IRS Assisted UAV Communications against Proactive Eavesdropping in Mobile Edge Computing Networks

In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of UAV,the transmitting beamforming of users,and the phase shift matrix of IRS.The original problem is strong non-convex and difficult to solve.We first propose two basic modes of the proactive eavesdropper,and obtain the closed-form solution for the boundary conditions of the two modes.Then we transform the original problem into an equivalent one and propose an alternating optimization(AO)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.The convergence of the algorithm is illustrated by numerical results.Further,we propose a zero forcing(ZF)based method as sub-optimal solution,and the simulation section shows that the proposed two schemes could obtain better performance compared with traditional schemes.

Mobile Edge Communications, Computing, and Caching(MEC3) Technology in the Maritime Communication Network

With the increasing maritime activities and the rapidly developing maritime economy, the fifth-generation(5G) mobile communication system is expected to be deployed at the ocean. New technologies need to be explored to meet the requirements of ultra-reliable and low latency communications(URLLC) in the maritime communication network(MCN). Mobile edge computing(MEC) can achieve high energy efficiency in MCN at the cost of suffering from high control plane latency and low reliability. In terms of this issue, the mobile edge communications, computing, and caching(MEC3) technology is proposed to sink mobile computing, network control, and storage to the edge of the network. New methods that enable resource-efficient configurations and reduce redundant data transmissions can enable the reliable implementation of computing-intension and latency-sensitive applications. The key technologies of MEC3 to enable URLLC are analyzed and optimized in MCN. The best response-based offloading algorithm(BROA) is adopted to optimize task offloading. The simulation results show that the task latency can be decreased by 26.5’ ms, and the energy consumption in terminal users can be reduced to 66.6%.

Age of Information Based User Scheduling and Data Assignment in Multi-User Mobile Edge Computing Networks:An Online Algorithm

This paper investigates the age of information(AoI)-based multi-user mobile edge computing(MEC)network with partial offloading mode.The weighted sum AoI(WSA)is first analyzed and derived,and then a WSA minimization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing the user scheduling and data assignment.Due to the non-analytic expression of the WSA w.r.t.the optimization variables and the unknowability of future network information,the problem cannot be solved with known solution methods.Therefore,an online Joint Partial Offloading and User Scheduling Optimization(JPOUSO)algorithm is proposed by transforming the original problem into a single-slot data assignment subproblem and a single-slot user scheduling sub-problem and solving the two sub-problems separately.We analyze the computational complexity of the presented JPO-USO algorithm,which is of O(N),with N being the number of users.Simulation results show that the proposed JPO-USO algorithm is able to achieve better AoI performance compared with various baseline methods.It is shown that both the user’s data assignment and the user’s AoI should be jointly taken into account to decrease the system WSA when scheduling users.

UAV-assisted cooperative offloading energy efficiency system for mobile edge computing

Reliable communication and intensive computing power cannot be provided effectively by temporary hot spots in disaster areas and complex terrain ground infrastructure.Mitigating this has greatly developed the application and integration of UAV and Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)to the Internet of Things(loT).However,problems such as multi-user and huge data flow in large areas,which contradict the reality that a single UAV is constrained by limited computing power,still exist.Due to allowing UAV collaboration to accomplish complex tasks,cooperative task offloading between multiple UAVs must meet the interdependence of tasks and realize parallel processing,which reduces the computing power consumption and endurance pressure of terminals.Considering the computing requirements of the user terminal,delay constraint of a computing task,energy constraint,and safe distance of UAV,we constructed a UAV-Assisted cooperative offloading energy efficiency system for mobile edge computing to minimize user terminal energy consumption.However,the resulting optimization problem is originally nonconvex and thus,difficult to solve optimally.To tackle this problem,we developed an energy efficiency optimization algorithm using Block Coordinate Descent(BCD)that decomposes the problem into three convex subproblems.Furthermore,we jointly optimized the number of local computing tasks,number of computing offloaded tasks,trajectories of UAV,and offloading matching relationship between multi-UAVs and multiuser terminals.Simulation results show that the proposed approach is suitable for different channel conditions and significantly saves the user terminal energy consumption compared with other benchmark schemes.

