Energy efficient collaborative computation for double-RIS assisted mobile edge networks

Computation offloading in mobile edge computing (MEC) systems emerges as a novel paradigm of supporting various resource-intensive applications. However, the potential capabilities of MEC cannot be fully unleashed when the communication links are blocked by obstacles. This paper investigates a double-reconfigurable-intelligent-surfaces (RISs) assisted MEC system. To efficiently utilize the limited frequency resource, the users can partially offload their computational tasks to the MEC server deployed at base station (BS) by adopting non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) protocol. We aim to minimize the energy consumption of users with limited resource by jointly optimizing the transmit power of users, the offloading fraction of users and the phase-shifts of RISs. Since the problem is non-convex with highly coupled variables, the block coordinate descent (BCD) method is leveraged to alternatively optimize the decomposed four subproblems. Specifically, we invoke successive convex approximation for low complexity (SCALE) and Dinkelbach technique to tackle the fractional programming of power optimization. Then the offloading fraction is obtained by closed-form solution. Further, we leverage semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and bisection method to address the phase-shifts design of double RISs. Finally, numerical results illustrate that the proposed double-RIS assisted NOMA scheme is capable of efficiently reducing the energy consumption and achieves significant performance gain over the benchmark schemes.     

DRL-Assisted Resource Allocation for NOMA-MEC Offloading with Hybrid SIC

Multi-access edge computing (MEC) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are regarded as promising technologies to improve the computation capability and offloading efficiency of mobile devices in the sixth-generation (6G) mobile system. This paper mainly focused on the hybrid NOMA-MEC system, where multiple users were first grouped into pairs, and users in each pair offloaded their tasks simultaneously by NOMA, then a dedicated time duration was scheduled to the more delay-tolerant user for uploading the remaining data by orthogonal multiple access (OMA). For the conventional NOMA uplink transmission, successive interference cancellation (SIC) was applied to decode the superposed signals successively according to the channel state information (CSI) or the quality of service (QoS) requirement. In this work, we integrated the hybrid SIC scheme, which dynamically adapts the SIC decoding order among all NOMA groups. To solve the user grouping problem, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based algorithm was proposed to obtain a close-to-optimal user grouping policy. Moreover, we optimally minimized the offloading energy consumption by obtaining the closed-form solution to the resource allocation problem. Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithm converged fast, and the NOMA-MEC scheme outperformed the existing orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme.     

Deep reinforcement learning based IRS-assisted mobile edge computing under physical-layer security

In this paper, we investigate an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) network under physical-layer security, where users can partially offload confidential and compute-intensive tasks to a computing access point (CAP) with the help of the IRS. We consider an eavesdropping environment, where an eavesdropper steals information from the communication. For the considered MEC network, we firstly design a secure data transmission rate to ensure physical-layer security. Moreover, we formulate the optimization target as minimizing the system cost linearized by the latency and energy consumption (ENCP). In further, we employ a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) to optimize the system performance by allocating the offloading ratio and wireless bandwidth and computational capability to users. Finally, considering the impacts from different resources, based on DDPG, seeing our optimization strategy as one criterion, we designed other criteria with different resource allocation schemes. And some simulation results are given to demonstrate that our proposed criterion outperforms other criteria.     

Computation bits maximization in backscatter-aided wireless powered MEC using binary offloading

This article considers a backscatter-aided wireless powered mobile edge computing (BC-aided WPMEC) network, in which the tasks data of each Internet of Things (IoT) device can be computed locally or offloaded to the MEC server via backscatter communications, and design a resource allocation scheme regarding the weighted sum computation bits (WSCB) maximization of all the IoT devices. Towards this end, by optimizing the mobile edge computing (MEC) server’s transmit power, IoT devices’ power reflection coefficients, local computing frequencies and time, the time allocation between the energy harvesting and task offloading, as well as the binary offloading decision at each IoT device, we built a WSCB maximization problem, which belongs to a non-convex mixed integer programming problem. For solving this, the proof by contradiction and the objective function’s monotonicity are considered to determine the optimal local computing time of each IoT device and the optimal transmit power of the MEC server, and the time-sharing relaxation (TSR) is adopted to tackle the integer variables, which are used to simplify the original problem. Then, we decouple the simplified problem into two sub-problems by means of the block coordinate decent (BCD) technology, and each of the sub-problems is transformed to a convex one by introducing auxiliary variables. Based on this, we design a two-stage alternative (TSA) optimization algorithm to solve the formulated WSCB problem. Computer simulations validate that the TSA algorithm has a fast convergent rate and also demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves a higher WSCB than the existing schemes.     

