Deep reinforcement learning-based joint task offloading and bandwidth allocation for multi-user mobile edge computing

The rapid growth of mobile internet services has yielded a variety of computation-intensive applications such as virtual/augmented reality. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), which enables mobile terminals to offload computation tasks to servers located at the edge of the cellular networks, has been considered as an efficient approach to relieve the heavy computational burdens and realize an efficient computation offloading. Driven by the consequent requirement for proper resource allocations for computation offloading via MEC, in this paper, we propose a Deep-Q Network (DQN) based task offloading and resource allocation algorithm for the MEC. Specifically, we consider a MEC system in which every mobile terminal has multiple tasks offloaded to the edge server and design a joint task offloading decision and bandwidth allocation optimization to minimize the overall offloading cost in terms of energy cost, computation cost, and delay cost. Although the proposed optimization problem is a mixed integer nonlinear programming in nature, we exploit an emerging DQN technique to solve it. Extensive numerical results show that our proposed DQN-based approach can achieve the near-optimal performance.     

Fog-Sec: Secure end-to-end communication in fog-enabled IoT network using permissioned blockchain system

The technological integration of the Internet of Things (IoT)-Cloud paradigm has enabled intelligent linkages of things, data, processes, and people for efficient decision making without human intervention. However, it poses various challenges for IoT networks that cannot handle large amounts of operation technology (OT) data due to physical storage shortages, excessive latency, higher transfer costs, a lack of context awareness, impractical resiliency, and so on. As a result, the fog network emerged as a new computing model for providing computing capacity closer to IoT edge devices. The IoT-Fog-Cloud network, on the other hand, is more vulnerable to multiple security flaws, such as missing key management problems, inappropriate access control, inadequate software update mechanism, insecure configuration files and default passwords, missing communication security, and secure key exchange algorithms over unsecured channels. Therefore, these networks cannot make good security decisions, which are significantly easier to hack than to defend the fog-enabled IoT environment. This paper proposes the cooperative flow for securing edge devices in fog-enabled IoT networks using a permissioned blockchain system (pBCS). The proposed fog-enabled IoT network provides efficient security solutions for key management issues, communication security, and secure key exchange mechanism using a blockchain system. To secure the fog-based IoT network, we proposed a mechanism for identification and authentication among fog, gateway, and edge nodes that should register with the blockchain network. The fog nodes maintain the blockchain system and hold a shared smart contract for validating edge devices. The participating fog nodes serve as validators and maintain a distributed ledger/blockchain to authenticate and validate the request of the edge nodes. The network services can only be accessed by nodes that have been authenticated against the blockchain system. We implemented the proposed pBCS network using the private Ethereum 2.0 that enables secure device-to-device communication and demonstrated performance metrics such as throughput, transaction delay, block creation response time, communication, and computation overhead using state-of-the-art techniques. Finally, we conducted a security analysis of the communication network to protect the IoT edge devices from unauthorized malicious nodes without data loss.     

Aerial edge computing for 6G

In the 6 th generation mobile communication system(6 G) era, a large number of delay-sensitive and computation-intensive applications impose great pressure on resource-constrained Internet of things(IoT) devices. Aerial edge computing is envisioned as a promising and cost-effective solution, especially in hostile environments without terrestrial infrastructures. Therefore, this paper focuses on integrating aerial edge computing into 6 G for providing ubiquitous computing services for IoT devices...     

NOMA物联网下多UAV辅助MEC系统的资源分配

为解决偏远地区或突发灾害等场景中的物联网(Internet of Things, IoT)设备的任务计算问题,构建了一个非正交多址接入(Non-orthogonal Multiple Access, NOMA)-IoT(NOMA-IoT)下多无人机(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, UAV)辅助的NOMA多址边缘计算(Multiple Access Edge Computing, MEC)系统。该系统中设备的计算能耗、卸载能耗和MEC服务器计算能耗直接受同信道干扰、计算资源和发射功率的影响,可通过联合优化卸载策略、计算资源和发射功率最小化系统加权总能耗。根据优化问题的非凸性和复杂性,提出了一种有效的迭代算法解决：首先,对固定卸载策略,计算资源和发射功率分配问题可通过连续凸逼近转化为可解的凸问题;其次,对固定计算资源和发射功率,利用联盟形成博弈解决卸载策略问题,以最小化IoT设备之间的同信道干扰。仿真结果表明,较OMA接入方式,NOMA接入方式减少本地计算能耗、卸载能耗及计算能耗约20%;较无卸载策略方法,包含卸载策略方法在减少系统加权总能耗方面效果较为明显。     

