Task Allocation Mechanism of Power Internet of Things Based on Cooperative Edge Computing

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are considered a promising example of an automatic emergency task in a dynamic marine environment. However, the maritime communication performance between UAVs and offshore platforms has become a severe challenge. Due to the complex marine environment, the task allocation and route planning efficiency of multiple UAVs in an intelligent ocean are not satisfactory. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an intelligent marine task allocation and route planning scheme for multiple UAVs based on improved particle swarm optimization combined with a genetic algorithm (GA-PSO). Based on the simulation of an intelligent marine control system, the traditional particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is improved by introducing partial matching crossover and secondary transposition mutation. The improved GA-PSO is used to solve the random task allocation problem of multiple UAVs and the two-dimensional route planning of a single UAV. The simulation results show that compared with the traditional scheme, the proposed scheme can significantly improve the task allocation efficiency, and the navigation path planned by the proposed scheme is also optimal.

While edge computing has the potential to offer low-latency services and overcome the limitations of traditional cloud computing, it presents new challenges in terms of trust, security, and privacy (TSP) in IoT environments. Cooperative edge computing (CEC) has emerged as a solution to address these challenges through resource sharing among edge nodes. However, for multi-infrastructure providers, incentive and trust mechanisms among edge nodes are crucial technical issues that must be addressed alongside system latency and reliability to meet performance requirements. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-assisted intelligent edge cooperation system (BIECS) to systematically solve these issues. By leveraging blockchain technology, we construct trust among edge nodes and employ an incentive mechanism for resource sharing among multi-infrastructure providers. We formulate the system performance optimization as a multi-objective joint optimization problem and solve it efficiently through a two-stage strategy for selecting edge nodes. We first design an improved Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) model for resource prediction and then select edge nodes for executing offloaded tasks and handling the corresponding blockchain process related to each task execution. To evaluate the performance of BIECS, we implement the system based on Hyperledger Fabric and design extensive experiments. Our proposed system achieves better performance in terms of system delay, throughput, and resource utilization compared to state-of-the-art schemes for edge cooperation.

The ground attack task allocation of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm is the key and difficult problem in the UAV ground attack mission planning. In response to this problem, the mathematical model is designed, in which the objective function is to maximize the target attack gain and minimize the target attack cost, and the target coverage, the target damage effect, the UAV attack threshold and the UAV range constraints are taken into account. And an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) including encoding and decoding rules, constraint handling rules and particle update rules are designed to solve the model. The simulation results show that, the proposed algorithm can effectively solve the task allocation model, and compared with other algorithms, the proposed algorithm has certain advantages.

Mobile edge storage is an emerging computing paradigm which enables users to enjoy high quality of experience when they access cloud services. However, extremely fast increasing multimedia data traffic from cloud to mobile users comes with the challenges of low-latency and high-bandwidth over cloud computing model. How to design cache strategies by exploiting terminal nodes' utility is still a challenging issue. In this paper, by exploiting 5G technology and cooperative edge computing, we propose a cooperative edge caching framework to tackle three issues simultaneously in the application scenarios of massive short video services: (1) reducing data transportation latency to improve mobile uses' quality of experience; (2) mitigating data traffic pressure on backbone network; (3) decreasing the workload on cloud servers. Firstly, we define a cooperative edge caching network model, in which many edge nodes equipped with capacities of storage, user admittance and Internet access form an ad hoc network and each node serves multiple mobile users. Secondly, we design a non-cooperative game model to investigate the cooperation behavior among the edge nodes, we allow each edge node server as a player and make decision of cache (storage) initialization and replacement strategies. Thirdly, we find there is a Nash Equilibrium in the proposed game. Finally, we design a distributed algorithm to achieve the equilibrium according to our theoretical analysis. Experiment results show that the proposed game-based edge caching strategy can improve mobile uses' quality of experience by 20% latency decreasing and reduce 80% backbone traffic and cloud workload.

Aiming at the problem that fixed mobile edge computing (MEC) server is difficult to meet the needs of mobile users and temporary computing services, this study proposes a network resource allocation strategy based on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cooperative edge computing. First, a UAV-aided MEC scene is designed, and a single UAV with an MEC server is used to provide auxiliary computing services for ground multiusers. Then, an optimization model aiming at total system delay is constructed by considering the system communication model and calculation model. Finally, Deep Q-Network is used to solve the optimization problem to obtain the best resource allocation scheme. Based on the experimental platform, the proposed strategy is demonstrated and analyzed. The results show that when the number of user equipment is 40, the total delay is about 33s, which is 35.29%, 31.25%, and 15.38% lower than other comparison strategies and effectively reduces the computing delay of users.

The Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is a population-based intelligent stochastic search technique encouraged from the intrinsic manner of bee swarm seeking for their food source. With flexibility for numerical experimentation, the PSO algorithm has been mostly used to resolve diverse kind of optimization problems. The PSO algorithm is frequently captured in local optima meanwhile handling the complex real-world problems. Many authors improved the standard PSO algorithm with different mutation strategies but an exhausted comprehensive overview about mutation strategies is still lacking. This article aims to furnish a concise and comprehensive study of problems and challenges that prevent the performance of the PSO algorithm. It has tried to provide guidelines for the researchers who are active in the area of the PSO algorithm and its mutation strategies. The objective of this study is divided into two sections: primarily to display the improvement of the PSO algorithm with mutation strategies that may enhance the performance of the standard PSO algorithm to great extent and secondly, to motivate researchers and developers to use the PSO algorithm to solve the complex real-world problems. This study presents a comprehensive survey of the various PSO algorithms based on mutation strategies. It is anticipated that this survey would be helpful to study the PSO algorithm in detail for researchers.

In this paper, we propose a novel multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm with a task allocation and archive-guided mutation strategy (TAMOPSO), which effectively solves the problem of inefficient search in traditional algorithms by assigning different evolutionary tasks to particles with different characteristics. First, TAMOPSO divides multiple subpopulations according to the particle distribution status of each iteration of the population and designs a new task allocation mechanism to improve the evolutionary search efficiency. Second, TAMOPSO adopts an adaptive Lévy flight strategy according to the population growth rate, automatically increasing the global variation probability to expand the search range when the population converges and enhancing the local variation to conduct fine search when the population disperses to realize the dynamics of global and local variations. Finally, TAMOPSO measures the contribution of particles to the population optimization through the particle evolution contribution rate index and filters out valuable historical solutions for subsequent reuse to accelerate the convergence speed; in addition, TAMOPSO improves the individual optimal particle selection mechanism, changes the bias of the traditional algorithm, ensures that each particle has an equal opportunity, and enhances the fairness of the selection process. The fairness of the selection process is enhanced at the same time. The performance of TAMOPSO is compared with ten existing algorithms on 22 standard test problems, and the experimental results show that TAMOPSO outperforms the other algorithms in several standard test problems and has better performance in solving multi-objective problems.

In this paper, we improved the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm with inertial weight by adopting the sigmoid function. The IPSO is applied to structural damage identification in frame structures. Firstly the theoretical background of the improved PSO (IPSO) algorithm is presented. Secondly, we use a suite of four famous benchmark functions to evaluate the algorithm performance. Some comparative studies on single and multi-damage of a 2-story rigid frame structure have been carried out. The results of the numerical simulation demonstrate that the approach can detect the structural damage with higher accuracy.

Unmanned-aerial-vehicle (UAV)-aided target tracking has been applied in many important practical scenarios such as target vehicle tracking missions. However, the limited computation capability of UAVs can hardly support computation-intensive tasks, like the target tracking with real-time video processing. Inspired by the strong computation capabilities of edge computing servers nowadays, this article develops an energy-efficient UAV-aided target tracking system, where the video processing tasks can be offloaded from a UAV to the edge nodes (ENs) along its flight trajectory. To select appropriate offloading ENs for efficient task processing and energy saving, we formulate a cost minimization problem by jointly optimizing the task execution time and the offloading energy consumption. To devise a practical offloading strategy, we propose an energy-efficient UAV’s task distribution (EUTD) algorithm by jointly taking the different computation capabilities among ENs, time and energy requirements for different tasks, and fast-changing wireless channel conditions into account. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can achieve significantly higher energy efficiency and lower latency in UAV-aided target tracking as compared with existing methods.

The task offloading and resource allocation strategies aim to provide efficient edge computing services for ground mobile devices in mobile edge computing (MEC) environments. In this paper, we propose a UAV-assisted dynamic deployment and decision-making framework (dDDM) to address the issue of insufficient base station coverage in remote areas or emergency scenarios, which leverages the flexibility and computational capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to supplement terrestrial cellular networks. We focus on optimizing the UAV trajectory to support and enhance the effectiveness of task offloading and resource allocation strategies under conditions of user mobility and stochastic task arrivals. Therefore, a joint optimization problem is formulated with the objective of minimizing the weighted sum of the total latency of ground mobile devices and the overall energy consumption of UAV. To solve this problem, the original optimization problem is decomposed into two subproblems: UAV trajectory planning, and decision-making for task offloading & computing resource allocation. For the UAV trajectory planning subproblem, we propose an improved particle swarm optimization(PSO) algorithm integrated with <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i>-means clustering, i.e., KMPSO algorithm, enabling dynamic UAV deployment in response to user mobility. For the task offloading and resource allocation decision-making, an improved black-winged kite algorithm (IBKA) is developed to determine optimal offloading and allocation strategies. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms existing benchmark algorithms in terms of both latency and energy consumption.