Energy Efficiency Maximization in Mobile Edge Computing Networks via IRS assisted UAV Communications

In this paper,we investigate the energy efficiency maximization for mobile edge computing(MEC)in intelligent reflecting surface(IRS)assisted unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)communications.In particular,UAVcan collect the computing tasks of the terrestrial users and transmit the results back to them after computing.We jointly optimize the users’transmitted beamforming and uploading ratios,the phase shift matrix of IRS,and the UAV trajectory to improve the energy efficiency.The formulated optimization problem is highly non-convex and difficult to be solved directly.Therefore,we decompose the original problem into three sub-problems.We first propose the successive convex approximation(SCA)based method to design the beamforming of the users and the phase shift matrix of IRS,and apply the Lagrange dual method to obtain a closed-form expression of the uploading ratios.For the trajectory optimization,we propose a block coordinate descent(BCD)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.Finally,we propose the alternating optimization(AO)based overall algorithmand analyzed its complexity to be equivalent or lower than existing algorithms.Simulation results show the superiority of the proposedmethod compared with existing schemes in energy efficiency.

Energy Minimization for Heterogenous Traffic Coexistence with Puncturing in Mobile Edge Computing-Based Industrial Internet of Things

Puncturing has been recognized as a promising technology to cope with the coexistence problem of enhanced mobile broadband(eMBB) and ultra-reliable low latency communications(URLLC)traffic. However, the steady performance of eMBB traffic while meeting the requirements of URLLC traffic with puncturing is a major challenge in some realistic scenarios. In this paper, we pay attention to the timely and energy-efficient processing for eMBB traffic in the industrial Internet of Things(IIoT), where mobile edge computing(MEC) is employed for data processing. Specifically, the performance of eMBB traffic and URLLC traffic in a MEC-based IIoT system is ensured by setting the threshold of tolerable delay and outage probability, respectively. Furthermore,considering the limited energy supply, an energy minimization problem of eMBB device is formulated under the above constraints, by jointly optimizing the resource blocks(RBs) punctured by URLLC traffic, data offloading and transmit power of eMBB device. With Markov's inequality, the problem is reformulated by transforming the probabilistic outage constraint into a deterministic constraint. Meanwhile, an iterative energy minimization algorithm(IEMA) is proposed.Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm has a significant reduction in the energy consumption for eMBB device and achieves a better overall effect compared to several benchmarks.

Edge Cloud Selection in Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)-Aided Applications for Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)Services

In many IIoT architectures,various devices connect to the edge cloud via gateway systems.For data processing,numerous data are delivered to the edge cloud.Delivering data to an appropriate edge cloud is critical to improve IIoT service efficiency.There are two types of costs for this kind of IoT network:a communication cost and a computing cost.For service efficiency,the communication cost of data transmission should be minimized,and the computing cost in the edge cloud should be also minimized.Therefore,in this paper,the communication cost for data transmission is defined as the delay factor,and the computing cost in the edge cloud is defined as the waiting time of the computing intensity.The proposed method selects an edge cloud that minimizes the total cost of the communication and computing costs.That is,a device chooses a routing path to the selected edge cloud based on the costs.The proposed method controls the data flows in a mesh-structured network and appropriately distributes the data processing load.The performance of the proposed method is validated through extensive computer simulation.When the transition probability from good to bad is 0.3 and the transition probability from bad to good is 0.7 in wireless and edge cloud states,the proposed method reduced both the average delay and the service pause counts to about 25%of the existing method.

Mobile Edge Computing and Field Trial Results for 5G Low Latency Scenario

Through enabling the IT and cloud computation capacities at Radio Access Network(RAN),Mobile Edge Computing(MEC) makes it possible to deploy and provide services locally.Therefore,MEC becomes the potential technology to satisfy the requirements of 5G network to a certain extent,due to its functions of services localization,local breakout,caching,computation offloading,network context information exposure,etc.Especially,MEC can decrease the end-to-end latency dramatically through service localization and caching,which is key requirement of 5G low latency scenario.However,the performance of MEC still needs to be evaluated and verified for future deployment.Thus,the concept of MEC is introduced into5 G architecture and analyzed for different 5G scenarios in this paper.Secondly,the evaluation of MEC performance is conducted and analyzed in detail,especially for network end-to-end latency.In addition,some challenges of the MEC are also discussed for future deployment.

