To mitigate computational power gap between the network core and edges, mobile edge computing (MEC) is poised to play a fundamental role in future generations of wireless networks. In this letter, we consider a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) transmission model to maximize the worst task to be offloaded among all users to the network edge server. A provably convergent and efficient algorithm is developed to solve the considered non-convex optimization problem for maximizing the minimum number of offloaded bits in a multi-user NOMAMEC system. Compared to the approach of optimized orthogonal multiple access (OMA), for given MEC delay, power and energy limits, the NOMA-based system considerably outperforms its OMA-based counterpart in MEC settings. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm for NOMA-based MEC is particularly useful for delay sensitive applications.
This letter considers a multi-access mobile edge computing (MEC) network consisting of multiple users, multiple base stations, and a malicious eavesdropper. Specifically, the users adopt the partial offloading strategy by partitioning the computation task into several parts. One is executed locally and the others are securely offloaded to multiple MEC servers integrated into the base stations by leveraging the physical layer security to combat the eavesdropping. We jointly optimize power allocation, task partition, subcarrier allocation, and computation resource to maximize the secrecy offload…
Energy-efficient computation is an inevitable trend for mobile edge computing (MEC) networks. Resource allocation strategies for maximizing the computation efficiency are critically important. In this paper, computation efficiency maximization problems are formulated in wireless-powered MEC networks under both partial and binary computation offloading modes. A practical non-linear energy harvesting model is considered. Both time division multiple access (TDMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are considered and evaluated for offloading. The energy harvesting time, the local computing …
Device-to-Device (D2D) communications incorporated with content caching have been regarded as a promising way to offload the cellular traffic data. In this paper, the caching strategy is investigated to maximize the D2D offloading gain with the comprehensive consideration of user collaborative characteristics as well as the physical transmission conditions. Specifically, for a given content, the number of interested users in different groups is different, and users always ask the most trustworthy user in proximity for D2D transmissions. An analytical expression of the D2D success probability i…
This paper considers the minimization of the offloading delay for non-orthogonal multiple access assisted mobile edge computing (NOMA-MEC). By transforming the delay minimization problem into a form of fractional programming, two iterative algorithms based on Dinkelbach's method and Newton's method are proposed. The optimality of both methods is proved and their convergence is compared. Furthermore, criteria for choosing between three possible modes, namely orthogonal multiple access (OMA), pure NOMA, and hybrid NOMA, for MEC offloading are established.
This paper considers computation offloading in fog-radio access networks (F-RAN), where multiple user equipments (UEs) offload their computation tasks to the F-RAN through a number of fog nodes. Each UE can choose one of the fog nodes to offload its task, and each fog node may serve multiple UEs. Depending on the computation burden at the fog nodes, the tasks may be computed by the fog nodes or further offloaded to the cloud via capacity-limited fronthaul links. To compute all UEs' tasks as fast as possible, joint optimization of UE-Fog association, radio and computation resources of F-RAN is …
Fog-computing network combines the cloud computing and fog access points (FAPs) equipped with mobile edge computing (MEC) servers together to support computation-intensive tasks for mobile users. However, as FAPs have limited computational capabilities and are solely assisted by a remote cloud center in the baseband processing unit (BBU) of the cloud radio access (C-RAN) network, the latency benefits of this fog-computing C-RAN network may be worn off when facing a large number of offloading requests. In this paper, we investigate the delay minimization problem for task offloading in a hierarc…
In this paper, we consider a multi-user mobile edge computing (MEC) network powered by wireless power transfer (WPT), where each energy-harvesting WD follows a binary computation offloading policy, i.e., data set of a task has to be executed as a whole either locally or remotely at the MEC server via task offloading. In particular, we are interested in maximizing the (weighted) sum computation rate of all the WDs in the network by jointly optimizing the individual computing mode selection (i.e., local computing or offloading) and the system transmission time allocation (on WPT and task offload…
In this paper, we aim at maximizing the cache offloading gain for a clustered \ac{D2D} caching network by exploiting probabilistic caching and cooperative transmission among the cluster devices. Devices with surplus memory probabilistically cache a content from a known library. A requested content is either brought from the device's local cache, cooperatively transmitted from catering devices, or downloaded from the macro base station as a last resort. Using stochastic geometry, we derive a closed-form expression for the offloading gain and formulate the offloading maximization problem. In ord…