Joint computation offloading and task caching for multi-user and multi-task MEC systems: reinforcement learning-based algorithms

Computation offloading at mobile edge computing (MEC) servers can mitigate the resource limitation and reduce the communication latency for mobile devices. Thereby, in this study, we proposed an offloading model for a multi-user MEC system with multi-task. In addition, a new caching concept is introduced for the computation tasks, where the application program and related code for the completed tasks are cached at the edge server. Furthermore, an efficient model of task offloading and caching integration is formulated as a nonlinear problem whose goal is to reduce the total overhead of time and energy. However, solving these types of problems is computationally prohibitive, especially for large-scale of mobile users. Thus, an equivalent form of reinforcement learning is created where the state spaces are defined based on all possible solutions and the actions are defined on the basis of movement between the different states. Afterwards, two effective Q-learning and Deep-Q-Network-based algorithms are proposed to derive the near-optimal solution for this problem. Finally, experimental evaluations verify that our proposed model can substantially minimize the mobile devices’ overhead by deploying computation offloading and task caching strategy reasonably.

     

Quality-aware Wi-Fi offload: analysis,design and integration perspectives

The rapid spread of smart wireless devices and expansion of mobile data traffic have increased the interest for efficient traffic offloading techniques in next-generation communication technologies. Wi-Fi offloading uses ubiquitous Wi-Fi technology in order to satisfy the ever increasing demand for mobile bandwidth and therefore is an appropriate methodology for mobile operators. As a matter of fact, design and integration of an offloading technology inside mobile network operators’ infrastructures is a challenging task due to convergence issues between the The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and non-3GPP networks. Therefore, a connectivity management platform is a key element for integrated heterogeneous mobile network operators in order to enable smart and effective offloading. In this paper, analysis, design and integration of a connectivity management platform that uses a Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) algorithm for efficient Wi-Fi Offloading in heterogeneous wireless networks is presented. In order to enhance the end-user’s quality-of-experience (QoE), we have especially concentrated on the benefits that can be achieved by exploiting the presence of integrated service provider platform. Hence, the proposed platform can collect several User Equipment (UE) and network-based attributes via infrastructure and client Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and decides on the best network access technology (i.e. 3GPP and non-3GPP) to connect to for requested users. We have also proposed multi-user extensions of the MADM algorithms for offloading. Through simulations and experiments, we provide details of the comparisons of the proposed algorithms as well as the sensitivity analysis of the MADM algorithm through an experimental set-up.     

A web service‐based internet of things framework for mobile resource augmentation

Mobile devices are the primary communication tool in day to day life of the people. Nowadays, the enhancement of the mobile applications namely IoTApps and their exploitation in various domains like healthcare monitoring, home automation, smart farming, smart grid, and smart city are crucial. Though mobile devices are providing seamless user experience anywhere, anytime, and anyplace, their restricted resources such as limited battery capacity, constrained processor speed, inadequate storage, and memory are hindering the development of resource‐intensive mobile applications and internet of things (IoT)‐based mobile applications. To solve this resource constraint problem, a web service‐based IoT framework is proposed by exploiting fuzzy logic methodologies. This framework augments the resources of mobile devices by offloading the resource‐intensive subtasks from mobile devices to the service providing entities like Arduino, Raspberry PI controller, edge cloud, and distant cloud. Based on the recommended framework, an online Repository of Instructional Talk (RIoTalk) is successfully implemented to store and analyze the classroom lectures given by faculty in our study site. Simulation results show that there is a significant reduction in energy consumption, execution time, bandwidth utilization, and latency. The proposed research work significantly increases the resources of mobile devices by offloading the resource‐intensive subtasks from the mobile device to the service provider computing entities thereby providing Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) to mobile users.     

