A survey on intelligent computation offloading and pricing strategy in UAV-Enabled MEC network: Challenges and research directions

The lack of resource constraints for edge servers makes it difficult to simultaneously perform a large number of Mobile Devices’ (MDs) requests. The Mobile Network Operator (MNO) must then select how to delegate MD queries to its Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) server in order to maximize the overall benefit of admitted requests with varying latency needs. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Artificial Intelligent (AI) can increase MNO performance because of their flexibility in deployment, high mobility of UAV, and efficiency of AI algorithms. There is a trade-off between the cost incurred by the MD and the profit received by the MNO. Intelligent computing offloading to UAV-enabled MEC, on the other hand, is a promising way to bridge the gap between MDs' limited processing resources, as well as the intelligent algorithms that are utilized for computation offloading in the UAV-MEC network and the high computing demands of upcoming applications. This study looks at some of the research on the benefits of computation offloading process in the UAV-MEC network, as well as the intelligent models that are utilized for computation offloading in the UAV-MEC network. In addition, this article examines several intelligent pricing techniques in different structures in the UAV-MEC network. Finally, this work highlights some important open research issues and future research directions of Artificial Intelligent (AI) in computation offloading and applying intelligent pricing strategies in the UAV-MEC network

Security and Cost-Aware Computation Offloading via Deep Reinforcement Learning in Mobile Edge Computing

© 2019 Binbin Huang et al. With the explosive growth of mobile applications, mobile devices need to be equipped with abundant resources to process massive and complex mobile applications. However, mobile devices are usually resource-constrained due to their physical size. Fortunately, mobile edge computing, which enables mobile devices to offload computation tasks to edge servers with abundant computing resources, can significantly meet the ever-increasing computation demands from mobile applications. Nevertheless, offloading tasks to the edge servers are liable to suffer from external security threats (e.g., snooping and alteration). Aiming at this problem, we propose a security and cost-aware computation offloading (SCACO) strategy for mobile users in mobile edge computing environment, the goal of which is to minimize the overall cost (including mobile device's energy consumption, processing delay, and task loss probability) under the risk probability constraints. Specifically, we first formulate the computation offloading problem as a Markov decision process (MDP). Then, based on the popular deep reinforcement learning approach, deep Q-network (DQN), the optimal offloading policy for the proposed problem is derived. Finally, extensive experimental results demonstrate that SCACO can achieve the security and cost efficiency for the mobile user in the mobile edge computing environment

A Review on Computational Intelligence Techniques in Cloud and Edge Computing

Cloud computing (CC) is a centralized computing paradigm that accumulates resources centrally and provides these resources to users through Internet. Although CC holds a large number of resources, it may not be acceptable by real-time mobile applications, as it is usually far away from users geographically. On the other hand, edge computing (EC), which distributes resources to the network edge, enjoys increasing popularity in the applications with low-latency and high-reliability requirements. EC provides resources in a decentralized manner, which can respond to users’ requirements faster than the normal CC, but with limited computing capacities. As both CC and EC are resource-sensitive, several big issues arise, such as how to conduct job scheduling, resource allocation, and task offloading, which significantly influence the performance of the whole system. To tackle these issues, many optimization problems have been formulated. These optimization problems usually have complex properties, such as non-convexity and NP-hardness, which may not be addressed by the traditional convex optimization-based solutions. Computational intelligence (CI), consisting of a set of nature-inspired computational approaches, recently exhibits great potential in addressing these optimization problems in CC and EC. This article provides an overview of research problems in CC and EC and recent progresses in addressing them with the help of CI techniques. Informative discussions and future research trends are also presented, with the aim of offering insights to the readers and motivating new research directions

Dynamic Resource Allocation Model for Distribution Operations using SDN

In vehicular ad-hoc networks, autonomous vehicles generate a large amount of data prior to support in-vehicle applications. So, a big storage and high computation platform is needed. On the other hand, the computation for vehicular networks at the cloud platform requires low latency. Applying edge computation (EC) as a new computing paradigm has potentials to provide computation services while reducing the latency and improving the total utility. We propose a three-tier EC framework to set the elastic calculating processing capacity and dynamic route calculation to suitable edge servers for real-time vehicle monitoring. This framework includes the cloud computation layer, EC layer, and device layer. The formulation of resource allocation approach is similar to an optimization problem. We design a new reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to deal with resource allocation problem assisted by cloud computation. By integration of EC and software defined networking (SDN), this study provides a new software defined networking edge (SDNE) framework for resource assignment in vehicular networks. The novelty of this work is to design a multi-agent RL-based approach using experience reply. The proposed algorithm stores the users’ communication information and the network tracks’ state in real-time. The results of simulation with various system factors are presented to display the efficiency of the suggested framework. We present results with a real-world case study

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