This paper considers an energy harvesting (EH) based multiuser mobile edge computing (MEC) system, where each user utilizes the harvested energy from renewable energy sources to execute its computation tasks via computation offloading and local computing. Towards maximizing the system's weighted computation rate (i.e., the number of weighted users' computing bits within a finite time horizon) subject to the users' energy causality constraints due to dynamic energy arrivals, the decision for joint computation offloading and local computing over time is optimized {\em over time}. Assuming that t…
To cope with the unprecedented surge in demand for data computing for the applications, the promising concept of multi-access edge computing (MEC) has been proposed to enable the network edges to provide closer data processing for mobile devices (MDs). Since enormous workloads need to be migrated, and MDs always remain resource-constrained, data offloading from devices to the MEC server will inevitably require more efficient transmission designs. The integration of nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique with MEC has been shown to provide applications with lower latency and higher energ…
WiFi offloading is regarded as one of the most promising techniques to deal with the explosive data increase in cellular networks due to its high data transmission rate and low requirement on devices. In this paper, we investigate the mobile data offloading problem through a third-party WiFi access point (AP) for a cellular mobile system. From the cellular operator's perspective, by assuming a usage-based charging model, we formulate the problem as a utility maximization problem. In particular, we consider three scenarios: (i) successive interference cancellation (SIC) available at both the ba…
Caching at base stations (BSs) is a promising way to offload traffic and eliminate backhaul bottleneck in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In this paper, we investigate the optimal content placement maximizing the successful offloading probability in a cache-enabled HetNet where a tier of multi-antenna macro BSs (MBSs) is overlaid with a tier of helpers with caches. Based on probabilistic caching framework, we resort to stochastic geometry theory to derive the closed-form successful offloading probability and formulate the caching probability optimization problem, which is not concave in gene…
We provide a general framework for the problem of data offloading in a heterogeneous wireless network, where some demand of cellular users is served by a complementary network. The complementary network is either a small-cell network that shares the same resources as the cellular network, or a WiFi network that uses orthogonal resources. For a given demand served in a cellular network, the load, or the level of resource usage, of each cell depends in a non-linear manner on the load of other cells due to the mutual coupling of interference seen by one another. With load coupling, we optimize th…
An intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided wireless powered mobile edge computing (WP-MEC) system is conceived, where each device's computational task can be divided into two parts for local computing and offloading to mobile edge computing (MEC) servers, respectively. Both time division multiple access (TDMA) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes are considered for uplink (UL) offloading. Given the capability of IRSs in intelligently reconfiguring wireless channels over time, it is fundamentally unknown which multiple access scheme is superior for MEC UL offloading. To answer t…
Mobile-edge computing (MEC) has emerged as a prominent technique to provide mobile services with high computation requirement, by migrating the computation-intensive tasks from the mobile devices to the nearby MEC servers. To reduce the execution latency and device energy consumption, in this paper, we jointly optimize task offloading scheduling and transmit power allocation for MEC systems with multiple independent tasks. A low-complexity sub-optimal algorithm is proposed to minimize the weighted sum of the execution delay and device energy consumption based on alternating minimization. Speci…
Pushing data traffic from cellular to WiFi is an example of inter radio access technology (RAT) offloading. While this clearly alleviates congestion on the over-loaded cellular network, the ultimate potential of such offloading and its effect on overall system performance is not well understood. To address this, we develop a general and tractable model that consists of $M$ different RATs, each deploying up to $K$ different tiers of access points (APs), where each tier differs in transmit power, path loss exponent, deployment density and bandwidth. Each class of APs is modeled as an independent…
Mobile-edge computing (MEC) is an emerging technology for enhancing the computational capabilities of mobile devices and reducing their energy consumption via offloading complex computation tasks to the nearby servers. Multiuser MEC at servers is widely realized via parallel computing based on virtualization. Due to finite shared I/O resources, interference between virtual machines (VMs), called I/O interference, degrades the computation performance. In this paper, we study the problem of joint radio-and-computation resource allocation (RCRA) in multiuser MEC systems in the presence of I/O int…
Mobile-edge computing (MEC) offloads computational tasks from wireless devices to network edge, and enables real-time information transmission and computing. Most existing work concerns a small-scale synchronous MEC system. In this paper, we focus on a large-scale asynchronous MEC system with random task arrivals, distinct workloads, and diverse deadlines. We formulate the offloading policy design as a restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) to maximize the total discounted reward over the time horizon. However, the formulated RMAB is related to a PSPACE-hard sequential decision-making problem, whi…
