Mobile Edge Computing Scenario Research Articles

A mobile edge computing-focused transferable sensitive data identification method based on product quantization

Sensitive data identification represents the initial and crucial step in safeguarding sensitive information. With the ongoing evolution of the industrial internet, including its interconnectivity across various sectors like the electric power industry, the potential for sensitive data to traverse different domains increases, thereby altering the composition of sensitive data. Consequently, traditional approaches reliant on sensitive vocabularies struggle to adequately address the challenges posed by identifying sensitive data in the era of information abundance. Drawing inspiration from advancements in natural language processing within the realm of deep learning, we propose a transferable Sensitive Data Identification method based on Product Quantization, named PQ-SDI. This innovative approach harnesses both the composition and contextual cues within textual data to accurately pinpoint sensitive information within the context of Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). Notably, PQ-SDI exhibits proficiency not only within a singular domain but also demonstrates adaptability to new domains following training on heterogeneous datasets. Moreover, the method autonomously identifies sensitive data throughout the entire process, eliminating the necessity for human upkeep of sensitive vocabularies. Extensive experimentation with the PQ-SDI model across four real-world datasets, resulting in performance improvements ranging from 2% to 5% over the baseline model and achieves an accuracy of up to 94.41%. In cross-domain trials, PQ-SDI achieved comparable accuracy to training and identification within the same domain. Furthermore, our experiments showcased the product quantization technique significantly reduces the parameter size by tens of times for the subsequent sensitive data identification phase, particularly beneficial for resource-constrained environments characteristic of MEC scenarios. This inherent advantage not only bolsters sensitive data protection but also mitigates the risk of data leakage during transmission, thus enhancing overall security measures in MEC environments.

A secure cross-domain authentication scheme based on threshold signature for MEC

The widespread adoption of fifth-generation mobile networks has spurred the rapid advancement of mobile edge computing (MEC). By decentralizing computing and storage resources to the network edge, MEC significantly enhances real-time data access services and enables efficient processing of large-scale dynamic data on resource-limited devices. However, MEC faces considerable security challenges, particularly in cross-domain service environments, where every device poses a potential security threat. To address this issue, this paper proposes a secure cross-domain authentication scheme based on a threshold signature tailored to MEC’s multi-subdomain nature. The proposed scheme employs a (t,n) threshold mechanism to bolster system resilience and security, catering to large-scale, dynamic, and decentralized MEC scenarios. Additionally, the proposed scheme features an efficient authorization update function that facilitates the revocation of malicious nodes. Security analysis confirmed that the proposed scheme satisfies unforgeability, collusion resistance, non-repudiation and forward security. Theoretical evaluation and experimental simulation verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme. Compared with existing schemes, the proposed scheme has higher computational performance while implementing secure authorization updates.

Safe-Learning-Based Location-Privacy-Preserved Task Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing

Mobile edge computing (MEC) integration with 5G/6G technologies is an essential direction in mobile communications and computing. However, it is crucial to be aware of the potential privacy implications of task offloading in MEC scenarios, specifically the leakage of user location information. To address this issue, this paper proposes a location-privacy-preserved task offloading (LPTO) scheme based on safe reinforcement learning to balance computational cost and privacy protection. This scheme uses the differential privacy technique to perturb the user’s actual location to achieve location privacy protection. We model the privacy-preserving location perturbation problem as a Markov decision process (MDP), and we develop a safe deep Q-network (DQN)-based LPTO (SDLPTO) scheme to select the offloading policy and location perturbation policy dynamically. This approach effectively mitigates the selection of high-risk state–action pairs by conducting a risk assessment for each state–action pair. Simulation results show that the proposed SDLPTO scheme has a lower computational cost and location privacy leakage than the benchmarks. These results highlight the significance of our approach in protecting user location privacy while achieving improved performance in MEC environments.