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.

Reliable and Energy-Aware Job Offloading at Terahertz Frequencies for Mobile Edge Computing

In this paper,we co-design the transmission power and the offloading strategy for job offloading to a mobile edge computing(MEC)server at Terahertz(THz)frequencies.The goal is to minimize the communication energy consumption while providing ultra-reliable low end-to-end latency(URLLC)services.To that end,we first establish a novel reliability framework,where the end-to-end(E2E)delay equals a weighted sum of the local computing delay,the communication delay and the edge computing delay,and the reliability is defined as the probability that the E2E delay remains below a certain pre-defined threshold.This reliability gives a full view of the statistics of the E2E delay,thus constituting advancement over prior works that have considered only average delays.Based on this framework,we establish the communication energy consumption minimization problem under URLLC constraints.This optimization problem is non-convex.To handle that issue,we first consider the special single-user case,where we derive the optimal solution by analyzing the structure of the optimization problem.Further,based on the analytical result for the single-user case,we decouple the optimization problem for multi-user scenarios into several sub-optimization problems and propose a sub-optimal algorithm to solve it.Numerical results verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Novel Private Data Access Control Scheme Suitable for Mobile Edge Computing

Efficient response speed and information processing speed are among the characteristics of mobile edge computing(MEC).However,MEC easily causes information leakage and loss problems because it requires frequent data exchange.This work proposes an anonymous privacy data protection and access control scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography(ECC)and bilinear pairing to protect the communication security of the MEC.In the proposed scheme,the information sender encrypts private information through the ECC algorithm,and the information receiver uses its own key information and bilinear pairing to extract and verify the identity of the information sender.During each round of communication,the proposed scheme uses timestamps and random numbers to ensure the freshness of each round of conversation.Experimental results show that the proposed scheme has good security performance and can provide data privacy protection,integrity verification,and traceability for the communication process of MEC.The proposed scheme has a lower cost than other related schemes.The communication and computational cost of the proposed scheme are reduced by 31.08% and 22.31% on average compared with those of the other related schemes.

Adaptive delay-energy balanced partial offloading strategy in Mobile Edge Computing networks

Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)-based computation offloading is a promising application paradigm for serving large numbers of users with various delay and energy requirements.In this paper,we propose a flexible MECbased requirement-adaptive partial offloading model to accommodate each user's specific preference regarding delay and energy consumption.To address the dimensional differences between time and energy,we introduce two normalized parameters and then derive the computational overhead of processing tasks.Different from existing works,this paper considers practical variations in the user request patterns,and exploits a flexible partial offloading mode to minimize computation overheads subject to tolerable delay,task workload and power constraints.Since the resulting problem is non-convex,we decouple it into two convex subproblems and present an iterative algorithm to obtain a feasible offloading solution.Numerical experiments show that our proposed scheme achieves a significant improvement in computation overheads compared with existing schemes.

Computation Rate Maximization in Multi-User Cooperation-Assisted Wireless-Powered Mobile Edge Computing with OFDMA

In the era of Internet of Things(Io T),mobile edge computing(MEC)and wireless power transfer(WPT)provide a prominent solution for computation-intensive applications to enhance computation capability and achieve sustainable energy supply.A wireless-powered mobile edge computing(WPMEC)system consisting of a hybrid access point(HAP)combined with MEC servers and many users is considered in this paper.In particular,a novel multiuser cooperation scheme based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access(OFDMA)is provided to improve the computation performance,where users can split the computation tasks into various parts for local computing,offloading to corresponding helper,and HAP for remote execution respectively with the aid of helper.Specifically,we aim at maximizing the weighted sum computation rate(WSCR)by optimizing time assignment,computation-task allocation,and transmission power at the same time while keeping energy neutrality in mind.We transform the original non-convex optimization problem to a convex optimization problem and then obtain a semi-closed form expression of the optimal solution by considering the convex optimization techniques.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed multi-user cooperationassisted WPMEC scheme greatly improves the WSCR of all users than the existing schemes.In addition,OFDMA protocol increases the fairness and decreases delay among the users when compared to TDMA protocol.

