Reconfigurable intelligent surface for low-latency edge computing in 6G

Edge computing, as one of the key technologies in 6G networks, establishes a distributed computing environment by deploying computation and storage resources in proximity to end users. However, the dense deployment of base stations, cellular dead zones, and high dynamics of mobile devices may cause serious interference issues and weak signal propagation, which will severely affect the transmission efficiency of edge computing and cannot support low-latency applications and services. Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a new technology that can enhance the spectral efficiency and suppress interference of wireless communication by adaptively configuring massive low-cost passive reflecting elements. In this article, we introduce RIS into edge computing to support low-latency applications, where edge computing can alleviate the heavy computation pressure of mobile devices with ubiquitously distributed computing resources, and RIS can enhance the quality of the wireless communication link by intelligently altering the radio propagation environment. To elaborate the effectiveness of RIS for edge computing, we then propose a deep-reinforcement-learning-based computation offloading scheme to minimize the total offloading latency of mobile devices. Numerical results indicate that the RIS-aided scheme can improve wireless communication data rate and reduce task execution latency

Efficient and Secure Resource Allocation in Mobile Edge Computing Enabled Wireless Networks

To support emerging applications such as autonomous vehicles and smart homes and to build an intelligent society, the next-generation internet of things (IoT) is calling for up to 50 billion devices connected world wide. Massive devices connection, explosive data circulation, and colossal data processing demand are driving both the industry and academia to explore new solutions. Uploading this vast amount of data to the cloud center for processing will significantly increase the load on backbone networks and cause relatively long latency to time-sensitive applications. A practical solution is to deploy the computing resource closer to end-users to process the distributed data. Hence, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) emerged as a promising solution to providing high-speed data processing service with low latency. However, the implementation of MEC networks is handicapped by various challenges. For one thing, to serve massive IoT devices, dense deployment of edge servers will consume much more energy. For another, uploading sensitive user data through a wireless link intro-duces potential risks, especially for those size-limited IoT devices that cannot implement complicated encryption techniques. This dissertation investigates problems related to Energy Efficiency (EE) and Physical Layer Security (PLS) in MEC-enabled IoT networks and how Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), prediction-based server coordination, and Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) can be used to mitigate them. Employing a new spectrum access method can help achieve greater speed with less power consumption, therefore increasing system EE. We first investigated NOMA-assisted MEC networks and verified that the EE performance could be significantly improved. Idle servers can consume unnecessary power. Proactive server coordination can help relieve the tension of increased energy consumption in MEC systems. Our next step was to employ advanced machine learning algorithms to predict data workload at the server end and adaptively adjust the system configuration over time, thus reducing the accumulated system cost. We then introduced the PLS to our system and investigated the long-term secure EE performance of the MEC-enabled IoT network with NOMA assistance. It has shown that NOMA can improve both EE and PLS for the network. Finally, we switch from the single antenna scenario to a multiple-input single-output (MISO) system to exploit space diversity and beam forming techniques in mmWave communication. IRS can be used simultaneously to help relieve the pathloss and reconfigure multi-path links. In the final part, we first investigated the secure EE performance of IRS-assisted MISO networks and introduced a friendly jammer to block the eavesdroppers and improve the PLS rate. We then combined the IRS with the NOMA in the MEC network and showed that the IRS can further enhance the system EE

Internet of Robotic Things Intelligent Connectivity and Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) have developed rapidly in the past few years, as both the Internet and “things” have evolved significantly. “Things” now range from simple Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices to smart wireless sensors, intelligent wireless sensors and actuators, robotic things, and autonomous vehicles operating in consumer, business, and industrial environments. The emergence of “intelligent things” (static or mobile) in collaborative autonomous fleets requires new architectures, connectivity paradigms, trustworthiness frameworks, and platforms for the integration of applications across different business and industrial domains. These new applications accelerate the development of autonomous system design paradigms and the proliferation of the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT). In IoRT, collaborative robotic things can communicate with other things, learn autonomously, interact safely with the environment, humans and other things, and gain qualities like self-maintenance, self-awareness, self-healing, and fail-operational behavior. IoRT applications can make use of the individual, collaborative, and collective intelligence of robotic things, as well as information from the infrastructure and operating context to plan, implement and accomplish tasks under different environmental conditions and uncertainties. The continuous, real-time interaction with the environment makes perception, location, communication, cognition, computation, connectivity, propulsion, and integration of federated IoRT and digital platforms important components of new-generation IoRT applications. This paper reviews the taxonomy of the IoRT, emphasizing the IoRT intelligent connectivity, architectures, interoperability, and trustworthiness framework, and surveys the technologies that enable the application of the IoRT across different domains to perform missions more efficiently, productively, and completely. The aim is to provide a novel perspective on the IoRT that involves communication among robotic things and humans and highlights the convergence of several technologies and interactions between different taxonomies used in the literature.publishedVersio

RIS-Aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems for 6G: Fundamentals, System Design, and Applications

An introduction of intelligent interconnectivity for people and things has posed higher demands and more challenges for sixth-generation (6G) networks, such as high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, ultra-low latency, and ultra-high reliability. Cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), also called intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), are two promising technologies for coping with these unprecedented demands. Given their distinct capabilities, integrating the two technologies to further enhance wireless network performances has received great research and development attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of research on RIS-aided CF mMIMO wireless communication systems. We first introduce system models focusing on system architecture and application scenarios, channel models, and communication protocols. Subsequently, we summarize the relevant studies on system operation and resource allocation, providing in-depth analyses and discussions. Following this, we present practical challenges faced by RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems, particularly those introduced by RIS, such as hardware impairments and electromagnetic interference. We summarize corresponding analyses and solutions to further facilitate the implementation of RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems. Furthermore, we explore an interplay between RIS-aided CF mMIMO and other emerging 6G technologies, such as next-generation multiple-access (NGMA), simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), and millimeter wave (mmWave). Finally, we outline several research directions for future RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figure

Optimization of resource allocation for V2X security communication based on multi-agent reinforcement learning

In order to address the data security and communication efficiency of vehicles during high-speed mobile communication, this paper investigates the problem of secure in-vehicle communication resource allocation based on slow-variable large-scale fading channel information, to meet the quality of service requirements of vehicular communication, i.e., to ensure the reliability of V2V communication and the time delay while maximizing the transmission rate of the cellular link. And an eavesdropping model is introduced to ensure the secure delivery of link information. Considering that the high mobility of vehicles causes rapid channel changes, we model the problem as a Markov decision process and propose a resource allocation optimization framework based on the Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Algorithm (MARL-DDQN), in which a large-scale neural network model is built to train vehicular to learn the optimal resource allocation strategy for optimal communication performance and security performance. Simulation results show that the load successful delivery rate and confidentiality performance of the vehicular communication network are effectively improved compared to the baseline and MADDPG strategies while ensuring link security. This study provides useful references and practical value for the optimization of secure communication resource allocation in vehicular networking