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

A blockchain-based trust management system for 5G network slicing enabled C-RAN

The mobility nature of the wireless networks and the time-sensitive tasks make it necessary for the system to transfer the messages with a minimum delay. Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) reduces the latency problem. However, due to the trustlessness of 5G networks resulting from the heterogeneity nature of devices. In this article, for the edge devices, there is a need to maintain a trust level in the C-RAN node by checking the rates of devices that are allowed to share data among other devices. The SDN controller is built into a macro-cell that plays the role of a cluster head. The blockchain-based automatically authenticates the edge devices by assigning a unique identification that is shared by the cluster head with all C-RAN nodes connected to it. Simulation results demonstrate that, compared with the benchmark, the proposed approach significantly improves the processing time of blocks, the detection accuracy of malicious nodes, and transaction transmission delay

Mitigating Financial Burden of Elderly through Social Protection Schemes: Issues and Challenges for Pakistan

The study on social protection programs for elderly in Pakistan indicates an absence of concrete and clear frameworks developed by government. Most social security and cash assistance programs for the elderly are ad hoc arrangements which are made in response to circumstantial demands or advocated by international donor organizations which usually have their own agenda and priority. Ageing is the reality of every individual’s life therefore it is important to save the social status of elderly people & ensure a progressive life. It is also observed that there are programs and frameworks but contains duplication and overlapping that create hurdles in designing a comprehensive and purposeful social protection strategy for elderly in Pakistan. The lack of such initiatives can cause difficulty for elderly people in planning their future. This paper presents a review of available programs offered for elderly in Pakistan in order to reduce the financial burden and what challenges are faced by them in accessing information about these programs. The paper also looks at identifying gaps and suggests a “way forward” for future contribution towards this important yet ignored issue. The paper recommends that social protection have been categorized in policies process, design and delivery & financing and they must be planned, monitored& evaluated effectively to improve the quality of life of elderly people in Pakistan

Mutual Authentication Protocols for RFID Systems

Radio-Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) is emerging as a pervasive computing technology with numerous applications. Current low-cost RFID tags are highly resource-constrained and cannot support complex security mechanisms. Hence they have potential risks and may violate the privacy of their bearers. The challenge in providing security for low-cost RFID tags lies in that they are computationally weak devices, unable to perform even basic symmetric-key cryptographic operations as proposed in currently available protocols. In this thesis we have analyzed the security issues and requirements for a RFID system. We have proposed a suite of lightweight mutual authentication protocols for low-cost RFID tags which offer an adequate level of security at much reduced cost. We also compare our proposed protocols with those proposed by others. Furthermore we apply our proposed protocol to secure a supply chain management system.Computer Science Departmen

Literature Review: Biomimetic and Conventional Aircraft Wing Tips

This paper is an attempt to summarize the effect of wing tip devices employed by birds, as well as aeronautical engineers in the past to improve the performance characteristics of aircraft. The focus is on reduction of the induced drag or drag due to lift also known as inviscid drag. This paper will provide an insight on both biomimetic and conventional wing tip approaches to reduce the induced drag. Prior analysis and experiments on the aerodynamics of airplane performance due to both these separate studies have been discussed. The needs of the industry and their past inventions have been described briefly as well as new areas to be explored have been highlighted. NOTE: This article is not peer reviewed

Intelligent Pricing Model for Task Offloading in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Mounted Mobile Edge Computing for Vehicular Network

In the fifth-generation (5G) cellular network, the Mobile Network Operator (MNO), and the Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) platform will play an important role in providing services to an increasing number of vehicles. Due to vehicle mobility and the rise of computation-intensive and delay-sensitive vehicular applications, it is challenging to achieve the rigorous latency and reliability requirements of vehicular communication. The MNO, with the MEC server mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), should make a profit by providing its computing services and capabilities to moving vehicles. This paper proposes the use of dynamic pricing for computation offloading in UAV-MEC for vehicles. The novelty of this paper is in how the price influences offloading demand and decides how to reduce network costs (delay and energy) while maximizing UAV operator revenue, but not the offloading benefits with the mobility of vehicles and UAV. The optimization problem is formulated as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). The MDP can be solved by the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithm, especially the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG). Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed pricing model outperforms greedy by 26%and random by 51% in terms of delay. In terms of system utility, the proposed pricing model outperforms greedy only by 17%. In terms of server congestion, the proposed pricing model outperforms random by 19% and is almost the same as greedy