This paper studies a new mobile edge computing (MEC) setup where an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is served by cellular ground base stations (GBSs) for computation offloading. The UAV flies between a give pair of initial and final locations, during which it needs to accomplish certain computation tasks by offloading them to some selected GBSs along its trajectory for parallel execution. Under this setup, we aim to minimize the UAV's mission completion time by optimizing its trajectory jointly with the computation offloading scheduling, subject to the maximum speed constraint of the UAV, and th…
This paper considers a scenario in which an access point (AP) is equipped with a mobile edge server of finite computing power, and serves multiple resource-hungry mobile users by charging users a price. Pricing provides users with incentives in offloading. However, existing works on pricing are based on abstract concave utility functions (e.g, the logarithm function), giving no dependence on physical layer parameters. To that end, we first introduce a novel utility function, which measures the cost reduction by offloading as compared with executing jobs locally. Based on this utility function …
Multi-access edge computing (MEC) can enhance the computing capability of mobile devices, while non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) can provide high data rates. Combining these two strategies can effectively benefit the network with spectrum and energy efficiency. In this paper, we investigate the task delay minimization in multi-user NOMA-MEC networks, where multiple users can offload their tasks simultaneously through the same frequency band. We adopt the partial offloading policy, in which each user can partition its computation task into offloading and locally computing parts. We aim to …
By offloading intensive computation tasks to the edge cloud located at the cellular base stations, mobile-edge computation offloading (MECO) has been regarded as a promising means to accomplish the ambitious millisecond-scale end-to-end latency requirement of the fifth-generation networks. In this paper, we investigate the latency-minimization problem in a multi-user time-division multiple access MECO system with joint communication and computation resource allocation. Three different computation models are studied, i.e., local compression, edge cloud compression, and partial compression offlo…
We investigate a wireless power transfer (WPT)-based backscatter-mobile edge computing (MEC) network with a {reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)}.In this network, wireless devices (WDs) offload task bits and harvest energy, and they can switch between backscatter communication (BC) and active transmission (AT) modes. We exploit the RIS to maximize energy efficiency (EE). To this end, we optimize the time/power allocations, local computing frequencies, execution times, backscattering coefficients, and RIS phase shifts.} This goal results in a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP) wit…
Computation-efficient resource allocation strategies are of crucial importance in mobile edge computing networks. However, few works have focused on this issue. In this letter, weighted sum computation efficiency (CE) maximization problems are formulated in a mobile edge computing (MEC) network with orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). Both partial offloading mode and binary offloading mode are considered. The closed-form expressions for the optimal subchannel and power allocation schemes are derived. In order to address the intractable non-convex weighted sum-of ratio proble…
This paper studies a wireless powered mobile edge computing (MEC) system with fluctuating channels and dynamic task arrivals over time. We jointly optimize the transmission energy allocation at the energy transmitter (ET) for WPT and the task allocation at the user for local computing and offloading over a particular finite horizon, with the objective of minimizing the total transmission energy consumption at the ET while ensuring the user's successful task execution. First, in order to characterize the fundamental performance limit, we consider the offline optimization by assuming that the pe…
With the development of Internet-of-Things (IoT), we witness the explosive growth in the number of devices with sensing, computing, and communication capabilities, along with a large amount of raw data generated at the network edge. Mobile (multi-access) edge computing (MEC), acquiring and processing data at network edge (like base station (BS)) via wireless links, has emerged as a promising technique for real-time applications. In this paper, we consider the scenario that multiple devices sense then offload data to an edge server/BS, and the offloading throughput maximization problems are stu…
In this paper, we investigate rate splitting multiple access (RSMA) aided mobile edge computing (MEC) in a cognitive radio network. We propose a RSMA scheme that enables the secondary user to offload tasks to the MEC server utilizing dynamic rate splitting without deteriorating the primary user's offloading. The expressions for the optimal rate splitting parameters that maximize the achievable rate for the secondary user and successful computation probability of the proposed RSMA scheme are derived in closed-form. We formulate a problem to maximize successful computation probability by jointly…