Time allocation improvement method for UAV-based wireless energy transfer cooperative mobile edge

Wireless power transfer (WPT) and mobile edge computing (MEC) are two advanced technologies that could improve the computing power and range of mobile devices. However, by integrating the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into wireless powered MEC systems, wireless energy transfer will be susceptible to the “double near–far” effect. Therefore, in order to further overcome the influence of the “double near–far” effect, this paper considers the optimization of time slot allocation for UAV-assisted wireless powered cooperative MEC system, which includes an access point (UAV) and two mobile devices. The purpose of the study is to minimize the total transmission energy of the UAV while satisfying the delay and size of the computational tasks, so this paper proposed a 2:1:1 time-slot optimization allocation method. The method exploits the synergy of users so that the mobile device which is closer to the UAV acts as an offloading relay, by combining power and time slot optimization to minimize the total energy consumption of the UAV. Compared with the equal time slot scheme before the improvement, this method can not only utilize the wireless transmission energy to charge the mobile device for more time in the first period, but also can save the time of data transmission of the closer device in the third period, and it can enhance the rate of data transmission of the mobile devices at the same time. The results show that the task capacity of the system computed will be increased compared to the original scheme; the total transmission rate of the whole system is also improved by the same order of magnitude. The simulation results verify the effectiveness and reliability of the algorithm of the paper, and the comprehensive performance of the system can be maximized by the flexible offloading algorithm.     

Multi-Task Offloading Based on Optimal Stopping Theory in Edge Computing Empowered Internet of Vehicles

Vehicular edge computing is a new computing paradigm. By introducing edge computing into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), service providers are able to serve users with low-latency services, as edge computing deploys resources (e.g., computation, storage, and bandwidth) at the side close to the IoV users. When mobile nodes are moving and generating structured tasks, they can connect with the roadside units (RSUs) and then choose a proper time and several suitable Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) servers to offload the tasks. However, how to offload tasks in sequence efficiently is challenging. In response to this problem, in this paper, we propose a time-optimized, multi-task-offloading model adopting the principles of Optimal Stopping Theory (OST) with the objective of maximizing the probability of offloading to the optimal servers. When the server utilization is close to uniformly distributed, we propose another OST-based model with the objective of minimizing the total offloading delay. The proposed models are experimentally compared and evaluated with related OST models using simulated data sets and real data sets, and sensitivity analysis is performed. The results show that the proposed offloading models can be efficiently implemented in the mobile nodes and significantly reduce the total expected processing time of the tasks.     

Secure computation offloading assisted by intelligent reflection surface for mobile edge computing network

As an novel paradigm, computation offloading in the mobile edge computing (MEC) system can effectively support the resource-intensive applications for the mobile devices (MD) equipped with limited computing capability. However, the hostile radio transmission and data leakage during the offloading process may erode the MEC system’s potential. To tackle these hindrances, we investigate an IRS-assisted secure MEC system with eavesdroppers, where the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is deployed to enhance the communication between the MD and the AP equipped with edge servers and the malicious eavesdroppers may attack the wireless data offloaded by MD. The MD opt for offloading part of the tasks to the edge server for execution to support the computation-intensive applications. Moreover, the relevant latency minimization problem is formulated by optimizing the offloading ratio, the allocation of edge server computing capability, the multiple-user-detection (MUD) matrix and the IRS phase shift parameters, subject to the constraints of edge computation resource and practical IRS phase shifts. Then, the original problem is decouple into two subproblem, and the computing and communication subproblems are alternatively optimized by block coordinate descent (BCD) method with low complexity. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly enhance the performance of secure offloading in the MEC system.     

