Edge Cloud Computing Research Articles

A Comprehensive Overview of Control Algorithms, Sensors, Actuators, and Communication Tools of Autonomous All-Terrain Vehicles in Agriculture

This review paper discusses the development trends of agricultural autonomous all-terrain vehicles (AATVs) from four cornerstones, such as (1) control strategy and algorithms, (2) sensors, (3) data communication tools and systems, and (4) controllers and actuators, based on 221 papers published in peer-reviewed journals for 1960–2023. The paper highlights a comparative analysis of commonly employed control methods and algorithms by highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. It gives comparative analyses of sensors, data communication tools, actuators, and hardware-embedded controllers. In recent years, many novel developments in AATVs have been made due to advancements in wireless and remote communication, high-speed data processors, sensors, computer vision, and broader applications of AI tools. Technical advancements in fully autonomous control of AATVs remain limited, requiring research into accurate estimation of terrain mechanics, identifying uncertainties, and making fast and accurate decisions, as well as utilizing wireless communication and edge cloud computing. Furthermore, most of the developments are at the research level and have many practical limitations due to terrain and weather conditions.

Reinforcement Learning for Optimizing Delay-Sensitive Task Offloading in Vehicular Edge–Cloud Computing

Reinforcement Learning for Optimizing Delay-Sensitive Task Offloading in Vehicular Edge–Cloud Computing

Intelligent Edge-Cloud Framework for Water Quality Monitoring in Water Distribution System

Ensuring consistent high water quality is paramount in water management planning. This paper addresses this objective by proposing an intelligent edge-cloud framework for water quality monitoring within the water distribution system (WDS). Various scenarios—cloud computing, edge computing, and hybrid edge-cloud computing—are applied to identify the most effective platform for the proposed framework. The first scenario brings the analysis closer to the data generation point (at the edge). The second and third scenarios combine both edge and cloud platforms for optimised performance. In the third scenario, sensor data are directly sent to the cloud for analysis. The proposed framework is rigorously tested across these scenarios. The results reveal that edge computing (scenario 1) outperforms cloud computing in terms of latency, throughput, and packet delivery ratio obtaining 20.33 ms, 148 Kb/s, and 97.47%, respectively. Notably, collaboration between the edge and cloud enhances the accuracy of classification models with an accuracy of up to 94.43%, this improvement was achieved while maintaining the energy consumption rate at the lowest value. In conclusion, our study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed intelligent edge-cloud framework in optimising water quality monitoring, and the superior performance of edge computing, coupled with collaborative edge-cloud strategies, underscores the practical viability of this approach.

Genetic algorithm-based secure cooperative control for high-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown dynamics

AbstractResearch has recently grown on multi-agent systems (MAS) and their coordination and secure cooperative control, for example in the field of edge-cloud computing. MAS offers robustness and flexibility compared to centralized systems by distributing control across decentralized agents, allowing the system to adapt and scale without overhaul. The collective behavior emerging from agent interactions can solve complex tasks beyond individual capabilities. However, controlling high-order nonlinear MAS with unknown dynamics raises challenges. This paper proposes an enhanced genetic algorithm strategy to enhance secure cooperative control performance. An efficient encoding method, adaptive decoding schemes, and heuristic initialization are introduced. These innovations enable compelling exploration of the solution space and accelerate convergence. Individual enhancement via load balancing, communication avoidance, and iterative refinement intensifies local search. Simulations demonstrate superior performance over conventional algorithms for complex control problems with uncertainty. The proposed method promises robust, efficient, and consistent solutions by adapting to find optimal points and exploiting promising areas in the space. This has implications for securely controlling real-world MAS across domains like robotics, power systems, and autonomous vehicles.

Blockchain-Enabled Privacy-Preserving Authentication Mechanism for Transportation CPS With Cloud-Edge Computing

In this article, we propose a secure and effective blockchain-enabled privacy-preserving authentication scheme for the transportation cyber-physical system (CPS) with the cloud-edge computing environment, which supports unconditional anonymity and data batch integrity verification while greatly simplifying key management issues. The proposed privacy-preserving authentication scheme employs an elliptic curve to construct a pairing-free ring signature scheme, which greatly reduces the resources overhead in the transportation CPS with cloud-edge computing. Moreover, the authentication process is performed on the blockchain to provide more reliable service information for vehicular communication. Furthermore, the security proof of the scheme is demonstrated based on the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem under the random oracle model, and gives the corresponding security analysis. Finally, a simulation experiment demonstrates that the proposed scheme is feasible compared with the existing schemes.