车辆网络多平台卸载智能资源分配算法

为了降低计算任务的时延和系统的成本,移动边缘计算(MEC)被用于车辆网络,以进一步改善车辆服务。该文在考虑计算资源的情况下对车辆网络时延问题进行研究,提出一种多平台卸载智能资源分配算法,对计算资源进行分配,以提高下一代车辆网络的性能。该算法首先使用K临近(KNN)算法对计算任务的卸载平台(云计算、移动边缘计算、本地计算)进行选择,然后在考虑非本地计算资源分配和系统复杂性的情况下,使用强化学习方法,以有效解决使用移动边缘计算的车辆网络中的资源分配问题。仿真结果表明,与任务全部卸载到本地或MEC服务器等基准算法相比,提出的多平台卸载智能资源分配算法实现了时延成本的显著降低,平均可节省系统总成本达80%。     

Stackelberg game-based task offloading in mobile edge computing-enabled hierarchical multi-coalition unmanned aerial vehicle networks

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) coalition networks have been widely used in emergency mission scenarios. The introduction of the mobile edge computing (MEC) paradigm into multi-coalition UAV networks further improves the mission processing performance of UAV coalitions. In this paper, we investigate the problem of minimizing total task processing delay of UAV members in MEC-enabled coalition-based UAV networks. First, we propose a hierarchical offloading model in which multiple UAV heads decide its position selection strategy and multiple UAV members decide its offloading strategy when offloading tasks to UAV heads. Considering data arrival from multiple UAV member nodes at each UAV head, the first come first served (FCFS) queuing model is introduced when the UAV head processes tasks from members. Second, the hierarchical offloading delay minimization problem is formulated as a multi-leader multi-follower Stackelberg game. The existence of a Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) is proved by showing that multi-leader subgame and multi-follower subgame are exact potential games (EPGs) with Nash equilibrium (NE). We design a best response-based hierarchical iterative offloading algorithm to solve SE. Finally, the simulation results show that the performance of the proposed scheme is better than that of other benchmark methods and the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the total delay for all UAV members.     

Mobile Edge Computing Platform with Container-Based Virtualization Technology for IoT Applications

The next generation of fifth generation (5G) network, implementing mobile edge computing (MEC), network function virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking technologies, establishes a flexible and resilient network in line with various internet of things (IoT) devices. While NFV adds flexibility scale in or out networks by allowing network functions to be dynamically deployed and inter-connected, MEC provide intelligence at the edge of a mobile network; reduces latency, and increases capacity. With the diverse development of networking applications, the proposed MEC with container-based virtualization technology (CVT) as IoT gateway with IoT devices for flow control mechanism in scheduling and analysis methods will effectively enhance the quality of service. In this work, the proposed IoT gateway will be analyzed to elucidate the combined effect of simultaneously deploying virtual network functions and MEC applications on the same network infrastructure. Low latency, high bandwidth and high agility, supporting the connection of large-scale devices, and the efficient combination of resources from network edge and cluster clouds, account for real-time network conditions, reducing the IoT applications and services to indicate that a number is the average of 30% of the latency, that could get more suitable service quality to develop such as both augmented reality and virtual reality application intelligence in coming 5G network.

     

An independent three‐factor mutual authentication and key agreement scheme with privacy preserving for multiserver environment and a survey

In the past decades, the demand for remote mutual authentication and key agreement (MAKA) scheme with privacy preserving grows rapidly with the rise of the right to privacy and the development of wireless networks and Internet of Things (IoT). Numerous remote MAKA schemes are proposed for various purposes, and they have different properties. In this paper, we survey 49 three‐factor–based remote MAKA schemes with privacy preserving from 2013 to 2019. None of them can simultaneously achieve security, suitability for multiserver environments, user anonymity, user untraceability, table free, public key management free, and independent authentication. Therefore, we propose an efficient three‐factor MAKA scheme, which achieves all the properties. We propose a security model of a three‐factor–based MAKA scheme with user anonymity for multiserver environments and formally prove that our scheme is secure under the elliptic curve computational Diffie‐Hellman problem assumption, decisional bilinear Diffie‐Hellman problem assumption, and hash function assumption. We compare the proposed scheme to relevant schemes to show our contribution and also show that our scheme is sufficiently efficient for low‐power portable mobile devices.     