Task offloading for vehicular edge computing with imperfect CSI: A deep reinforcement approach

This article examines a multi-user mobile edge computing (MEC) system for the Internet of Vehicle (IoV), where one edge point (EP) nearby the vehicles can help assist in processing the compute-intensive tasks. For the MEC networks, the majority of existing works concentrate on the minimization of system cost of task offloading under the perfect channel estimation, which however fails to consider the practical limitation of imperfect channel estimation (CSI) because of vehicles’ high-mobility. Therefore, the goal of our study is to reduce the delay as well as energy consumption (EC) of computation and communication with imperfect CSI, which are the two significant performance metrics of MEC network. With this aim, we first express the system cost as a form of the linear combination of the delay and EC, and then formulate the optimization problem for the system cost. Moreover, a novel deep approach is proposed, which is integrated by deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with the Lagrange multiplier to jointly minimize the system cost. In particular, the DRL algorithm is employed to obtain the capable offloading strategy, while the Lagrange multiplier is used to obtain the bandwidth allocation. The simulated results are finally presented to show that the devised approach outperforms the traditional ones.     

Profit maximization in cache-aided intelligent computing networks

This paper focuses on the profit maximization problem in a reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) aided computing network, where multiple heterogeneous users offload their computational tasks to one computational access point (CAP) for seeking computing acceleration at the cost of profit. In particular, the CAP can also pre-store a part of the computing task to speed up computing, and the system has limited communication and computing resources, where heterogeneous users have different offloading requirements and the CAP can dynamically allocate the system resources to meet the requirements of users to earn profits. To maximize the system profit, we devise the system by proposing a resource allocation scheme which employs a genetic algorithm (GA), based on statistical channel state information (CSI) of wireless links. The proposed algorithm maximizes the long-term profit of the system by optimizing resource allocation among users. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the proposed scheme. The results show that our proposed resource allocation scheme outperforms the conventional ones.     

Self-Adaptive Learning of Task Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing Systems

Mobile edge computing (MEC) focuses on transferring computing resources close to the user’s device, and it provides high-performance and low-delay services for mobile devices. It is an effective method to deal with computationally intensive and delay-sensitive tasks. Given the large number of underutilized computing resources for mobile devices in urban areas, leveraging these underutilized resources offers tremendous opportunities and value. Considering the spatiotemporal dynamics of user devices, the uncertainty of rich computing resources and the state of network channels in the MEC system, computing resource allocation in mobile devices with idle computing resources will affect the response time of task requesting. To solve these problems, this paper considers the case in which a mobile device can learn from a neighboring IoT device when offloading a computing request. On this basis, a novel self-adaptive learning of task offloading algorithm (SAda) is designed to minimize the average offloading delay in the MEC system. SAda adopts a distributed working mode and has a perception function to adapt to the dynamic environment in reality; it does not require frequent access to equipment information. Extensive simulations demonstrate that SAda achieves preferable latency performance and low learning error compared to the existing upper bound algorithms.     

Computation rate maximization for IRS-enhanced dynamic spectrum access assisted MEC system

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-enhanced dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is a promising technology to enhance the performance of the mobile edge computing (MEC) system. In this paper, we consider the integration of the IRS enhanced DSA technology to a MEC system, and study the pertinent joint optimization of the phase shift coefficients of the IRS, the transmission powers, the central processing unit (CPU) frequencies, as well as the task offloading time allocations of the secondary users (SUs) to maximize the average computation bits of the SUs. Due to the non-convexity, the formulated problem is difficult to solve. In order to tackle this difficulty, we decompose the optimization problem into tractable subproblems and propose an alternating optimization algorithm to optimize the optimization variables in an iterative fashion. Numerical results are provided to show the effectiveness and the correctness of the proposed algorithm.     

Task Offloading Strategy Based on Mobile Edge Computing in UAV Network

When an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) performs tasks such as power patrol inspection, water quality detection, field scientific observation, etc., due to the limitations of the computing capacity and battery power, it cannot complete the tasks efficiently. Therefore, an effective method is to deploy edge servers near the UAV. The UAV can offload some of the computationally intensive and real-time tasks to edge servers. In this paper, a mobile edge computing offloading strategy based on reinforcement learning is proposed. Firstly, the Stackelberg game model is introduced to model the UAV and edge nodes in the network, and the utility function is used to calculate the maximization of offloading revenue. Secondly, as the problem is a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem, we introduce the multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (MADDPG) to solve it. Finally, the effects of the number of UAVs and the summation of computing resources on the total revenue of the UAVs were simulated through simulation experiments. The experimental results show that compared with other algorithms, the algorithm proposed in this paper can more effectively improve the total benefit of UAVs.     