Design of Personalized Recommendation System for Teaching Resources Based on Cloud Edge Computing

With the continuous development of cloud computing and edge computing technologies, the education sector is gradually applying these technologies to enhance the management and utilization efficiency of teaching resources. Therefore, to address the issue of information overload mentioned above, it is necessary to establish a personalized recommendation system based on user needs, preferences, and other information, recommending products, information, and resources that may be of interest to users. This can not only save users search time, but also alleviate the problem of information overload to some extent. On this basis, this article discussed a new content oriented recommendation method: constructing a user interest feature vector resource association matching model, and analyzing it to achieve recommendation of similar resources. The experimental results showed that the MAE (Mean Absolute Error) value of personalized recommendation based on CF (Collaborative Filtering) algorithm was below 0.8, which was smaller than other algorithms, indicating high accuracy of recommendation based on CF algorithm.

Forecasting Trends in Cloud-Edge Computing: Unleashing the Power of Attention Mechanisms

Forecasting Trends in Cloud-Edge Computing: Unleashing the Power of Attention Mechanisms

Optimized Multi-User Dependent Tasks Offloading in Edge-Cloud Computing Using Refined Whale Optimization Algorithm

Optimized Multi-User Dependent Tasks Offloading in Edge-Cloud Computing Using Refined Whale Optimization Algorithm

Reinforcement Learning-Based Offloading for RIS-Aided Cloud-Edge Computing in IoT Networks: Modeling, Analysis and Optimization

Reinforcement Learning-Based Offloading for RIS-Aided Cloud-Edge Computing in IoT Networks: Modeling, Analysis and Optimization

A Trust-Aware and Authentication-Based Collaborative Method for Resource Management of Cloud-Edge Computing in Social Internet of Things

The Social Internet of Things (S-IoT) paradigm is focused on topic of the Internet of Things (IoT), which accelerates the object issues by working with the concept of social networks. Searching and finding a new object in the community are considered to manage the number of friends and complex relationships between them and affect the ability to navigate at the cloud-edge layer, and resources, such as battery lifetime of S-IoT devices and energy resources, are important challenges in this field. In the processing of social messages of remote devices, increasing the battery life of devices that require such requirements plays the most important role. In this research, a collaboration scenario is presented to consider object attributes, friend’s functions and intelligent friend selection among objects for group messaging. First, a general reference model is designed and presented to select a friend to access group message remote processing services and minimize cloud-edge resources. The simulation results show that, for the correct communication of friends at the edge of the network and in each service discovery, according to the length of the path in the network, it is possible to establish stable communication and make better service with the least possible. The results show that if we want to develop a method for friendship between objects in communication in cloud computing, the proposed method can greatly improve the effectiveness of providing reliable message processing types.

PowerGen: Resources Utilization and Power Consumption Data Generation Framework for Energy Prediction in Edge and Cloud Computing

The explosive adoption of IoT applications in different domains, such as healthcare, transportation, and smart home and industry, has led to the pervasive adoption of edge and cloud computing. Large-scale edge and cloud data centers, consisting of thousands of computing servers, are hungry-energy infrastructure exacerbating issues such as environmental carbon footprint and high electricity costs. Developing energy-efficient solutions for cloud infrastructure requires knowledge of the correlation between computing server resource utilization and power consumption. Power consumption modeling exhibits this relationship and is crucial for energy savings. In this paper, we propose PowerGen, a framework to generate server resources utilization and corresponding power consumption dataset. The proposed framework will aid academic researchers to formulate correlations between resources utilization and power consumption by using power prediction models, and evaluate energy-aware resource management approaches in an edge-cloud computing system. It will help edge and cloud administrators to evaluate the energy-efficiency of heterogenous severs architectures in a datacenter. We exemplify the applicability of the dataset, generated by our proposed framework, in power prediction modeling and energy-aware scheduling for green computing scenarios.

Development of a Low-Cost Livestock Sorting Information Management System Leveraging Deep Learning, AI, and IoT Technologies

The implementation of effective livestock management methods is crucial to optimize agricultural operations. However, conventional livestock sorting and data management approaches encounter several obstacles regarding precision, labor requirements, and financial implications. The process exhibits inefficiency, increased labor costs, and an elevated risk of zoonotic infections. Housing livestock in extensive groups might intensify the transmission of diseases and complicate the surveillance and management of diseased animals. This study attempted to develop a Low-Cost Livestock Sorting Information Management System (LC-LSIMS) using a dataset enriched with crucial metrics and curated images collected over 24 months with the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The design of edge-cloud computing facilitates the redistribution of computational resources, leading to enhanced computational speed. The LC-LSIMS would have a predictive module to assist agricultural practitioners in safeguarding their crops during flood occurrences. This module will empower farmers to proactively anticipate natural phenomena, including floods, during intense rainfall. LC-LSIMS presents a multi-level design plan that facilitates attaining the specified goals. The findings obtained from the execution of the implemented system demonstrate a sorting accuracy of 91.47%, computational speed of 27.42 frames per second (fps), labor cost reduction of 50.84%, production efficiency improvement of 29.59%, and an average reduction in data input errors of 37.59%.

