive convex approximation method. For the channel and MEC server allocation problem, we transform it into a hypergraph matching problem and solve it by matching theory. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed RSMA-assisted MEC system outperforms current MEC systems under various system setups.

关键词： Delays   Subspace constraints   Bandwidth   Servers   Resource management   Costs   Computational modeling   Mobile edge computing   relaying   bandwidth allocation   random offloading   multi-convex optimization  

摘要： This letter studies stochastic Multi-hop Mobile Edge Computing (MMEC), where a Relay Node (RN) receives tasks from the users and randomly decides to assign them to its own computing server or to offload them to one of the multiple Higher-level computing Nodes (HNs). We take into account the waiting times in the computation and transmission queues and present the system Average Response Time (ART) in terms of offloading probabilities and links' bandwidths. Based on that, we aim at minimizing the system ART by joint optimization of the task flow distribution among the RN/HNs and the bandwidth allocation among the links. We analyze the formulated problem and prove it is multi-convex. Moreover, we derive the closed-form expressions for the links' bandwidths when the offloading probabilities are fixed, and based on the presented analysis and insights, we propose effective solution methods. Numerical results reveal the promising performance of the proposed methods in efficient use of the resources and reduction of the ART.

关键词： Task analysis   Resource management   Optimization   Uplink   Delays   Fading channels   Computer architecture   Mobile edge computing   user-centric network   task offloading   resource allocation  

摘要： In the traditional cellular-based mobile edge computing (MEC), users at the edge of the cell are prone to suffer severe inter-cell interference and signal attenuation, leading to low throughput even transmission interruptions. Such edge effect severely obstructs offloading of tasks to MEC servers. To address this issue, we propose user-centric mobile edge computing (UCMEC), a novel MEC architecture integrating user-centric transmission, which can ensure high throughput and reliable communication for task offloading. Then, we formulate an long-term delay minimization problem by jointly optimizing task offloading, power allocation, and computing resource allocation in UCMEC. To solve the intractable problem, we propose two decentralized joint optimization schemes based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) and convex optimization, which consider both cooperation and non-cooperation among network nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed schemes in UCMEC can significantly improve the uplink transmission rate by at least 176.99% and reduce the long-term average total delay by at least 16.36% compared to traditional cellular-based MEC.