Task allocation for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarms is a complex challenge. Effective distribution of tasks among multiple UAVs necessitates the optimization of conflicting objectives, such as task balance, flight distance, cost, and target benefits. This multi-objective optimization problem is inherently intricate due to strong interdependencies, nonlinear relationships, and dynamic environments. Traditional methods, including heuristic algorithms, supervised machine learning, and basic reinforcement learning mechanisms, often suffer from low efficiency and strict requirements for data sources or supervision mechanisms. They also struggle to adapt to problems with large discrete action spaces. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel approach that integrates swarm intelligence simulation with reinforcement learning. The core of this approach is a reinforcement learning algorithm based on the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) framework. A key innovation is a customized DDPG variant specifically designed to handle the large, discrete action spaces inherent in UAV task allocation. Additionally, a behavior tree model is employed to simulate UAV swarm interactions, providing a realistic and verifiable environment for evaluating task allocation strategies. This simulation generates a rich dataset for training and testing reinforcement learning algorithms. The combined approach efficiently addresses the multi-objective optimization problem, enabling optimal task distribution for numerous UAVs. Compared to existing heuristic methods, the proposed approach demonstrates superior computational efficiency and solution quality, while maintaining reasonable convergence stability and environmental adaptability. Simulation-based validation ensures the approach’s robustness in dynamic environments, a critical factor for practical applications. Overall, the integration of simulation and reinforcement learning provides a powerful framework for tackling the complex task allocation problem in UAV swarms.

In this paper, we consider the use of a team of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to accomplish a search and rescue (SAR) mission in the minimum time possible while saving the maximum number of people. A novel technique for the SAR problem is proposed and referred to as the layered search and rescue (LSAR) algorithm. The novelty of LSAR involves simulating real disasters to distribute SAR tasks among UAVs. The performance of LSAR is compared, in terms of percentage of rescued survivors and rescue and execution times, with the max-sum, auction-based, and locust-inspired approaches for multi UAV task allocation (LIAM) and opportunistic task allocation (OTA) schemes. The simulation results show that the UAVs running the LSAR algorithm on average rescue approximately 74% of the survivors, which is 8% higher than the next best algorithm (LIAM). Moreover, this percentage increases with the number of UAVs, almost linearly with the least slope, which means more scalability and coverage is obtained in comparison to other algorithms. In addition, the empirical cumulative distribution function of LSAR results shows that the percentages of rescued survivors clustered around the [78%-100%] range under an exponential curve, meaning most results are above 50%. In comparison, all the other algorithms have almost equal distributions of their percentage of rescued survivor results. Furthermore, because the LSAR algorithm focuses on the center of the disaster, it finds more survivors and rescues them faster than the other algorithms, with an average of 55%~77%. Moreover, most registered times to rescue survivors by LSAR are bounded by a time of 04:50:02 with 95% confidence for a one-month mission time.

Fog computing has emerged as a potential solution to accommodate the explosive computational demand of mobile users. This potential mainly stems from the capacity of task offloading and allocation at the network edge, reducing the delay and improving the quality of service. However, optimizing the performance of a fog network is often challenging, when consider the distinct abilities and capacities of fog nodes. We study the distributed task allocation problem in such a heterogeneous fog computing network under noises. We formulate the problem as a social-concave game, where the players attempt to minimize their regret while converging to Nash equilibrium. We develop a no-regret strategy for task allocation. The strategy, namely bandit gradient ascent with momentum, is an online convex optimization algorithm with bandit feedback. Theoretical and numerical analysis show the superior performance of the proposed strategy for efficient task allocation compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

An improved chaos particle swarm optimization (CPSO) algorithm is proposed on path planning for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to overcome the inadequacy of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, which falls into local optimum easily and converges slowly in process with poor precision. Through the in-depth analysis of PSO algorithm, the chaos optimization (CO) algorithm principle is introduced into it based on the traditional update operations on the particles’ velocity and position; as a result, the diversity of particles is increased, the suboptimal search on path planning is avoided and the quickness accompanied with accuracy of convergence is improved. Combined with digital map for modeling the UAV’s flight environment, the 3-D path planning is achieved. As the simulation results demonstrated, this hybrid algorithm is superior to the traditional PSO algorithm on path searching, especially in the 3-D environment.

Driven by the dramatic growth in computing capability and the inherent mobility of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the recently advocated UAV edge computing paradigm is expected to enhance the coverage and the on-demand deployment capability of existing terrestrial edge computing systems. Nonetheless, due to the limited onboard resource of the UAV, single- UAV edge computing systems may still be incompetent when serving remote users. Although using multiple UAVs to form a traditional relay network is a viable solution to remote edge computing, it fails to exploit the computing capability of the UAVs. This entails a pressing need to develop multi-UAV remote edge computing mechanisms that allow the UAVs to handle part of the computation tasks using their local processors while conducting multi-hop computation task offloading. To achieve the best performance in such cases, the UAVs have to properly split their power budget for communication and computation and also move to suitable service locations. Nonetheless, finding the optimal UAV power allocation and deployment turns out to be an intractable high-dimensional monotonic optimization problem, even for a mild number of UAVs. To overcome this challenge, a more efficient algorithm that has a complexity only linear in the number of UAVs is developed by exploiting the special structure of this problem. In addition to analysis, numerical results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.