Service Chain Placement by Using an African Vulture Optimization Algorithm Based VNF in Cloud-Edge Computing

The use of virtual network functions (VNFs) enables the implementation of service function chains (SFCs), which is an innovative approach for delivering network services. The deployment of service chains on the actual network infrastructure and the establishment of virtual connections between VNF instances are crucial factors that significantly impact the quality of network services provided. Current research on the allocation of vital VNFs and resource constraints on the edge network has overlooked the potential benefits of employing SFCs with instance reuse. This strategy offers significant improvements in resource utilization and reduced startup time. The proposed approach demonstrates superior performance compared to existing state-of-the-art methods in maintaining inbound service chain requests, even in complex network typologies observed in real-world scenarios. We propose a novel technique called African vulture optimization algorithm for virtual network functions (AVOAVNF), which optimizes the sequential arrangement of SFCs. Extensive simulations on edge networks evaluate the AVOAVNF methodology, considering metrics such as latency, energy consumption, throughput, resource cost, and execution time. The results indicate that the proposed method outperforms BGWO, DDRL, BIP, and MILP techniques, reducing energy consumption by 8.35%, 12.23%, 29.54%, and 52.29%, respectively.

Communication and computational resource optimization for Industry 5.0 smart devices empowered by MEC

Smart devices in Industry 5.0, such as sensors and robots, are often limited by low battery life and finite computational resources, hindering their ability to perform complex tasks. By offloading computation-intensive tasks to Mobile Edge Cloud Computing (MEC) servers at the network’s edge, businesses can achieve real-time data processing and analysis, reducing communication latency, quicker response times, and improved system reliability. This work presents an integrated framework for MEC and Industry 5.0, aimed at enhancing the performance, efficiency, and flexibility of industrial processes. In particular, we propose a joint optimization problem that maximizes computational energy efficiency by optimally allocating resources, such as processing power and computational resources, as well as device association, in the most efficient manner possible. The problem is formulated as nonconvex/nonlinear, which is intractable and poses high complexity. To solve this challenging problem, we first transform and decouple the original optimization problem into a series of subproblems using the block coordinate descent method. Then, we iteratively obtain an efficient solution using convex optimization methods. In addition, our work sheds light on the fundamental trade-off between local computation and partial offloading schemes. The results show that for small data size requirements, the performance is comparable among different schemes. However, as data size increases, our proposed hybrid scheme, which includes a partial offloading scheme, outperforms others, highlighting the effectiveness of the proposed joint optimization scheme.

A decision-making mechanism for task offloading using learning automata and deep learning in mobile edge networks

The development of mobile networks has led to the emergence of challenges such as high delays in storage, computing and traffic management. To deal with these challenges, fifth-generation networks emphasize the use of technologies such as mobile cloud computing and mobile edge computing. Mobile Edge Cloud Computing (MECC) is an emerging distributed computing model that provides access to cloud computing services at the edge of the network and near mobile users. With offloading tasks at the edge of the network instead of transferring them to a remote cloud, MECC can realize flexibility and real-time processing. During computation offloading, the requirements of Internet of Things (IoT) applications may change at different stages, which is ignored in existing works. With this motivation, we propose a task offloading method under dynamic resource requirements during the use of IoT applications, which focuses on the problem of workload fluctuations. The proposed method uses a learning automata-based offload decision-maker to offload requests to the edge layer. An auto-scaling strategy is then developed using a long short-term memory network which can estimate the expected number of future requests. Finally, an Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic algorithm as a deep reinforcement learning-based approach decides to scale down or scale up. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been confirmed through extensive experiments using the iFogSim simulator. The numerical results show that the proposed method has better scalability and performance in terms of delay and energy consumption than the existing state-of-the-art methods.

Combinatorial metaheuristic methods to optimize the scheduling of scientific workflows in green DVFS-enabled edge-cloud computing

A significant challenge in high-performance computing is to ensure the even distribution of applications across computational resources, preventing issues such as resource fragmentation and network congestion. While cloud computing offers advantages, it introduces scheduling delays caused by data transmission. To address this issue, edge computing has emerged as an alternative to traditional cloud systems, aiming to minimize latency. While various methods have been proposed to address this challenge, they often prioritize one aspect at the expense of overall system performance. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm utilizing ant colony optimization to compute a fitness function and prioritize multiple objectives in scheduling. The algorithm effectively determines how to distribute applications between edge and cloud servers to enhance computational efficiency. This entails a delicate balance between scheduling delays and energy consumption in two distinct phases. Initially, the algorithm identifies applications sensitive to delays and ensures their execution on local edge servers. Subsequently, it identifies applications that require intensive computation and migrates them to the cloud layer, where cloud servers can process them. The results demonstrate that this approach reduces delay costs by 21.19% and decreases energy consumption by 13.76%.

