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.     

移动边缘计算技术及其本地分流方案

移动边缘计算(mobile edge computing,MEC)技术通过为无线接入网提供IT和云计算能力,使得业务本地化、近距离部署成为可能,从而促使无线网络具备低时延、高带宽的传输能力,并且回传带宽需求的降低极大程度减少了运营成本.同时,MEC通过感知无线网络上下文信息(位置、网络负荷、无线资源利用率等)并向业务应用开放,可有效提升用户的业务体验,并且为创新型业务的研发部署提供平台.首先介绍MEC技术,细化并给出MEC平台框图.此外,针对基于MEC平台的本地分流功能,给出了详细的技术方案,并与3GPP本地分流方案LIPA/SIPTO进行对比分析.更进一步,针对MEC技术在网络应用中可能存在的问题与挑战进行了讨论,为后续研究发展提供参考.     

Q-learning-based task offloading strategy for satellite edge computing

In this paper, we study the task offloading optimization problem in satellite edge computing environments to reduce the whole communication latency and energy consumption so as to enhance the offloading success rate. A three-tier machine learning framework consisting of collaborative edge devices, edge data centers, and cloud data centers has been proposed to ensure an efficient task execution. To accomplish this goal, we also propose a Q-learning-based reinforcement learning offloading strategy in which both the time-sensitive constraints and data requirements of the computation-intensive tasks are taken into account. It enables various types of tasks to select the most suitable satellite nodes for the computing deployment. Simulation results show that our algorithm outperforms other baseline algorithms in terms of latency, energy consumption, and successful execution efficiency.     

移动边缘计算卸载技术综述

移动边缘计算(Mobile Edge Computing,MEC)将云服务器的计算资源扩展到更靠近用户一侧的网络边缘,使得用户可以将任务卸载到边缘服务器,从而克服原先云计算中将任务卸载到云服务器所带来的高时延问题。首先介绍了移动边缘计算的基本概念、基本框架和应用场景,然后围绕卸载决策、联合资源分配的卸载决策分别从单MEC服务器和多MEC服务器两种场景总结了任务卸载技术的研究现状,最后结合当前MEC卸载技术中存在的不足展望了未来MEC卸载技术的研究。     

Service migration in mobile edge computing: A deep reinforcement learning approach

In mobile edge computing, service migration can not only reduce the access latency but also reduce the network costs for users. However, due to bandwidth bottleneck, migration costs should also be considered during service migration. In this way, the trade-off between benefits of service migration and total service costs is very important for the cloud service providers. In this paper, we propose an efficient dynamic service migration algorithm named SMDQN, which is based on reinforcement learning. We consider each mobile application service can be hosted on one or more edge nodes and each edge node has limited resources. SMDQN takes total delay and migration costs into consideration. And to reduce the size of Markov decision process space, we devise the deep reinforcement learning algorithm to make a fast decision. We implement the algorithm and test the performance and stability of it. The simulation result shows that it can minimize the service costs and adapt well to different mobile access patterns.     

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.     

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.     

An intelligent task offloading algorithm (iTOA) for UAV edge computing network

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has emerged as a promising technology for the support of human activities, such as target tracking, disaster rescue, and surveillance. However, these tasks require a large computation load of image or video processing, which imposes enormous pressure on the UAV computation platform. To solve this issue, in this work, we propose an intelligent Task Offloading Algorithm (iTOA) for UAV edge computing network. Compared with existing methods, iTOA is able to perceive the network’s environment intelligently to decide the offloading action based on deep Monte Calor Tree Search (MCTS), the core algorithm of Alpha Go. MCTS will simulate the offloading decision trajectories to acquire the best decision by maximizing the reward, such as lowest latency or power consumption. To accelerate the search convergence of MCTS, we also proposed a splitting Deep Neural Network (sDNN) to supply the prior probability for MCTS. The sDNN is trained by a self-supervised learning manager. Here, the training data set is obtained from iTOA itself as its own teacher. Compared with game theory and greedy search-based methods, the proposed iTOA improves service latency performance by 33% and 60%, respectively.     

