No Arabic abstract
Game Theory (GT) has been used with significant success to formulate, and either design or optimize, the operation of many representative communications and networking scenarios. The games in these scenarios involve, as usual, diverse players with conflicting goals. This paper primarily surveys the literature that has applied theoretical games to wireless networks, emphasizing use cases of upcoming Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC). MEC is relatively new and offers cloud services at the network periphery, aiming to reduce service latency backhaul load, and enhance relevant operational aspects such as Quality of Experience or security. Our presentation of GT is focused on the major challenges imposed by MEC services over the wireless resources. The survey is divided into classical and evolutionary games. Then, our discussion proceeds to more specific aspects which have a considerable impact on the game usefulness, namely: rational vs. evolving strategies, cooperation among players, available game information, the way the game is played (single turn, repeated), the game model evaluation, and how the model results can be applied for both optimizing resource-constrained resources and balancing diverse trade-offs in real edge networking scenarios. Finally, we reflect on lessons learned, highlighting future trends and research directions for applying theoretical model games in upcoming MEC services, considering both network design issues and usage scenarios.
In this letter, a novel framework is proposed for analyzing data offloading in a multi-access edge computing system. Specifically, a two-phase algorithm, is proposed, including two key phases: user association phase and task offloading phase. In the first phase, a ruin theory-based approach is developed to obtain the users association considering the users transmission reliability. Meanwhile, in the second phase, an optimization-based algorithm is used to optimize the data offloading process. In particular, ruin theory is used to manage the user association phase, and a ruin probability-based preference profile is considered to control the priority of proposing users. Here, ruin probability is derived by the surplus buffer space of each edge node at each time slot. Giving the association results, an optimization problem is formulated to optimize the amount of offloaded data aiming at minimizing the energy consumption of users. Simulation results show that the developed solutions guarantee system reliability under a tolerable value of surplus buffer size and minimize the total energy consumption of all users.
Many future innovative computing services will use Fog Computing Systems (FCS), integrated with Internet of Things (IoT) resources. These new services, built on the convergence of several distinct technologies, need to fulfil time-sensitive functions, provide variable levels of integration with their environment, and incorporate data storage, computation, communications, sensing, and control. There are, however, significant problems to be solved before such systems can be considered fit for purpose. The high heterogeneity, complexity, and dynamics of these resource-constrained systems bring new challenges to their robust and reliable operation, which implies the need for integral resilience management strategies. This paper surveys the state of the art in the relevant fields, and discusses the research issues and future trends that are emerging. We envisage future applications that have very stringent requirements, notably high-precision latency and synchronization between a large set of flows, where FCSs are key to supporting them. Thus, we hope to provide new insights into the design and management of resilient FCSs that are formed by IoT devices, edge computer servers and wireless sensor networks; these systems can be modelled using Game Theory, and flexibly programmed with the latest software and virtualization platforms.
Edge computing as a promising technology provides lower latency, more efficient transmission, and faster speed of data processing since the edge servers are closer to the user devices. Each edge server with limited resources can offload latency-sensitive and computation-intensive tasks from nearby user devices. However, edge computing faces challenges such as resource allocation, energy consumption, security and privacy issues, etc. Auction mechanisms can well characterize bidirectional interactions between edge servers and user devices under the above constraints in edge computing. As demonstrated by the existing works, auction and mechanism design approaches are outstanding on achieving optimal allocation strategy while guaranteeing mutual satisfaction among edge servers and user devices, especially for scenarios with scarce resources. In this paper, we introduce a comprehensive survey of recent researches that apply auction approaches in edge computing. Firstly, a brief overview of edge computing including three common edge computing paradigms, i.e., cloudlet, fog computing and mobile edge computing, is presented. Then, we introduce fundamentals and backgrounds of auction schemes commonly used in edge computing systems. After then, a comprehensive survey of applications of auction-based approaches applied for edge computing is provided, which is categorized by different auction approaches. Finally, several open challenges and promising research directions are discussed.
With the rapid development of wireless sensor networks, smart devices, and traditional information and communication technologies, there is tremendous growth in the use of Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services in our everyday life. IoT systems deal with high volumes of data. This data can be particularly sensitive, as it may include health, financial, location, and other highly personal information. Fine-grained security management in IoT demands effective access control. Several proposals discuss access control for the IoT, however, a limited focus is given to the emerging blockchain-based solutions for IoT access control. In this paper, we review the recent trends and critical needs for blockchain-based solutions for IoT access control. We identify several important aspects of blockchain, including decentralised control, secure storage and sharing information in a trustless manner, for IoT access control including their benefits and limitations. Finally, we note some future research directions on how to converge blockchain in IoT access control efficiently and effectively.
In this paper, we propose a matching theory based multi-user cooperative computing (MUCC) scheme to minimize the overall energy consumption of a group of user equipments (UEs), where the UEs can be classified into the following roles: resource demander (RD), resource provider (RP), and standalone UE (SU). We first determine the role of each UE by leveraging the roommate matching method. Then, we propose the college admission based algorithm to divide the UEs into multiple cooperation groups, each consisting of one RP and multiple RDs. Next, we propose the rotation swap operation to further improve the performance without deteriorating the system stability. Finally, we present an effective task offloading algorithm to minimize the energy consumption of all the cooperation groups. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.