Stackelberg-Game-Based Intelligent Offloading Incentive Mechanism for a Multi-UAV-Assisted Mobile-Edge Computing System

We study the intelligent offloading problem for a multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (multi-UAV)-assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) system in a MEC scenario where a natural disaster has damaged the edge server. The study has two steps. First, the task offloading destination is determined by minimizing the total energy consumption of the multiple UAVs in the system. We propose the server selection game-theoretic (SSGT) algorithm and demonstrate its convergence through simulation experiments. Second, we propose an offloading incentive mechanism to price computing resources for a single UAV-MEC server. Considering the UAV’s power consumption and mobile users’ willingness, we model the interaction between the UAV-MEC server and mobile users as a Stackelberg game. We prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium by theoretical analysis and experimental verification and design the multi-round iterative game (MRIG) algorithm based on arithmetic descent to achieve the optimal solution, i.e., the utility tradeoff between the UAV-MEC server and mobile users. Finally, the simulation results show that our proposed scheme can increase the value of overall user satisfaction (SoU) more than other schemes, which proves that the incentive mechanism of resource pricing can supply computing power support for ground mobile users in a UAV-assisted MEC system more effectively.

MSM: Mobility-Aware Service Migration for Seamless Provision: A Data-Driven Approach

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a promising approach to support high-quality time-sensitive applications. With the increasing number of mobile devices, achieving efficient service migration management has become non-trivial in MEC. In addition, the service migration issue is difficult to be solved in real-time due to user mobility and dynamic network conditions. In this paper, we investigate the mobility-aware service migration problem in MEC by introducing a data-driven framework. Firstly, service migration is formulated as an optimization problem for minimizing the long-term system delay that consists of computing, communication, and migration delays. Secondly, we propose a Mobility-aware Service Migration scheme, named MSM, consisting of three layers: 1) the data collection layer; 2) the association patterns analysis layer; and 3) the service migration layer. Specifically, we first collect users’ historical Wi-Fi traces to mine the association patterns. We then design a user management mechanism to reduce the complexity of decision-making by using user association patterns. Finally, we formulate the service migration as a 2D-Markov decision process and devise a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based algorithm to obtain service migration decisions in a large-scale MEC scenario. Extensive data-driven experiments are conducted to demonstrate the efficacy of MSM in reducing the system delay.

Dynamic video service migration in flying edge computing networks

Recently, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and service migration policies have shown promising results to improve the user experience and optimize infrastructure resources. In addition, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) appear as a promising solution to provide cloud service in collaboration with traditional MEC scenarios. However, in conjunction with the resources available on users' devices, contextual information has been ignored by most policies. In this article, we propose a service migration strategy based on contextual information and evaluate the influence of user mobility on migration strategies, called DVSM. Simulation results highlight the superior performance of the DVSM compared to state-of-the-art algorithms and a performance equivalent to the optimal solution when the collection and analysis of context information are carried out correctly.

Joint DNN partitioning and task offloading in mobile edge computing via deep reinforcement learning

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly prevalent, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have become a crucial tool for developing and advancing AI applications. Considering limited computing and energy resources on mobile devices (MDs), it is a challenge to perform compute-intensive DNN tasks on MDs. To attack this challenge, mobile edge computing (MEC) provides a viable solution through DNN partitioning and task offloading. However, as the communication conditions between different devices change over time, DNN partitioning on different devices must also change synchronously. This is a dynamic process, which aggravates the complexity of DNN partitioning. In this paper, we delve into the issue of jointly optimizing energy and delay for DNN partitioning and task offloading in a dynamic MEC scenario where each MD and the server adopt the pre-trained DNNs for task inference. Taking advantage of the characteristics of DNN, we first propose a strategy for layered partitioning of DNN tasks to divide the task of each MD into subtasks that can be either processed on the MD or offloaded to the server for computation. Then, we formulate the trade-off between energy and delay as a joint optimization problem, which is further represented as a Markov decision process (MDP). To solve this, we design a DNN partitioning and task offloading (DPTO) algorithm utilizing deep reinforcement learning (DRL), which enables MDs to make optimal offloading decisions. Finally, experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm outperforms existing non-DRL and DRL algorithms with respect to processing delay and energy consumption, and can be applied to different DNN types.