超密集网络中基于MEC的动态任务卸载方案

超密集网络(Ultra-dense Network,UDN)中集成移动边缘计算(Mobile Edge Computing,MEC),是5G中为用户提供计算资源的可靠方式,在多种因素影响下进行MEC任务卸载决策一直都是一个研究热点。目前已存在大量任务卸载相关的方案,但是这些方案中很少将重心放在用户在不同条件下的能耗需求差异上,无法有效提升用户体验质量(Quality of Experience,QoE)。在动态MEC系统中提出了一个考虑用户能耗需求的多用户任务卸载问题,通过最大化满意度的方式提升用户QoE,并将现有的深度强化学习算法进行了改进,使其更加适合求解所提优化问题。仿真结果表明,所提算法较现有算法在算法收敛性以及稳定性上具有一定提升。     

Energy-efficient task offloading strategy in mobile edge computing for resource-intensive mobile applications

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has been considered a promising solution that can address capacity and performance challenges in legacy systems such as Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). In particular, such challenges include intolerable delay, congestion in the core network, insufficient Quality of Experience (QoE), high cost of resource utility, such as energy and bandwidth. The aforementioned challenges originate from limited resources in mobile devices, the multi-hop connection between end-users and the cloud, high pressure from computation-intensive and delay-critical applications. Considering the limited resource setting at the MEC, improving the efficiency of task offloading in terms of both energy and delay in MEC applications is an important and urgent problem to be solved. In this paper, the key objective is to propose a task offloading scheme that minimizes the overall energy consumption along with satisfying capacity and delay requirements. Thus, we propose a MEC-assisted energy-efficient task offloading scheme that leverages the cooperative MEC framework. To achieve energy efficiency, we propose a novel hybrid approach established based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) to solve the optimization problem. The proposed approach considers efficient resource allocation such as sub-carriers, power, and bandwidth for offloading to guarantee minimum energy consumption. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy is computational-efficient compared to benchmark methods. Moreover, it improves energy utilization, energy gain, response delay, and offloading utility.     

Research on intelligent computing offloading model based on reputation value in mobile edge computing

Aiming at the problem of high-latency,high-energy-consumption,and low-reliability mobile caused by computing-intensive and delay-sensitive emerging mobile applications in the explosive growth of IoT smart mobile terminals in the mobile edge computing environment,an offload decision-making model where delay and energy consumption were comprehensively included,and a computing resource game allocation model based on reputation that took into account was proposed,then improved particle swarm algorithm and the method of Lagrange multipliers were used respectively to solve models.Simulation results show that the proposed method can meet the service requirements of emerging intelligent applications for low latency,low energy consumption and high reliability,and effectively implement the overall optimized allocation of computing offload resources.     

基于MEC的LTE本地分流技术

考虑到目前政企、校园以及部分垂直行业低时延以及大流量本地业务传输的需求,给出了一种基于MEC的LTE本地分流技术方案,并针对该方案的可行性进行了深入分析.相比于3GPP中的LIPA/SIPTO技术方案,基于MEC的本地分流方案可以实现MEC平台的透明部署,终端无需支持多个APN连接,从而为用户提供一种“虚拟的LTE局域网”体验.最后,针对该方案在现网应用中可能存在的问题与挑战进行了讨论,为后续研究发展提供参考.     

An efficient algorithm for dynamic task offloading using cloudlets in mobile cloud computing

It is a visible fact that the growth of mobile devices is enormous. More computations are required to be carried out for various applications in these mobile devices. But the drawback of the mobile devices is less computation power and low available energy. The mobile cloud computing helps in resolving these issues by integrating the mobile devices with cloud technology. Again, the issue is increased in the latency as the task and data to be offloaded to the cloud environment uses WAN. Hence, to decrease the latency, this paper proposes cloudlet‐based dynamic task offloading (CDTO) algorithm where the task can be executed in device environment, cloudlet environment, cloud server environment, and integrated environment. The proposed algorithm, CDTO, is tested in terms of energy consumption and completion time.     