Fairness optimization in IRS-assisted MEC computational offloading

Nowadays, more and more multimedia services are supported by Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). However, the instability of the wireless environment brings a lot of uncertainty to the computational offloading. Additionally, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is considered as a potential technology to enhance Quality of Service (QoS). Therefore, in this paper, we establish a framework for IRS-assisted MEC computational offloading to solve this problem and take fairness optimization as a key point involving communication and computing resources. Minimize user consumption by optimizing bandwidth allocation, task offloading ratio, edge computing resources, transmission power and IRS phase shifts. Firstly, we decompose the problem into three aspects, such as bandwidth allocation, computing resource allocation, transmission power and IRS phase shifts. Then, an alternative optimization algorithm is proposed to find the optimum solution and its convergence is proved. Secondly, since the optimization problem on transmission power and IRS phase shifts is non-convex, we propose Riemann gradient descent (R-SGD) algorithm to solve it. Finally, numerical results show that our proposed algorithm performs better than other algorithms and achieves a superiority in the framework.     

Integration of multi access edge computing with unmanned aerial vehicles: Current techniques,open issues and research directions

During the last decade, research and development in the field of multi access edge computing (MEC) has rapidly risen to prominence. One of the factors propelling MEC’s evolution is the ability to deploy edge servers capable of providing both communication and computational services in close proximity to the mobile user terminal. MEC has been regarded as a potentially transformative technique for fifth-generation (5G) and beyond 5G (B5G) wireless communication systems, as well as a possible complement to traditional cloud computing. Additionally, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) integrated with MEC will play a critical role by introducing an additional mobility based computational layer to provide more secure, efficient and faster services. UAV enabled MEC offers seamless connectivity, fulfilling the promise of 5G’s ubiquitous connectivity. Due to the enormous interest in UAV enabled MEC, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of published research articles in this domain; however, the research area still lacks a systematic study and categorization. We present a systematic literature review (SLR) on UAV enabled MEC, examining and analyzing data on the current state of the art using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. To streamline our assessment, this study analyzes several research papers carefully selected through a multi-stage process satisfying the eligibility criteria defined in the paper. One of the SLR’s primary contributions is to broadly classify the research in the UAV enabled MEC domain into different categories including energy efficiency, resource allocation, security, architecture, and latency. We have identified key findings, technology, and pros and cons for the selected articles under each category. Additionally, we discuss the key open issues related to scalability and fairness, resource allocation and offloading optimization, service delivery with a focus on quality of experience (QoE) and quality of service (QoS), and standardization. Finally, we discuss several future research directions that would address the aforementioned issues and emerging use cases for UAV enabled MEC.     

一种求解锂离子电池单粒子模型液相扩散方程的新方法

电解液中的锂离子浓度表达是锂离子电池电化学模型求解的基本任务之一.为了平衡单粒子模型的液相动态性能和计算效率,假设反应仅发生在集电极和电解质界面上,为此,提出一种基于液相扩散方程无穷级数解析解的界面浓度求解新方法.在恒流工况下,利用数列单调收敛准则将解析解转化为一个收敛和函数.在动态工况下,将该解析解简化为输入与和函数的无限离散卷积.利用和函数随时间单调衰减并收敛至零的特性对其进行截断,从而得到有限离散卷积求解算法.对比专业有限元分析软件,该方法在恒流工况和动态工况下均能以较少的计算时间获得相当好的精度.而且,该方法仅有一个配置参数.因此,所提方法将有效减小应用于实时电池管理系统上的电化学模型计算负担.     

一种求解锂离子电池单粒子模型液相扩散方程的新方法

电解液中的锂离子浓度表达是锂离子电池电化学模型求解的基本任务之一.为了平衡单粒子模型的液相动态性能和计算效率,假设反应仅发生在集电极和电解质界面上,为此,提出一种基于液相扩散方程无穷级数解析解的界面浓度求解新方法.在恒流工况下,利用数列单调收敛准则将解析解转化为一个收敛和函数.在动态工况下,将该解析解简化为输入与和函数的无限离散卷积.利用和函数随时间单调衰减并收敛至零的特性对其进行截断,从而得到有限离散卷积求解算法.对比专业有限元分析软件,该方法在恒流工况和动态工况下均能以较少的计算时间获得相当好的精度.而且,该方法仅有一个配置参数.因此,所提方法将有效减小应用于实时电池管理系统上的电化学模型计算负担.     