Intelligent Traffic Scheduling for Mobile Edge Computing in IoT via Deep Learning

Nowadays,with the widespread application of the Internet of Things(IoT),mobile devices are renovating our lives.The data generated by mobile devices has reached a massive level.The traditional centralized processing is not suitable for processing the data due to limited computing power and transmission load.Mobile Edge Computing(MEC)has been proposed to solve these problems.Because of limited computation ability and battery capacity,tasks can be executed in the MEC server.However,how to schedule those tasks becomes a challenge,and is the main topic of this piece.In this paper,we design an efficient intelligent algorithm to jointly optimize energy cost and computing resource allocation in MEC.In view of the advantages of deep learning,we propose a Deep Learning-Based Traffic Scheduling Approach(DLTSA).We translate the scheduling problem into a classification problem.Evaluation demonstrates that our DLTSA approach can reduce energy cost and have better performance compared to traditional scheduling algorithms.

On the System Performance of Mobile Edge Computing in an Uplink NOMA WSN With a Multiantenna Access Point Over Nakagami-m Fading

In this paper,we study the system performance of mobile edge computing(MEC)wireless sensor networks(WSNs)using a multiantenna access point(AP)and two sensor clusters based on uplink nonorthogonal multiple access(NOMA).Due to limited computation and energy resources,the cluster heads(CHs)offload their tasks to a multiantenna AP over Nakagami-m fading.We proposed a combination protocol for NOMA-MEC-WSNs in which the AP selects either selection combining(SC)or maximal ratio combining(MRC)and each cluster selects a CH to participate in the communication process by employing the sensor node(SN)selection.We derive the closed-form exact expressions of the successful computation probability(SCP)to evaluate the system performance with the latency and energy consumption constraints of the considered WSN.Numerical results are provided to gain insight into the system performance in terms of the SCP based on system parameters such as the number of AP antennas,number of SNs in each cluster,task length,working frequency,offloading ratio,and transmit power allocation.Furthermore,to determine the optimal resource parameters,i.e.,the offloading ratio,power allocation of the two CHs,and MEC AP resources,we proposed two algorithms to achieve the best system performance.Our approach reveals that the optimal parameters with different schemes significantly improve SCP compared to other similar studies.We use Monte Carlo simulations to confirm the validity of our analysis.

Optimization and Design of Cloud-Edge-End Collaboration Computing for Autonomous Robot Control Using 5G and Beyond

Robots have important applications in industrial production, transportation, environmental monitoring and other fields, and multi-robot collaboration is a research hotspot in recent years. Multi-robot autonomous collaborative tasks are limited by communication, and there are problems such as poor resource allocation balance, slow response of the system to dynamic changes in the environment, and limited collaborative operation capabilities. The combination of 5G and beyond communication and edge computing can effectively reduce the transmission delay of task offloading and improve task processing efficiency. First, this paper designs a robot autonomous collaborative computing architecture based on 5G and beyond and mobile edge computing(MEC).Then, the robot cooperative computing optimization problem is studied according to the task characteristics of the robot swarm. Then, a reinforcement learning task offloading scheme based on Qlearning is further proposed, so that the overall energy consumption and delay of the robot cluster can be minimized. Finally, simulation experiments demonstrate that the method has significant performance advantages.

Associative Tasks Computing Offloading Scheme in Internet of Medical Things with Deep Reinforcement Learning