Joint Communication and Computation Cooperation in Wireless-Powered Mobile-Edge Computing Networks With NOMA

Incorporating wireless power transfer (WPT) into mobile edge computing (MEC) is an effective way to enhance the self-sustainability of the MEC network. However, it is susceptible to the effect of double-far-near. Meanwhile, inspired by the fact that non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has shown its great potential in improving the spectral efficiency of the network over OMA, this paper investigates a cooperative computation offloading scheme for a basic three-node wireless powered MEC scenario with NOMA, where users overcome the effect of double-far-near through joint communication and computation cooperation. Specifically, we consider a “harvest-then-offload” protocol composed of three stages. In the first stage, users harvest wireless energy signals from the access point (AP). In the second and third stages, based on NOMA, users offload their partial computing tasks on the same time-frequency resource block by using the harvested energy, in which the near user can cooperatively compute and forward the computing task of the far user. We formulate an optimization problem to minimize the transmission energy consumption of the AP by jointly optimizing the transmission power, the offloading coefficient and the duration of each stage. Due to the non-convexity of the formulated problem, we first transform it into an equivalent one by using the variable substitution method. Then, we propose an efficient iterative algorithm based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) and Lagrangian duality method to solve this transformed problem. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has good convergence and the proposed scheme can achieve the best performance compared with several baseline schemes, which highlights the superiority of the proposed scheme.

Dynamic SFC placement scheme with parallelized SFCs and reuse of initialized VNFs: An A3C-based DRL approach

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a well-known network architecture that extends cloud computing to the network edge. Compared with cloud computing, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) can provide flexible services in MEC for mobile users. Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) have emerged as software-based hardware middleboxes by NFV technology to host real-time applications. Basically, the combination of multiple VNF instances is defined as a Service Function Chain (SFC), which can provide dynamic service requirements in the MEC. Despite the rapid growth of MEC and the widespread support of service providers for SFC, many issues are still challenging and need to be addressed. In MEC scenarios with limited resources, the effective placement of SFCs with the aim of resource efficiency remains a challenging problem. Motivated by the scalability shortcomings of existing schemes to solve dynamic placement of SFCs, we propose Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)-based approaches to solve this problem, i.e., Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (A3C). The proposed scheme is based on the reuse of initialized VNFs to improve the Quality of Service (QoS), which is developed with the aim of maximizing the long-term cumulative reward. In addition, a parallel processing approach of SFCs is included in the proposed scheme, which can split the traffic in each flow into sub-flows. This shares the processing load by instantiating duplicate instances of each VNF type in the SFC. The simulation results guarantee the efficiency of the proposed scheme and improves the average performance between 6% and 24% compared to the state-of-the-art clustering methods.

RLCS: Towards a robust and efficient mobile edge computing resource scheduling and task offloading system based on graph neural network

As the Internet of Things (IoT) keeps evolving, next-generation IoT (NG-IoT) scenarios empower various applications which require low-latency connections or high bandwidth support. Mobile edge computing (MEC) is then proposed to provide users with low-latency computing services. However, the massive and heterogeneous nature of user devices and MEC servers also brings some new challenges for resource management and task offloading. Existing works have some shortcomings because of adopting a coarse-grained task model or neglecting task graph information. The booming of artificial intelligence (AI) provides us with a more robust approach to addressing these issues. In this paper, we propose an NG-IoT user task offloading and resource scheduling architecture in the MEC scenario. We formulate our problem objective as minimizing average user task completion time (TCT). To solve the problem, we propose a Reinforcement Learning based algorithm for Container Scheduling (RLCS) and cooperating with the graph convolutional network (GCN) technique. We perform RLCS training and evaluate RLCS performance in the simulated environment. Evaluation results indicate that RLCS outperforms other baselines (e.g., reinforcement learning based algorithm, heuristic algorithm) in multiple experimental settings.

