317 research outputs found
Mobile Edge Computing
This is an open access book. It offers comprehensive, self-contained knowledge on Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), which is a very promising technology for achieving intelligence in the next-generation wireless communications and computing networks. The book starts with the basic concepts, key techniques and network architectures of MEC. Then, we present the wide applications of MEC, including edge caching, 6G networks, Internet of Vehicles, and UAVs. In the last part, we present new opportunities when MEC meets blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and distributed machine learning (e.g., federated learning). We also identify the emerging applications of MEC in pandemic, industrial Internet of Things and disaster management. The book allows an easy cross-reference owing to the broad coverage on both the principle and applications of MEC. The book is written for people interested in communications and computer networks at all levels. The primary audience includes senior undergraduates, postgraduates, educators, scientists, researchers, developers, engineers, innovators and research strategists
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
Vehicle as a Service (VaaS): Leverage Vehicles to Build Service Networks and Capabilities for Smart Cities
Smart cities demand resources for rich immersive sensing, ubiquitous
communications, powerful computing, large storage, and high intelligence
(SCCSI) to support various kinds of applications, such as public safety,
connected and autonomous driving, smart and connected health, and smart living.
At the same time, it is widely recognized that vehicles such as autonomous
cars, equipped with significantly powerful SCCSI capabilities, will become
ubiquitous in future smart cities. By observing the convergence of these two
trends, this article advocates the use of vehicles to build a cost-effective
service network, called the Vehicle as a Service (VaaS) paradigm, where
vehicles empowered with SCCSI capability form a web of mobile servers and
communicators to provide SCCSI services in smart cities. Towards this
direction, we first examine the potential use cases in smart cities and
possible upgrades required for the transition from traditional vehicular ad hoc
networks (VANETs) to VaaS. Then, we will introduce the system architecture of
the VaaS paradigm and discuss how it can provide SCCSI services in future smart
cities, respectively. At last, we identify the open problems of this paradigm
and future research directions, including architectural design, service
provisioning, incentive design, and security & privacy. We expect that this
paper paves the way towards developing a cost-effective and sustainable
approach for building smart cities.Comment: 32 pages, 11 figure
System Optimisation for Multi-access Edge Computing Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning
Multi-access edge computing (MEC) is an emerging and important distributed computing paradigm that aims to extend cloud service to the network edge to reduce network traffic and service latency. Proper system optimisation and maintenance are crucial to maintaining high Quality-of-service (QoS) for end-users. However, with the increasing complexity of the architecture of MEC and mobile applications, effectively optimising MEC systems is non-trivial. Traditional optimisation methods are generally based on simplified mathematical models and fixed heuristics, which rely heavily on expert knowledge. As a consequence, when facing dynamic MEC scenarios, considerable human efforts and expertise are required to redesign the model and tune the heuristics, which is time-consuming.
This thesis aims to develop deep reinforcement learning (DRL) methods to handle system optimisation problems in MEC. Instead of developing fixed heuristic algorithms for the problems, this thesis aims to design DRL-based methods that enable systems to learn optimal solutions on their own. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of DRL-based methods on two crucial system optimisation problems: task offloading and service migration. Specifically, this thesis first investigate the dependent task offloading problem that considers the inner dependencies of tasks. This research builds a DRL-based method combining sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) neural network to address the problem. Experiment results demonstrate that our method outperforms the existing heuristic algorithms and achieves near-optimal performance. To further enhance the learning efficiency of the DRL-based task offloading method for unseen learning tasks, this thesis then integrates meta reinforcement learning to handle the task offloading problem. Our method can adapt fast to new environments with a small number of gradient updates and samples. Finally, this thesis exploits the DRL-based solution for the service migration problem in MEC considering user mobility. This research models the service migration problem as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) and propose a tailored actor-critic algorithm combining Long-short Term Memory (LSTM) to solve the POMDP. Results from extensive experiments based on real-world mobility traces demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms both the heuristic and state-of-the-art learning-driven algorithms on various MEC scenarios
Big Data Caching for Networking: Moving from Cloud to Edge
In order to cope with the relentless data tsunami in wireless networks,
current approaches such as acquiring new spectrum, deploying more base stations
(BSs) and increasing nodes in mobile packet core networks are becoming
ineffective in terms of scalability, cost and flexibility. In this regard,
context-aware G networks with edge/cloud computing and exploitation of
\emph{big data} analytics can yield significant gains to mobile operators. In
this article, proactive content caching in G wireless networks is
investigated in which a big data-enabled architecture is proposed. In this
practical architecture, vast amount of data is harnessed for content popularity
estimation and strategic contents are cached at the BSs to achieve higher
users' satisfaction and backhaul offloading. To validate the proposed solution,
we consider a real-world case study where several hours of mobile data traffic
is collected from a major telecom operator in Turkey and a big data-enabled
analysis is carried out leveraging tools from machine learning. Based on the
available information and storage capacity, numerical studies show that several
gains are achieved both in terms of users' satisfaction and backhaul
offloading. For example, in the case of BSs with of content ratings
and Gbyte of storage size ( of total library size), proactive
caching yields of users' satisfaction and offloads of the
backhaul.Comment: accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Magazine, Special
Issue on Communications, Caching, and Computing for Content-Centric Mobile
Network
Unleashing the Power of Edge-Cloud Generative AI in Mobile Networks: A Survey of AIGC Services
Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC) is an automated method for
generating, manipulating, and modifying valuable and diverse data using AI
algorithms creatively. This survey paper focuses on the deployment of AIGC
applications, e.g., ChatGPT and Dall-E, at mobile edge networks, namely mobile
AIGC networks, that provide personalized and customized AIGC services in real
time while maintaining user privacy. We begin by introducing the background and
fundamentals of generative models and the lifecycle of AIGC services at mobile
AIGC networks, which includes data collection, training, finetuning, inference,
and product management. We then discuss the collaborative cloud-edge-mobile
infrastructure and technologies required to support AIGC services and enable
users to access AIGC at mobile edge networks. Furthermore, we explore
AIGCdriven creative applications and use cases for mobile AIGC networks.
Additionally, we discuss the implementation, security, and privacy challenges
of deploying mobile AIGC networks. Finally, we highlight some future research
directions and open issues for the full realization of mobile AIGC networks
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