The Internet of Medical Things(Io MT) is regarded as a critical technology for intelligent healthcare in the foreseeable 6G era. Nevertheless, due to the limited computing power capability of edge devices and task-related coupling relationships, Io MT faces unprecedented challenges. Considering the associative connections among tasks, this paper proposes a computing offloading policy for multiple-user devices(UDs) considering device-to-device(D2D) communication and a multi-access edge computing(MEC)technique under the scenario of Io MT. Specifically,to minimize the total delay and energy consumption concerning the requirement of Io MT, we first analyze and model the detailed local execution, MEC execution, D2D execution, and associated tasks offloading exchange model. Consequently, the associated tasks’ offloading scheme of multi-UDs is formulated as a mixed-integer nonconvex optimization problem. Considering the advantages of deep reinforcement learning(DRL) in processing tasks related to coupling relationships, a Double DQN based associative tasks computing offloading(DDATO) algorithm is then proposed to obtain the optimal solution, which can make the best offloading decision under the condition that tasks of UDs are associative. Furthermore, to reduce the complexity of the DDATO algorithm, the cacheaided procedure is intentionally introduced before the data training process. This avoids redundant offloading and computing procedures concerning tasks that previously have already been cached by other UDs. In addition, we use a dynamic ε-greedy strategy in the action selection section of the algorithm, thus preventing the algorithm from falling into a locally optimal solution. Simulation results demonstrate that compared with other existing methods for associative task models concerning different structures in the Io MT network, the proposed algorithm can lower the total cost more effectively and efficiently while also providing a tradeoff between delay and energy consumption tolerance.

Jointly Optimized Request Dispatching and Service Placement for MEC in LEO Network

Integrating Multi-access Edge Computing(MEC) in Low Earth Orbit(LEO) network is an important way to provide globally seamless low-delay service. In this paper, we consider the scenario that MEC platforms with computation and storage resource are deployed on LEO satellites, which is called "LEO-MEC". Service request dispatching decision is very important for resource utilization of the whole LEO-MEC system and Qo E of MEC users. Another important problem is service placement that is closely coupled with request dispatching. This paper models the joint service request dispatching and service placement problem as an optimization problem, which is a Mixed Integer Linear Programming(MILP). Our proposed mechanism solves this problem and uses the solved decision variables to dispatch requests and place services. Simulation results show that our proposed mechanism can achieve better performance in terms of ratio of served users and average hop count compared with baseline mechanism.

Joint resource allocation for hybrid NOMA-assisted MEC in 6G networks

Multi-access Edge Computing(MEC)is an essential technology for expanding computing power of mobile devices,which can combine the Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access(NOMA)in the power domain to multiplex signals to improve spectral efficiency.We study the integration of the MEC with the NOMA to improve the computation service for the Beyond Fifth-Generation(B5G)and the Sixth-Generation(6G)wireless networks.This paper aims to minimize the energy consumption of a hybrid NOMA-assisted MEC system.In a hybrid NOMA system,a user can offload its task during a time slot shared with another user by the NOMA,and then upload the remaining data during an exclusive time duration served by Orthogonal Multiple Access(OMA).The original energy minimization problem is non-convex.To efficiently solve it,we first assume that the user grouping is given,and focuses on the one group case.Then,a multilevel programming method is proposed to solve the non-convex problem by decomposing it into three subproblems,i.e.,power allocation,time slot scheduling,and offloading task assignment,which are solved optimally by carefully studying their convexity and monotonicity.The derived solution is optimal to the original problem by substituting the closed expressions obtained from those decomposed subproblems.Furthermore,we investigate the multi-user case,in which a close-to-optimal algorithm with lowcomplexity is proposed to form users into different groups with unique time slots.The simulation results verify the superior performance of the proposed scheme compared with some benchmarks,such as OMA and pure NOMA.

Beyond 5G Networks: Integration of Communication, Computing, Caching, and Control

In recent years,the exponential proliferation of smart devices with their intelligent applications poses severe challenges on conventional cellular networks.Such challenges can be potentially overcome by integrating communication,computing,caching,and control(i4C)technologies.In this survey,we first give a snapshot of different aspects of the i4C,comprising background,motivation,leading technological enablers,potential applications,and use cases.Next,we describe different models of communication,computing,caching,and control(4C)to lay the foundation of the integration approach.We review current stateof-the-art research efforts related to the i4C,focusing on recent trends of both conventional and artificial intelligence(AI)-based integration approaches.We also highlight the need for intelligence in resources integration.Then,we discuss the integration of sensing and communication(ISAC)and classify the integration approaches into various classes.Finally,we propose open challenges and present future research directions for beyond 5G networks,such as 6G.