Users' experience matter: Delay sensitivity-aware computation offloading in mobile edge computing

As a promising computing paradigm, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) provides communication and computing capability at the edge of the network to address the concerns of massive computation requirements, constrained battery capacity and limited bandwidth of the Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Most existing works on mobile edge task ignores the delay sensitivities, which may lead to the degraded utility of computation offloading and dissatisfied users. In this paper, we study the delay sensitivity-aware computation offloading by jointly considering both user's tolerance towards delay of task execution and the network status under computation and communication constraints. Specifically, we use a specific multi-user and multi-server MEC system to define the latency sensitivity of task offloading based on the analysis of delay distribution of task categories. Then, we propose a scoring mechanism to evaluate the sensitivity-dependent utility of task execution and devise a Centralized Iterative Redirection Offloading (CIRO) algorithm to collect all information in the MEC system. By starting with an initial offloading strategy, the CIRO algorithm enables IoT devices to cooperate and iteratively redirect task offloading decisions to optimize the offloading strategy until it converges. Extensive simulation results show that our method can significantly improve the utility of computation offloading in MEC systems and has lower time complexity than existing algorithms.     

Task offloading based on deep learning for blockchain in mobile edge computing

Blockchain is an advanced technique to realize smart contracts, various transactions, and P2P crypto-currencies in the e-commerce society. However, the traditional blockchain does not consider a mobile environment to design a data offloading of the blockchain such that the blockchain results in high computational cost and huge data propagation delay. In this paper, to remedy the above problem, we propose a scalable blockchain and a task offloading technique based on the neural network of the mobile edge computing scenario. Experimental results show that our approach is very scalable in the mobile scenario.

     

基于元强化学习的自适应卸载方法

计算卸载是移动边缘网络中的一个关键问题,基于深度学习的算法为高效生成卸载策略提供了一种解决方法。但考虑到移动终端设备的动态性以及不同任务场景之间的转换,需要大量的训练数据和较长的训练时间重新训练神经网络模型,即这些方法对新环境的适应能力较弱。针对这些不足,提出了一种基于元强化学习(Meta Reinforcement Learning, MRL)的自适应卸载方法,先对外部模型进行预训练,处理具体任务时再基于外部模型训练内部模型。该方法能快速适应具有少量梯度更新的样本的新环境。仿真实验表明,该算法能够适应新的任务场景,效果良好。     

基于拉格朗日的计算迁移能耗优化策略

随着移动网络技术的发展和智能终端的普及应用,移动边缘计算已成为云计算的一个重要应用。计算迁移策略已成为移动边缘计算服务的关键问题之一。以移动终端总的计算时间和移动终端能耗最小化为目标,将移动终端的计算迁移资源划分问题建模为一个凸优化问题,运用拉格朗日乘子法进行求解,提出基于阈值的迁移优化策略模型。仿真实验表明,本迁移优化策略模型能有效平衡本地计算和迁移计算之间的关系,为移动边缘计算中执行计算密集型应用提供保障。     

Data Congestion Control Using Offloading in IoT Network

Internet of Things (IoT) is being used by a large number of applications and transmitting huge amounts of data. IPv6 routing protocol for low power and lossy networks (RPL) is being standardized for routing in IoT networks. However, it is difficult to handle such huge transmission as it is initially designed for Low power and lossy networks. In this paper, we present the mechanism for the reduction of overhead from the congested parent node by offloading its partial load. For offloading the packet, a suitable neighbor is selected based on its status of energy, buffer, link quality, number of child nodes, and distance. This approach focuses on the enhancement of RPL by including the mechanism for congestion control. The approach reduces the delay and packet loss rate while avoiding congestion in a suitable manner. The proposed approach is beneficial in terms of throughput and packet receiving ratio as compared to the comparative approaches.