SECHO: A deep reinforcement learning-based scheme for secure handover in mobile edge computing

The experience of users in Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) highly depends on data offloading whose major bottle neck is the design of handover scheme. Existing research advocates that offloading security and quality of service (QoS) should be both considered for an optimal handover. However, recent studies concentrate on improving QoS while neglect security. Due to the complexity of MEC scenarios, generating an optimal handover scheme improving both QoS and security remains a challenge. To solve this problem, we propose SECHO, a secure handover scheme for blockchain-based single-user mobile edge computing system. Then, we design a security policy selection algorithm of offloading tasks to guarantees security performance and controls overhead. Finally, we customize the neural network for a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to realize optimal handover, where a security policy selection method is engaged to collaboratively enhance offloading QoS while decreasing underlying risks. Simulation results show that SECHO leads a 29.6%–302% advantage in overall performance than existing approaches. It proves that our proposal is effective to achieve secure handover while not degrading offloading QoS.

Joint resource optimization and trajectory design for energy minimization in UAV-assisted mobile-edge computing systems

This paper studies an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted mobile-edge computing (MEC) system, where a rotary-wing UAV equipped with computing platforms is used to assist ground users (GUs) with insufficient computing resource. Each GU offloads part of the task to the UAV for computation through the uplink, and the remaining computation task is computed by itself. Then, UAV will return the results to the corresponding GU via downlink. Considering the results for each GU is not only used by itself, but may also be sent to other GUs for data fusion, we thus design two specific scenarios in this paper: (1) homologous UAV-assisted MEC scenario, i.e. UAV receives the computation task of GUs and then returns the results to the identical GUs, and (2) non-homologous UAV-assisted MEC scenario, i.e., UAV receives the computation task of source GUs and returns the results to the corresponding destination GUs. For these two scenarios, we propose an energy minimization problem by jointly optimizing task partition, the time slot length and UAV trajectory. In particular, we use the path discretization approach to convert the problem as a problem form which is finite variables. Since the problem is non-convex, we use successive convex approximation (SCA) techniques to tackle the non-convexity. Considering the initial trajectory has an important affect on the experimental result, then a specific trajectory initialization design via combining with the Pickup-and-Delivery Problem (PDP) is proposed. Numerical results proof our proposed design is superior compared with the benchmark cases.

BiLSTM-based Federated Learning Computation Offloading and Resource Allocation Algorithm in MEC

Mobile edge computing (MEC) driven by 5G cellular systems has recently emerged as a promising paradigm, enabling mobile devices (MDs) with limited computing resources to offload various computation-intensive tasks (such as autopilot, online game) to edge servers to enhance the data processing capabilities of MDs. However, the uncertainty of wireless channel state and data volume of offloading tasks, as well as the data security privacy of offloading tasks, bring serious challenges to computation offloading in MEC. In this article, we consider a time-varying MEC scenario and formalize the delay and energy consumption during the computation offloading process as a joint optimization problem. Then the optimization problem is decomposed into two sub-problems: intelligent task prediction and resource allocation. Different from traditional methods, we improve the federated learning (FL) algorithm and propose a thoughtful cloud-edge-client FL task prediction mechanism based on Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory. Each participating MD trains the model locally without uploading data to the server, and periodically aggregates the model in the edge and in the cloud. The algorithm both eliminates the need to solve complex optimization problems and ensures user privacy security. Finally, experimental results show that our proposed algorithm significantly outperforms other benchmark algorithms in energy efficiency.