Application-Aware Resource Allocation Based on Benefit–Cost Ratio in Computing Power Network with Heterogeneous Computing Resources

The computing power network (CPN) is expected to realize the efficient provisioning of heterogeneous computing power through the collaboration between cloud computing and edge computing. Heterogeneous computing resources consist of CPU, GPU, and other types of computing power. Different types of applications may have diverse requirements for heterogeneous computing resources, such as general applications, CPU-intensive applications, and GPU-intensive applications. Service providers are concerned about how to dynamically provide heterogeneous computing resources for different applications in a cost-effective manner, and how to deploy more applications as much as possible with limited resources. In this paper, the concept of the benefit–cost ratio (BCR) is proposed to quantify the usage efficiency of CPU and GPU in CPNs. An application-aware resource allocation (AARA) algorithm is designed for processing different types of applications. With massive simulations, we compare the performance of the AARA algorithm with a benchmark. In terms of blocking probability, resource utilization, and BCR, AARA achieves better performance than the benchmark. The simulation results indicate that more computing tasks can be accommodated by reducing 3.7% blocking probability through BCR-based resource allocation.

Exploring the Potential of Edge Computing: Use Cases and Benefits

Abstract: As cloud services and the Internet of Things continue to grow, a new computing paradigm has emerged - Edge Computing. This paper aims to explore the potential of Edge Computing by highlighting distinct use cases and benefits. By processing data at the network's edge, Edge Computing can address issues such as reaction speed, battery life, and data security. This paper also discusses the difference between cloud computing and Edge Computing, and presents a case study to demonstrate the practical applications of Edge Computing. The findings of this paper suggest that Edge Computing has the potential to revolutionize various industries and improve access quality for users.

Task Scheduling for Federated Learning in Edge Cloud Computing Environments by Using Adaptive-Greedy Dingo Optimization Algorithm and Binary Salp Swarm Algorithm

With the development of computationally intensive applications, the demand for edge cloud computing systems has increased, creating significant challenges for edge cloud computing networks. In this paper, we consider a simple three-tier computational model for multiuser mobile edge computing (MEC) and introduce two major problems of task scheduling for federated learning in MEC environments: (1) the transmission power allocation (PA) problem, and (2) the dual decision-making problems of joint request offloading and computational resource scheduling (JRORS). At the same time, we factor in server pricing and task completion, in order to improve the user-friendliness and fairness in scheduling decisions. The solving of these problems simultaneously ensures both scheduling efficiency and system quality of service (QoS), to achieve a balance between efficiency and user satisfaction. Then, we propose an adaptive greedy dingo optimization algorithm (AGDOA) based on greedy policies and parameter adaptation to solve the PA problem and construct a binary salp swarm algorithm (BSSA) that introduces binary coding to solve the discrete JRORS problem. Finally, simulations were conducted to verify the better performance compared to the traditional algorithms. The proposed algorithm improved the convergence speed of the algorithm in terms of scheduling efficiency, improved the system response rate, and found solutions with a lower energy consumption. In addition, the search results had a higher fairness and system welfare in terms of system quality of service.

Unsupervised Mixture Models on the Edge for Smart Energy Consumption Segmentation with Feature Saliency.

Smart meter datasets have recently transitioned from monthly intervals to one-second granularity, yielding invaluable insights for diverse metering functions. Clustering analysis, a fundamental data mining technique, is extensively applied to discern unique energy consumption patterns. However, the advent of high-resolution smart meter data brings forth formidable challenges, including non-Gaussian data distributions, unknown cluster counts, and varying feature importance within high-dimensional spaces. This article introduces an innovative learning framework integrating the expectation-maximization algorithm with the minimum message length criterion. This unified approach enables concurrent feature and model selection, finely tuned for the proposed bounded asymmetric generalized Gaussian mixture model with feature saliency. Our experiments aim to replicate an efficient smart meter data analysis scenario by incorporating three distinct feature extraction methods. We rigorously validate the clustering efficacy of our proposed algorithm against several state-of-the-art approaches, employing diverse performance metrics across synthetic and real smart meter datasets. The clusters that we identify effectively highlight variations in residential energy consumption, furnishing utility companies with actionable insights for targeted demand reduction efforts. Moreover, we demonstrate our method's robustness and real-world applicability by harnessing Concordia's High-Performance Computing infrastructure. This facilitates efficient energy pattern characterization, particularly within smart meter environments involving edge cloud computing. Finally, we emphasize that our proposed mixture model outperforms three other models in this paper's comparative study. We achieve superior performance compared to the non-bounded variant of the proposed mixture model by an average percentage improvement of 7.828%.