     

DDC-OMDC: Deadline-based data collection using optimal mobile data collectors in Internet of Things

Mobile data collectors (MDCs) are very efficient for data collection in internet of things (IoT) sensor networks. These data collectors collect data at rendezvous points to reduce data collection latency. It is paramount to determine these points in an IoT network to collect data in real time. It is important to consider IoT network characteristics to collect data on a specific deadline. First, the disconnected IoT sensor network is a real challenge in IoT applications. Second, it is essential to determine optimal data collection points (DCPs) and MDCs simultaneously to collect data in real time. In this study, Deadline-based Data Collection using Optimal Mobile Data Collectors (DDC-OMDC) scheme is proposed that aims to collect data in a disconnected network with the optimal number of mobile data collectors in a specific deadline for delay-intolerant applications. DDC-OMDC works in two phases. In the first phase, the optimal number of MDCs is determined to collect data at the optimal data collection points to guarantee one-hop data collection from each cluster. The optimal mobile data collectors are determined using optimal DCPs, data collection stopping time, and a specific deadline. In the second phase, the optimal data collection trajectory is determined for each MDC using the nearest neighbor heuristic algorithm to collect data in real time. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms in collecting data in real time and determines optimal mobile data collectors and optimal data collection trajectory to collect data in a specific deadline for delay-intolerant applications.     

A blockchain-enabled security management framework for mobile edge computing

Mobile edge computing (MEC) integrates mobile and edge computing technologies to provide efficient computing services with low latency. It includes several Internet of Things (IoT) and edge devices that process the user data at the network's edge. The architectural characteristic of MEC supports many internet-based services, which attract more number of users, including attackers. The safety and privacy of the MEC environment, especially user information is a significant concern. A lightweight accessing and sharing protocol is required because edge devices are resource constraints. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a blockchain-enabled security management framework for MEC environments. This approach provides another level of security and includes blockchain security features like temper resistance, immutable, transparent, traceable, and distributed ledger in the MEC environment. The framework guarantees secure data storage in the MEC environment. The contributions of this paper are twofold: (1) We propose a blockchain-enabled security management framework for MEC environments that address the security and privacy concerns, and (2) we demonstrate through simulations that the framework has high performance and is suitable for resource-constrained MEC devices. In addition, a smart contract-based access and sharing mechanism is proposed. Our research uses a combination of theoretical analysis and simulation experiments to demonstrate that the proposed framework offers high security, low latency, legitimate access, high throughput, and low operations cost.     

Data gathering and offloading in delay tolerant mobile networks

Mobile sensing emerges as an important application for mobile networks. Smartphones equipped with sensors are used to monitor a diverse range of human activities. One key and challenging procedure of the mobile sensing applications is data gathering, where the sensed data from distributed mobile nodes are captured and uploaded to the cloud or base station for further processing. Yet the mobile sensing application, which usually periodically generates some sensed data, would definitely deteriorate the 3G quality because the network cannot cope with the high demand; and users would be charged at high prices by using the 3G channel, which makes the mobile sensing application infeasible. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid data gathering and offloading algorithm DGO for the mobile sensing applications. Besides the direct uploading through 3G or Wifi offloading, the sensed data could also be forwarded to other peer nodes through short range communications. Nodes collect meta-data such as remaining energy, contact regularity, and expected contact duration to calculate the upload/offload utility and upload priority for data segments. Based on these utility factors, each data segment could decide its own approach at a specific time for uploading. Experimental studies show that DGO is efficient in data gathering and data offloading in mobile sensing applications. Given the low accessibility of Wifi APs, DGO still gains about more than 30 % of data offloading compared with existing algorithms without much extra transmission overhead or delay.     

Survey on computation offloading in mobile edge computing

Computation offloading in mobile edge computing would transfer the resource intensive computational tasks to the edge network.It can not only solve the shortage of mobile user equipment in resource storage,computation performance and energy efficiency,but also deal with the problem of resource occupation,high latency and network load compared to cloud computing.Firstly the architecture of MEC was introduce and a comparative analysis was made according to various deployment schemes.Then the key technologies of computation offloading was studied from three aspects of decision on computation offloading,allocation of computing resource within MEC and system implement of MEC.Based on the analysis of MEC deployment scheme in 5G,two optimization schemes on computation offloading was proposed in 5G MEC.Finally,the current challenges in the mobility management was summarized,interference management and security of computation offloading in MEC.