Xiaoyi Zhou , Liang Huang , Tong Ye , Weiqiang Sun
{"title":"Decomposition-based learning in drone-assisted wireless-powered mobile edge computing networks","authors":"Xiaoyi Zhou , Liang Huang , Tong Ye , Weiqiang Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.11.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.11.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-assisted wireless-powered Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) system, where UAVs provide computation and powering services to mobile terminals. We aim to maximize the number of completed computation tasks by jointly optimizing the offloading decisions of all terminals and the trajectory planning of all UAVs. The action space of the system is extremely large and grows exponentially with the number of UAVs. In this case, single-agent learning will require an overlarge neural network, resulting in insufficient exploration. However, the offloading decisions and trajectory planning are two subproblems performed by different executants, providing an opportunity for problem-solving. We thus adopt the idea of decomposition and propose a 2-Tiered Multi-agent Soft Actor-Critic (2T-MSAC) algorithm, decomposing a single neural network into multiple small-scale networks. In the first tier, a single agent is used for offloading decisions, and an online pretrained model based on imitation learning is specially designed to accelerate the training process of this agent. In the second tier, UAVs utilize multiple agents to plan their trajectories. Each agent exerts its influence on the parameter update of other agents through actions and rewards, thereby achieving joint optimization. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can be applied to scenarios with various location distributions of terminals, outperforming existing benchmarks that perform well only in specific scenarios. In particular, 2T-MSAC increases the number of completed tasks by 45.5% in the scenario with uneven terminal distributions. Moreover, the pretrained model based on imitation learning reduces the convergence time of 2T-MSAC by 58.2%.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1769-1781"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139294734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ziyi Lu , Tianxiong Wu , Jinshan Su , Yunting Xu , Bo Qian , Tianqi Zhang , Haibo Zhou
{"title":"Toward edge-computing-enabled collision-free scheduling management for autonomous vehicles at unsignalized intersections","authors":"Ziyi Lu , Tianxiong Wu , Jinshan Su , Yunting Xu , Bo Qian , Tianqi Zhang , Haibo Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.03.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.03.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the support of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology and computing power networks, the existing intersection traffic order is expected to benefit from efficiency improvements and energy savings by new schemes such as de-signalization. How to effectively manage autonomous vehicles for traffic control with high throughput at unsignalized intersections while ensuring safety has been a research hotspot. This paper proposes a collision-free autonomous vehicle scheduling framework based on edge-cloud computing power networks for unsignalized intersections where the lanes entering the intersections are undirectional, and designs an efficient communication system and protocol. First, by analyzing the collision point occupation time, this paper formulates an absolute value programming problem. Second, this problem is solved with low complexity by the Edge Intelligence Optimal Entry Time (EI-OET) algorithm based on edge-cloud computing power support. Then, the communication system and protocol are designed for the proposed scheduling scheme to realize efficient and low-latency vehicular communications. Finally, simulation experiments compare the proposed scheduling framework with directional and traditional traffic light scheduling mechanisms, and the experimental results demonstrate its high efficiency, low latency, and low complexity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1600-1610"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140091607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tong Tang , Yi Yang , Dapeng Wu , Ruyan Wang , Zhidu Li
{"title":"Chaotic moving video quality enhancement based on deep in-loop filtering","authors":"Tong Tang , Yi Yang , Dapeng Wu , Ruyan Wang , Zhidu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.09.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.09.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) has announced the latest generation of the Versatile Video Coding (VVC, H.266) standard. The in-loop filter in VVC inherits the De-Blocking Filter (DBF) and Sample Adaptive Offset (SAO) of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, H.265), and adds the Adaptive Loop Filter (ALF) to minimize the error between the original sample and the decoded sample. However, for chaotic moving video encoding with low bitrates, serious blocking artifacts still remain after in-loop filtering due to the severe quantization distortion of texture details. To tackle this problem, this paper proposes a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based VVC in-loop filter for chaotic moving video encoding with low bitrates. First, a blur-aware attention network is designed to perceive the blurring effect and to restore texture details. Then, a deep in-loop filtering method is proposed based on the blur-aware network to replace the VVC in-loop filter. Finally, experimental results show that the proposed method could averagely save 8.3% of bit consumption at similar subjective quality. Meanwhile, under close bit rate consumption, the proposed method could reconstruct more texture information, thereby significantly reducing the blocking artifacts and improving the visual quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1708-1715"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134914816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Practical frequency-hopping MIMO joint radar communications: Design and experiment","authors":"Jiangtao Liu , Kai Wu , Tao Su , J. Andrew Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.12.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.12.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Joint Radar and Communications (JRC) can implement two Radio Frequency (RF) functions using a single of resources, providing significant hardware, power and spectrum savings for wireless systems requiring both functions. Frequency-Hopping (FH) MIMO radar is a popular candidate for JRC because the achieved communication symbol rate can greatly exceed the radar pulse repetition frequency. However, practical transceiver imperfections can cause many existing theoretical designs to fail. In this work, we reveal for the first time the non-trivial impact of hardware imperfections on FH-MIMO JRC and model the impact analytically. We also design new waveforms and correspondingly develop a low-complexity algorithm to jointly estimate the hardware imperfections of unsynchronized receiver. In addition, using low-cost software-defined radios and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products, we build the first FH-MIMO JRC experimental platform with simultaneous over-the-air radar and communication validation. Confirmed by simulation and experimental results, the proposed designs achieve high performance for both radar and communications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1904-1914"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143355348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"End-to-end multi-granulation causality extraction model","authors":"Miao Wu , Qinghua Zhang , Chengying Wu , Guoyin Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.02.