Joint Service Caching, Resource Allocation and Computation Offloading in Three-Tier Cooperative Mobile Edge Computing System

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) provides cloud-like computing functionalities for mobile devices (MDs) by deploying servers at the edge of future 6 G network. The cooperation among multi-servers and remote cloud offers low-latency services for MDs, meeting the demand of numerous delay-sensitive computation tasks. However, the limited storage capacity of edge servers makes it difficult to cache all kinds of services from the cloud simultaneously. Furthermore, the available bandwidth of communication links and the computation capacity of edge servers are insufficient for all MDs. In this paper, we consider a multi-server MEC scenario, where exists the competitions of multiple MDs for communication and computation resource, and various services for storage capacity. We investigate task offloading and resource allocation strategy in the three-tier MEC system, and explore the service caching strategy of the edge server. We aim at minimizing the cost of delay and energy consumption, and formulate the joint optimization problem as Markov Decision Process (MDP). Based on Double Deep Q-Network (DDQN) algorithm, the joint service caching, resource allocation and computation offloading scheme (SCRACO) is proposed to solve the problem. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce total cost of the system compared with other three benchmarks.

Non-cooperative game algorithms for computation offloading in mobile edge computing environments

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has become a promising technology for 5G networks. Computation offloading is an essential issue of MEC, which enables mobile User Equipment (UE) to enjoy rich wireless resources and huge computing power anywhere. This paper considers the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) of UEs in 5G MEC systems and presents a dynamic non-cooperative game (QCOG-DG) algorithm and a static non-cooperative game (QCOG-SG) algorithm for computation offloading of MEC applications. We establish an MEC computation offloading model by considering the QoE requirements of UEs, and discuss the communication overheads, computation cost, and energy consumption models to minimize the energy consumption and time delay of each UE. Considering that there are multiple UEs who want to offload their computation tasks to a resource-constrained MEC server, and each UE is selfish and competitive, we formulate the problem of computation offloading decision as a non-cooperative game model. We prove the existence of a Nash Equilibrium (NE) solution for the proposed game model. In addition, we propose an algorithm that jointly optimizes energy consumption and time delay under QoE preferences to achieve optimal offloading benefits for each UE. Moreover, we respectively propose a dynamic non-cooperative game (QCOG-DG) algorithm and a static non-cooperative game (QCOG-SG) algorithm to efficiently find the NE solution. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed MEC computation offloading model and the QCOG-DG and QCOG-SG algorithms. Simulation results show that the proposed QCOG-DG algorithm can efficiently find the NE solutions in the MEC scenarios with UEs of different sizes.

Deep Learning-Based Dynamic Computation Task Offloading for Mobile Edge Computing Networks.

This paper investigates the computation offloading problem in mobile edge computing (MEC) networks with dynamic weighted tasks. We aim to minimize the system utility of the MEC network by jointly optimizing the offloading decision and bandwidth allocation problems. The optimization of joint offloading decisions and bandwidth allocation is formulated as a mixed-integer programming (MIP) problem. In general, the problem can be efficiently generated by deep learning-based algorithms for offloading decisions and then solved by using traditional optimization methods. However, these methods are weakly adaptive to new environments and require a large number of training samples to retrain the deep learning model once the environment changes. To overcome this weakness, in this paper, we propose a deep supervised learning-based computational offloading (DSLO) algorithm for dynamic computational tasks in MEC networks. We further introduce batch normalization to speed up the model convergence process and improve the robustness of the model. Numerical results show that DSLO only requires a few training samples and can quickly adapt to new MEC scenarios. Specifically, it can achieve normalized system utility by using only four training samples per MEC scenario. Therefore, DSLO enables the fast deployment of computation offloading algorithms in future MEC networks.

Adaptive Processor Frequency Adjustment for Mobile-Edge Computing With Intermittent Energy Supply

With astonishing speed, bandwidth, and scale, mobile-edge computing (MEC) has played an increasingly important role in the next generation of connectivity and service delivery. Yet, along with the massive deployment of MEC servers, the ensuing energy issue is now on an increasingly urgent agenda. In the current context, the large-scale deployment of renewable-energy-supplied MEC servers is perhaps the most promising solution for the incoming energy issue. Nonetheless, as a result of the intermittent nature of their power sources, these special design MEC servers must be more cautious about their energy usage, in a bid to maintain their service sustainability as well as service standard. Targeting optimization on a single-server MEC scenario, we, in this article, propose neural network-based adaptive frequency adjustment (NAFA), an adaptive processor frequency adjustment solution, to enable an effective plan of the server’s energy usage. By learning from the historical data revealing request arrival and energy harvest pattern, the deep reinforcement learning-based solution is capable of making intelligent schedules on the server’s processor frequency, so as to strike a good balance between service sustainability and service quality. The superior performance of NAFA is substantiated by real-data-based experiments, wherein NAFA demonstrates up to 20% increase in the average request acceptance ratio and up to 50% reduction in average request processing time.

