A Comprehensive Survey on Orbital Edge Computing: Systems, Applications, and Algorithms

The number of satellites, especially those operating in low-earth orbit (LEO), is exploding in recent years. Additionally, the use of COTS hardware into those satellites enables a new paradigm of computing: orbital edge computing (OEC). OEC entails more technically advanced steps compared to single-satellite computing. This feature allows for vast design spaces with multiple parameters, rendering several novel approaches feasible. The mobility of LEO satellites in the network and limited resources of communication, computation, and storage make it challenging to design an appropriate scheduling algorithm for specific tasks in comparison to traditional ground-based edge computing. This article comprehensively surveys the significant areas of focus in orbital edge computing, which include protocol optimization, mobility management, and resource allocation. This article provides the first comprehensive survey of OEC. Previous survey papers have only concentrated on ground-based edge computing or the integration of space and ground technologies. This article presents a review of recent research from 2000 to 2023 on orbital edge computing that covers network design, computation offloading, resource allocation, performance analysis, and optimization. Moreover, having discussed several related works, both technological challenges and future directions are highlighted in the field.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures and 5 table

Multistrategy Repeated Game-Based Mobile Crowdsourcing Incentive Mechanism for Mobile Edge Computing in Internet of Things

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) era, various application requirements have put forward higher requirements for data transmission bandwidth and real-time data processing. Mobile edge computing (MEC) can greatly alleviate the pressure on network bandwidth and improve the response speed by effectively using the device resources of mobile edge. Research on mobile crowdsourcing in edge computing has become a hot spot. Hence, we studied resource utilization issues between edge mobile devices, namely, crowdsourcing scenarios in mobile edge computing. We aimed to design an incentive mechanism to ensure the long-term participation of users and high quality of tasks. This paper designs a long-term incentive mechanism based on game theory. The long-term incentive mechanism is to encourage participants to provide long-term and continuous quality data for mobile crowdsourcing systems. The multistrategy repeated game-based incentive mechanism (MSRG incentive mechanism) is proposed to guide participants to provide long-term participation and high-quality data. The proposed mechanism regards the interaction between the worker and the requester as a repeated game and obtains a long-term incentive based on the historical information and discount factor. In addition, the evolutionary game theory and the Wright-Fisher model in biology are used to analyze the evolution of participants’ strategies. The optimal discount factor is found within the range of discount factors based on repeated games. Finally, simulation experiments verify the existing crowdsourcing dilemma and the effectiveness of the incentive mechanism. The results show that the proposed MSRG incentive mechanism has a long-term incentive effect for participants in mobile crowdsourcing systems