任务迁移的移动边缘计算系统中资源分配和任务卸载策略

针对在任务卸载时由于设备的移动而导致任务迁移这一问题,将任务卸载过程建模为马尔科夫决策过程,并通过优化资源分配和任务卸载策略,解决基于联合时延和能耗的损耗函数最小的优化问题。首先将问题转化为最小化损耗函数之和,并在决策前对每个任务的传输功率采用二分法进行优化,然后基于获得的传输功率提出一种QLBA（Q-learning Based Algorithm）来完成卸载决策。仿真结果证实所提方案优于传统算法。     

A novel data size-aware offloading technique for resource provisioning in mobile cloud computing

Mobile device users are involved in social networking, gaming, learning, and even some office work, so the end users expect mobile devices with high-response computing capacities, storage, and high battery power consumption. The data-intensive applications, such as text search, online gaming, and face recognition usage, have tremendously increased. With such high complex applications, there are many issues in mobile devices, namely, fast battery draining, limited power, low storage capacity, and increased energy consumption. The novelty of this work is to strike a balance between time and energy consumption of mobile devices while using data-intensive applications by finding the optimal offloading decisions. This paper proposes a novel efficient Data Size-Aware Offloading Model (DSAOM) for data-intensive applications and to predict the appropriate resource provider for dynamic resource allocation in mobile cloud computing. Based on the data size, the tasks are separated and gradually allocated to the appropriate resource providers for execution. The task is placed into the appropriate resource provider by considering the availability services in the fog nodes or the cloud. The tasks are split into smaller portions for execution in the neighbor fog nodes. To execute the task in the remote side, the offloading decision is made by using the min-cut algorithm by considering the monetary cost of the mobile device. This proposed system achieves low-latency time 13.2% and low response time 14.1% and minimizes 24% of the energy consumption over the existing model. Finally, according to experimental findings, this framework efficiently lowers energy use and improves performance for data-intensive demanding application activities, and the task offloading strategy is effective for intensive offloading requests.     

A genetic‐based decision algorithm for multisite computation offloading in mobile cloud computing

Mobile cloud computing is a promising approach to improve the mobile device's efficiency in terms of energy consumption and execution time. In this context, mobile devices can offload the computation‐intensive parts of their applications to powerful cloud servers. However, they should decide what computation‐intensive parts are appropriate for offloading to be beneficial instead of local execution on the mobile device. Moreover, in the real world, different types of clouds/servers with heterogeneous processing speeds are available that should be considered for offloading. Because making offloading decision in multisite context is an NP‐complete, obtaining an optimal solution is time consuming. Hence, we use a near optimal decision algorithm to find the best‐possible partitioning for offloading to multisite clouds/servers. We use a genetic algorithm and adjust it for multisite offloading problem. Also, genetic operators are modified to reduce the ineffective solutions and hence obtain the best‐possible solutions in a reasonable time. We evaluated the efficiency of the proposed method using graphs of real mobile applications in simulation experiments. The evaluation results demonstrate that our proposal outperforms other counterparts in terms of energy consumption, execution time, and weighted cost model.     

深度强化学习在物联网边缘计算中的应用研究

针对传统的物联网边缘计算方法存在计算成本过高,计算时间过长等问题,文中引入了深度强化学习技术,对物联网边缘计算方法进行优化.通过物联网拓扑结构设定物联网边缘计算周期,获取数据上传速度.设计边缘计算执行过程,提升边缘计算资源分配效率.引入深度强化学习技术中的CNN模型实现卷积计算,完成物联网边缘计算的资源分配.至此,实现...     

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.

     

基于深度强化学习的智能决策方法

针对传统深度强化学习算法难以快速解决长时序复杂任务的问题,提出了一种引入历史信息和人类知识的深度强化学习方法,对经典近端策略优化(Proximal Policy Optimization, PPO)强化学习算法进行改进,在状态空间引入历史状态以反映环境的时序变化特征,在策略模型中基于人类认知增加无效动作掩膜,禁止智能体进行无效探索,提高探索效率,从而提升模型的训练性能。仿真结果表明,所提方法能够有效解决长时序复杂任务的智能决策问题,相比传统的深度强化学习算法可显著提高模型收敛效果。