PDMA: Probabilistic service migration approach for delay‐aware and mobility‐aware mobile edge computing

AbstractAs a key technology in the 5G era, mobile edge computing (MEC) has developed rapidly in recent years. MEC aims to reduce the service delay of mobile users, while alleviating the processing pressure on the core network. MEC can be regarded as an extension of cloud computing on the user side, which can deploy edge servers and bring computing resources closer to mobile users, and provide more efficient interactions. However, due to the user's dynamic mobility, the distance between the user and the edge server will change dynamically, which may cause fluctuations in Quality of Service. Therefore, when a mobile user moves in the MEC environment, certain approaches are needed to schedule services deployed on the edge server to ensure the user experience. In this article, we model service scheduling in MEC scenarios and propose a delay‐aware and mobility‐aware service management approach based on concise probabilistic methods. This approach has low computational complexity and can effectively reduce service delay and migration costs. Furthermore, we conduct experiments by utilizing multiple realistic datasets and use iFogSim to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. The results show that our proposed approach can optimize the performance on service delay, with 8%–20% improvement and reduce the migration cost by more than 75% compared with baselines during the rush hours.

Multimodal biometric authentication for mobile edge computing

In this paper, we describe a novel Privacy Preserving Biometric Authentication (PPBA) system designed for Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and multimodal biometrics. We focus on hill climbing attacks that reveal biometric templates to insider adversaries despite the encrypted storage in the cloud. First, we present an impossibility result on the existence of two-party PPBA systems that are resistant to these attacks. To overcome this negative result, we add a non-colluding edge server for detecting hill climbing attacks both in semi-honest and malicious model. The edge server that stores each user’s secret parameters enables to outsource the biometric database to the cloud and perform matching in the encrypted domain. The proposed system combines Set Overlap and Euclidean Distance metrics using score level fusion. Here, both the cloud and edge servers cannot learn the fused matching score. Moreover, the edge server is prevented from accessing any partial score. The efficiency of the crypto-primitives employed for each biometric modality results in linear computation and communication overhead. Under different MEC scenarios, the new system is found to be most efficient with a 2-tier architecture, which achieves %75 lower latency compared to mobile cloud computing.

Enhancing Mobile Edge Computing with Efficient Load Balancing Using Load Estimation in Ultra-Dense Network.

With the exponential growth of mobile devices and the emergence of computationally intensive and delay-sensitive tasks, the enormous demand for data and computing resources has become a big challenge. Fortunately, the combination of mobile edge computing (MEC) and ultra-dense network (UDN) is considered to be an effective way to solve these challenges. Due to the highly dynamic mobility of mobile devices and the randomness of the work requests, the load imbalance between MEC servers will affect the performance of the entire network. In this paper, the software defined network (SDN) is applied to the task allocation in the MEC scenario of UDN, which is based on routing of corresponding information between MEC servers. Secondly, a new load balancing algorithm based on load estimation by user load prediction is proposed to solve the NP-hard problem in task offloading. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to prove the effectiveness and rapidity of the algorithm. At present, if the load balancing algorithm only depends on the actual load of each MEC, it usually leads to ping-pong effect. It is worth mentioning that our method can effectively reduce the impact of ping-pong effect. In addition, this paper also discusses the subtask offloading problem of divisible tasks and the corresponding solutions. At last, simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of our method in balancing load among MEC servers and its ability to optimize systematic stability.