Mobile-edge computation offloading (MECO) offloads intensive mobile computation to clouds located at the edges of cellular networks. Thereby, MECO is envisioned as a promising technique for prolonging the battery lives and enhancing the computation capacities of mobiles. In this paper, we consider resource allocation in a MECO system comprising multiple users that time share a single edge cloud and have different computation loads. The optimal resource allocation is formulated as a convex optimization problem for minimizing the weighted sum mobile energy consumption under constraint on computa…
By allowing a mobile device to offload computation-intensive tasks to a base station, mobile edge computing (MEC) is a promising solution for saving the mobile device's energy. In real applications, the offloading may span multiple fading blocks. In this paper, we investigate energy-efficient offloading over multiple fading blocks with random channel gains. An optimization problem is formulated, which optimizes the amount of data for offloading to minimize the total expected energy consumption of the mobile device. Although the formulated optimization problem is non-convex, we prove that the o…
The vehicular edge computing (VEC) system integrates the computing resources of vehicles, and provides computing services for other vehicles and pedestrians with task offloading. However, the vehicular task offloading environment is dynamic and uncertain, with fast varying network topologies, wireless channel states and computing workloads. These uncertainties bring extra challenges to task offloading. In this work, we consider the task offloading among vehicles, and propose a solution that enables vehicles to learn the offloading delay performance of their neighboring vehicles while offloadin…
This paper studies a multiuser mobile edge computing (MEC) system, in which one base station (BS) serves multiple users with intensive computation tasks. We exploit the multi-antenna non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique for multiuser computation offloading, such that different users can simultaneously offload their computation tasks to the multi-antenna BS over the same time/frequency resources, and the BS can employ successive interference cancellation (SIC) to efficiently decode all users' offloaded tasks for remote execution. We aim to minimize the weighted sum-energy consumption…
In this paper, we consider a wireless powered mobile edge computing (MEC) network, where the distributed energy-harvesting wireless devices (WDs) are powered by means of radio frequency (RF) wireless power transfer (WPT). In particular, the WDs follow a binary computation offloading policy, i.e., data set of a computing task has to be executed as a whole either locally or remotely at the MEC server via task offloading. We are interested in maximizing the (weighted) sum computation rate of all the WDs in the network by jointly optimizing the individual computing mode selection (i.e., local comp…
This letter considers a mobile edge computing (MEC) system with one access point (AP) serving multiple users over a multicarrier channel, in the presence of a malicious eavesdropper. In this system, each user can execute the respective computation tasks by partitioning them into two parts, which are computed locally and offloaded to AP, respectively. We exploit the physical-layer security to secure the multiuser computation offloading from being overheard by the eavesdropper. Under this setup, we minimize the weighted sum-energy consumption for these users, subject to the newly imposed secrecy…
In this paper, we investigate a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based mobile edge computing (MEC) network, in which two users may partially offload their respective tasks to a single MEC server through uplink NOMA. We propose a new offloading scheme that can operate in three different modes, namely the partial computation offloading, the complete local computation, and the complete offloading. We further derive a closed-form expression of the successful computation probability for the proposed scheme. As part of the proposed offloading scheme, we formulate a problem to maximize the succe…
Mobile-edge computation offloading (MECO) offloads intensive mobile computation to clouds located at the edges of cellular networks. Thereby, MECO is envisioned as a promising technique for prolonging the battery lives and enhancing the computation capacities of mobiles. In this paper, we study resource allocation for a multiuser MECO system based on time-division multiple access (TDMA) and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA). First, for the TDMA MECO system with infinite or finite computation capacity, the optimal resource allocation is formulated as a convex optimization pr…
Cellular networks are overloaded due to the mobile traffic surge, and mobile social network (MSNets) carrying information flow can help reduce cellular traffic load. If geographically-nearby users directly adopt WiFi or Bluetooth technology (i.e., leveraging proximity-based communication) for information spreading in MSNets, a portion of mobile traffic can be offloaded from cellular networks. For many delay-tolerant applications, it is beneficial for traffic offloading to pick some seed users as information sources, which help further spread the information to others in an epidemic-like manner…