Binary power allocation for cognitive radio networks with centralized and distributed user selection strategies

Motivated by the desire for efficient spectral utilization, we present a novel algorithm based on binary power allocation for sum rate maximization in Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN). At the core lies the idea of combining multi-user diversity gains with spectral sharing techniques and consequently maximizing the secondary user sum rate while maintaining a guaranteed quality of service (QoS) to the primary system. We consider a cognitive radio network consisting of multiple secondary transmitters and receivers communicating simultaneously in the presence of the primary system. Our analysis treats both uplink and downlink scenarios. We first present a distributed power allocation algorithm that attempts to maximize the throughput of the CRN. The algorithm is simple to implement, since a secondary user can decide to either transmit data or stay silent over the channel coherence time depending on a specified threshold, without affecting the primary users’ QoS. We then address the problem of user selection strategy in the context of CRN. Both centralized and distributed solutions are presented. Simulation results carried out based on a realistic network setting show promising results.     

混合储能系统在弱光充电系统中的仿真研究

光伏阵列的输出特性受光照强度影响很大,在弱光下光伏电池的最大功率点跟踪控制算法无法达到蓄电池的充电要求。为了最大限度利用光伏阵歹tl的输出功率,采用超级电容减小光照变化对蓄电池充电的影响。针对独立光伏发电系统的特点,设计了一种有源式混合储能方案,在保证光伏电池获得最大功率跟踪的同时,也能满足蓄电池的充电要求,建立的Simulink／MATLAB仿真模型验证了该设计方案的有效性。     

Multi-index evaluation learning-based computation offloading optimization for power internet of things

Cloud–edge-device collaborative computation offloading can provide flexible and real-time data processing services for massive resource-constrained devices in power internet of things (PIoT). However, the computation offloading optimization in PIoT still faces several challenges such as high computation offloading delay caused by uncertain information, coupling between task offloading and computation resource allocation, and degraded optimization performance due to the lack of multi-index consideration. To address the above challenges, we formulate a joint optimization problem of task offloading and computation resource allocation to minimize the average computation offloading delay. Specifically, a multi-index evaluation learning-based two-stage computation offloading (MINCO) algorithm is proposed to decouple the joint optimization problem into two-stage subproblems and solve them with evaluation and learning of multiple indexes including data flow characteristic, service priority, empirical average computation offloading delay, and empirical arm selection times. Simulation results show that compared with the baseline 1 and baseline 2 algorithms, MINCO improves the average computation offloading delay by 14.67% and 30.71%. Moreover, MINCO can evaluate different service priorities and data flow characteristics to meet different requirements of computation offloading delay.     

Experience-driven learning-based intelligent hybrid beamforming for massive MIMO mmWave communications

We have studied massive MIMO hybrid beamforming (HBF) for millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications, where the transceivers only have a few radio frequency chain (RFC) numbers compared to the number of antenna elements. We propose a hybrid beamforming design to improve the system’s spectral, hardware, and computational efficiencies, where finding the precoding and combining matrices are formulated as optimization problems with practical constraints. The series of analog phase shifters creates a unit modulus constraint, making this problem non-convex and subsequently incurring unaffordable computational complexity. Advanced deep reinforcement learning techniques effectively handle non-convex problems in many domains; therefore, we have transformed this non-convex hybrid beamforming optimization problem using a reinforcement learning framework. These frameworks are solved using advanced deep reinforcement learning techniques implemented with experience replay schemes to maximize the spectral and learning efficiencies in highly uncertain wireless environments. We developed a twin-delayed deep deterministic (TD3) policy gradient-based hybrid beamforming scheme to overcome Q-learning’s substantial overestimation. We assumed a complete channel state information (CSI) to design our beamformers and then challenged this assumption by proposing a deep reinforcement learning-based channel estimation method. We reduced hybrid beamforming complexity using soft target double deep Q-learning to exploit mmWave channel sparsity. This method allowed us to construct the analog precoder by selecting channel dominant paths. We have demonstrated that the proposed approaches improve the system’s spectral and learning efficiencies compared to prior studies. We have also demonstrated that deep reinforcement learning is a versatile technique that can unleash the power of massive MIMO hybrid beamforming in mmWave systems for next-generation wireless communication.