1,246 research outputs found
Edge Offloading in Smart Grid
The energy transition supports the shift towards more sustainable energy
alternatives, paving towards decentralized smart grids, where the energy is
generated closer to the point of use. The decentralized smart grids foresee
novel data-driven low latency applications for improving resilience and
responsiveness, such as peer-to-peer energy trading, microgrid control, fault
detection, or demand response. However, the traditional cloud-based smart grid
architectures are unable to meet the requirements of the new emerging
applications such as low latency and high-reliability thus alternative
architectures such as edge, fog, or hybrid need to be adopted. Moreover, edge
offloading can play a pivotal role for the next-generation smart grid AI
applications because it enables the efficient utilization of computing
resources and addresses the challenges of increasing data generated by IoT
devices, optimizing the response time, energy consumption, and network
performance. However, a comprehensive overview of the current state of research
is needed to support sound decisions regarding energy-related applications
offloading from cloud to fog or edge, focusing on smart grid open challenges
and potential impacts. In this paper, we delve into smart grid and
computational distribution architec-tures, including edge-fog-cloud models,
orchestration architecture, and serverless computing, and analyze the
decision-making variables and optimization algorithms to assess the efficiency
of edge offloading. Finally, the work contributes to a comprehensive
understanding of the edge offloading in smart grid, providing a SWOT analysis
to support decision making.Comment: to be submitted to journa
Beyond 5G Networks: Integration of Communication, Computing, Caching, and Control
In recent years, the exponential proliferation of smart devices with their
intelligent applications poses severe challenges on conventional cellular
networks. Such challenges can be potentially overcome by integrating
communication, computing, caching, and control (i4C) technologies. In this
survey, we first give a snapshot of different aspects of the i4C, comprising
background, motivation, leading technological enablers, potential applications,
and use cases. Next, we describe different models of communication, computing,
caching, and control (4C) to lay the foundation of the integration approach. We
review current state-of-the-art research efforts related to the i4C, focusing
on recent trends of both conventional and artificial intelligence (AI)-based
integration approaches. We also highlight the need for intelligence in
resources integration. Then, we discuss integration of sensing and
communication (ISAC) and classify the integration approaches into various
classes. Finally, we propose open challenges and present future research
directions for beyond 5G networks, such as 6G.Comment: This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of
China Communications Journal in IEEE Xplor
Mobile cloud computing and network function virtualization for 5g systems
The recent growth of the number of smart mobile devices and the emergence of complex multimedia mobile applications have brought new challenges to the design of wireless mobile networks. The envisioned Fifth-Generation (5G) systems are equipped with different technical solutions that can accommodate the increasing demands for high date rate, latency-limited, energy-efficient and reliable mobile communication networks.
Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is a key technology in 5G systems that enables the offloading of computationally heavy applications, such as for augmented or virtual reality, object recognition, or gaming from mobile devices to cloudlet or cloud servers, which are connected to wireless access points, either directly or through finite-capacity backhaul links. Given the battery-limited nature of mobile devices, mobile cloud computing is deemed to be an important enabler for the provision of such advanced applications. However, computational tasks offloading, and due to the variability of the communication network through which the cloud or cloudlet is accessed, may incur unpredictable energy expenditure or intolerable delay for the communications between mobile devices and the cloud or cloudlet servers. Therefore, the design of a mobile cloud computing system is investigated by jointly optimizing the allocation of radio, computational resources and backhaul resources in both uplink and downlink directions. Moreover, the users selected for cloud offloading need to have an energy consumption that is smaller than the amount required for local computing, which is achieved by means of user scheduling.
Motivated by the application-centric drift of 5G systems and the advances in smart devices manufacturing technologies, new brand of mobile applications are developed that are immersive, ubiquitous and highly-collaborative in nature. For example, Augmented Reality (AR) mobile applications have inherent collaborative properties in terms of data collection in the uplink, computing at the cloud, and data delivery in the downlink. Therefore, the optimization of the shared computing and communication resources in MCC not only benefit from the joint allocation of both resources, but also can be more efficiently enhanced by sharing the offloaded data and computations among multiple users. As a result, a resource allocation approach whereby transmitted, received and processed data are shared partially among the users leads to more efficient utilization of the communication and computational resources.
As a suggested architecture in 5G systems, MCC decouples the computing functionality from the platform location through the use of software virtualization to allow flexible provisioning of the provided services. Another virtualization-based technology in 5G systems is Network Function Virtualization (NFV) which prescribes the instantiation of network functions on general-purpose network devices, such as servers and switches. While yielding a more flexible and cost-effective network architecture, NFV is potentially limited by the fact that commercial off-the-shelf hardware is less reliable than the dedicated network elements used in conventional cellular deployments. The typical solution for this problem is to duplicate network functions across geographically distributed hardware in order to ensure diversity. For that reason, the development of fault-tolerant virtualization strategies for MCC and NFV is necessary to ensure reliability of the provided services
Edge AI for Internet of Energy: Challenges and Perspectives
The digital landscape of the Internet of Energy (IoE) is on the brink of a
revolutionary transformation with the integration of edge Artificial
Intelligence (AI). This comprehensive review elucidates the promise and
potential that edge AI holds for reshaping the IoE ecosystem. Commencing with a
meticulously curated research methodology, the article delves into the myriad
of edge AI techniques specifically tailored for IoE. The myriad benefits,
spanning from reduced latency and real-time analytics to the pivotal aspects of
information security, scalability, and cost-efficiency, underscore the
indispensability of edge AI in modern IoE frameworks. As the narrative
progresses, readers are acquainted with pragmatic applications and techniques,
highlighting on-device computation, secure private inference methods, and the
avant-garde paradigms of AI training on the edge. A critical analysis follows,
offering a deep dive into the present challenges including security concerns,
computational hurdles, and standardization issues. However, as the horizon of
technology ever expands, the review culminates in a forward-looking
perspective, envisaging the future symbiosis of 5G networks, federated edge AI,
deep reinforcement learning, and more, painting a vibrant panorama of what the
future beholds. For anyone vested in the domains of IoE and AI, this review
offers both a foundation and a visionary lens, bridging the present realities
with future possibilities
Offloading SLAM for Indoor Mobile Robots with Edge, Fog, Cloud Computing
Indoor mobile robots are widely used in industrial environments such as large logistic warehouses. They are often in charge of collecting or sorting products. For such robots, computation-intensive operations account for a significant per- centage of the total energy consumption and consequently affect battery life. Besides, in order to keep both the power con- sumption and hardware complexity low, simple micro-controllers or single-board computers are used as onboard local control units. This limits the computational capabilities of robots and consequently their performance. Offloading heavy computation to Cloud servers has been a widely used approach to solve this problem for cases where large amounts of sensor data such as real-time video feeds need to be analyzed. More recently, Fog and Edge computing are being leveraged for offloading tasks such as image processing and complex navigation algorithms involving non-linear mathematical operations. In this paper, we present a system architecture for offloading computationally expensive localization and mapping tasks to smart Edge gateways which use Fog services. We show how Edge computing brings computational capabilities of the Cloud to the robot environment without compromising operational reliability due to connection issues. Furthermore, we analyze the power consumption of a prototype robot vehicle in different modes and show how battery life can be significantly improved by moving the processing of data to the Edge layer
- …