In this paper, a salary-plus-bonus incentive mechanism is proposed to motivate WiFi Access Points (APs) to provide data offloading service for mobile network operators (MNOs). Under the proposed salary-plus-bonus scheme, WiFi APs are rewarded not only based on offloaded data volume but also based on the quality of their offloading service. The interactions between WiFi APs and the MNO under this incentive mechanism are then studied using Stackelberg game. By differentiating whether WiFi APs are of the same type (e.g. offloading cost and quality), two cases (homogeneous and heterogeneous) are s…
The advantage of computational resources in edge computing near the data source has kindled growing interest in delay-sensitive Internet of Things (IoT) applications. However, the benefit of the edge server is limited by the uploading and downloading links between end-users and edge servers when these end-users seek computational resources from edge servers. The scenario becomes more severe when the user-end's devices are in the shaded region resulting in low uplink/downlink quality. In this paper, we consider a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted edge computing system, where the…
Mobile edge computing (MEC) is an emerging paradigm that mobile devices can offload the computation-intensive or latency-critical tasks to the nearby MEC servers, so as to save energy and extend battery life. Unlike the cloud server, MEC server is a small-scale data center deployed at a wireless access point, thus it is highly sensitive to both radio and computing resource. In this paper, we consider an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) based multi-user and multi-MEC-server system, where the task offloading strategies and wireless resources allocation are jointly invest…
Benefiting from the fusion of communication and intelligent technologies, network-enabled robots have become important to support future machine-assisted and unmanned applications. To provide high-quality services for robots in wide areas, hybrid satellite-terrestrial networks are a key technology. Through hybrid networks, computation-intensive and latency-sensitive tasks can be offloaded to mobile edge computing (MEC) servers. However, due to the mobility of mobile robots and unreliable wireless network environments, excessive local computations and frequent service migrations may significant…
Vehicular cloud computing (VCC) is proposed to effectively utilize and share the computing and storage resources on vehicles. However, due to the mobility of vehicles, the network topology, the wireless channel states and the available computing resources vary rapidly and are difficult to predict. In this work, we develop a learning-based task offloading framework using the multi-armed bandit (MAB) theory, which enables vehicles to learn the potential task offloading performance of its neighboring vehicles with excessive computing resources, namely service vehicles (SeVs), and minimizes the av…
Artificial intelligence and distributed algorithms have been widely used in mechanical fault diagnosis with the explosive growth of diagnostic data. A novel intelligent fault diagnosis system framework that allows intelligent terminals to offload computational tasks to Mobile edge computing (MEC) servers is provided in this paper, which can effectively address the problems of task processing delays and enhanced computational complexity. As the resources at the MEC and intelligent terminals are limited, performing reasonable resource allocation optimization can improve the performance, especial…
Considering the user mobility and unpredictable mobile edge computing (MEC) environments, this paper studies the intelligent task offloading problem in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled MEC with the assistance of digital twin (DT). We aim at minimizing the energy consumption of the entire MEC system by jointly optimizing mobile terminal users (MTUs) association, UAV trajectory, transmission power distribution and computation capacity allocation while respecting the constraints of mission maximum processing delays. Specifically, double deep Q-network (DDQN) algorithm stemming from deep rein…
Computation offloading becomes useful for users of limited computing power and mobile edge computing (MEC) can help mobile users perform their tasks more effectively. In this paper, we consider MEC when users perform tasks with local data as well as data at cloud storage servers, since users can often keep their data at cloud storage servers or have tasks that need to use public datasets. An optimization problem to minimize the total consumed energy of users as well as a base station (BS) is formulated with a total transmission time constraint, which is solved by converting into multiple binar…
With the rapid development of autonomous driving technologies, it becomes difficult to reconcile the conflict between ever-increasing demands for high process rate in the intelligent automotive tasks and resource-constrained on-board processors. Fortunately, vehicular edge computing (VEC) has been proposed to meet the pressing resource demands. Due to the delay-sensitive traits of automotive tasks, only a heterogeneous vehicular network with multiple access technologies may be able to handle these demanding challenges. In this paper, we propose an intelligent task offloading framework in heter…
Vehicular fog computing (VFC) pushes the cloud computing capability to the distributed fog nodes at the edge of the Internet, enabling compute-intensive and latency-sensitive computing services for vehicles through task offloading. However, a heterogeneous mobility environment introduces uncertainties in terms of resource supply and demand, which are inevitable bottlenecks for the optimal offloading decision. Also, these uncertainties bring extra challenges to task offloading under the oblivious adversary attack and data privacy risks. In this article, we develop a new adversarial online learn…