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.02.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Causality extraction has become a crucial task in natural language processing and knowledge graph. However, most existing methods divide causality extraction into two subtasks: extraction of candidate causal pairs and classification of causality. These methods result in cascading errors and the loss of associated contextual information. Therefore, in this study, based on graph theory, an <strong>E</strong>nd-to-end <strong>M</strong>ulti-<strong>G</strong>ranulation <strong>C</strong>ausality <strong>E</strong>xtraction model (EMGCE) is proposed to extract explicit causality and directly mine implicit causality. First, the sentences are represented on different granulation layers, that contain character, word, and contextual string layers. The word layer is fine-grained into three layers: word-index, word-embedding and word-position-embedding layers. Then, a granular causality tree of dataset is built based on the word-index layer. Next, an improved tagREtriplet algorithm is designed to obtain the labeled causality based on the granular causality tree. It can transform the task into a sequence labeling task. Subsequently, the multi-granulation semantic representation is fed into the neural network model to extract causality. Finally, based on the extended public SemEval 2010 Task 8 dataset, the experimental results demonstrate that EMGCE is effective.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1864-1873"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46773829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Game-theoretic private blockchain design in edge computing networks","authors":"Daoqi Han , Yang Liu , Fangwei Zhang , Yueming Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.12.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.12.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Considering the privacy challenges of secure storage and controlled flow, there is an urgent need to realize a decentralized ecosystem of private blockchain for cyberspace. A collaboration dilemma arises when the participants are self-interested and lack feedback of complete information. Traditional blockchains have similar faults, such as trustlessness, single-factor consensus, and heavily distributed ledger, preventing them from adapting to the heterogeneous and resource-constrained Internet of Things. In this paper, we develop the game-theoretic design of a two-sided rating with complete information feedback to stimulate collaborations for private blockchain. The design consists of an evolution strategy of the decision-making network and a computing power network for continuously verifiable proofs. We formulate the optimum rating and resource scheduling problems as two-stage iterative games between participants and leaders. We theoretically prove that the Stackelberg equilibrium exists and the group evolution is stable. Then, we propose a multi-stage evolution consensus with feedback on a block-accounting workload for metadata survival. To continuously validate a block, the metadata of the optimum rating, privacy, and proofs are extracted to store on a lightweight blockchain. Moreover, to increase resource utilization, surplus computing power is scheduled flexibly to enhance security by degrees. Finally, the evaluation results show the validity and efficiency of our model, thereby solving the collaboration dilemma in the private blockchain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1622-1634"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139878060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Uchechukwu Awada , Jiankang Zhang , Sheng Chen , Shuangzhi Li , Shouyi Yang
{"title":"Collaborative learning-based inter-dependent task dispatching and co-location in an integrated edge computing system","authors":"Uchechukwu Awada , Jiankang Zhang , Sheng Chen , Shuangzhi Li , Shouyi Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.08.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.08.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recently, several edge deployment types, such as on-premise edge clusters, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)-attached edge devices, telecommunication base stations installed with edge clusters, etc., are being deployed to enable faster response time for latency-sensitive tasks. One fundamental problem is where and how to offload and schedule multi-dependent tasks so as to minimize their collective execution time and to achieve high resource utilization. Existing approaches randomly dispatch tasks naively to available edge nodes without considering the resource demands of tasks, inter-dependencies of tasks and edge resource availability. These approaches can result in the longer waiting time for tasks due to insufficient resource availability or dependency support, as well as provider lock-in. Therefore, we present <em>EdgeColla</em>, which is based on the integration of edge resources running across multi-edge deployments. <em>EdgeColla</em> leverages <em>learning</em> techniques to intelligently <em>dispatch</em> multi-dependent tasks, and a variant bin-packing optimization method to <em>co-locate</em> these tasks firmly on available nodes to optimally utilize them. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets from Alibaba on task dependencies show that our approach can achieve optimal performance than the baseline schemes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1837-1850"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143313063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"High-throughput SatCom-on-the-move antennas: Technical overview and state-of-the-art","authors":"Yuanzhi He , Fan Yang , Guodong Han , Yuanyuan Li","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.11.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2023.11.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the rapid development of satellite communications, satellite antennas attract growing interest, especially the high-throughput SatCom-on-the-move antenna for providing high-speed connectivity in a mobile environment. While conventional antennas, such as parabolic dishes and planar waveguide arrays, enjoy a growing market, new kinds of antennas keep on emerging to meet diversified requirements in various satellite communication scenarios. This paper first introduces the design requirements, categories, and evolutions of SatCom-on-the-move antennas, and then discussed representative designs of mechanical scanning antennas and electronic scanning antennas, including their structures, principles, characteristics, and limitations in practical applications. Given the new requirements of satellite communications, this paper also highlighted some of the latest progress in this field, including the Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC)-based phased array antenna, the metasurface-based phased array antenna, and their hybrid versions. Finally, some critical challenges facing future antennas are discussed. It is believed that it's necessary to put concerted efforts from antenna, microwave, and material communities, etc., to advance SatCom-on-the-move antennas for the upcoming era of satellite communication.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1760-1768"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139293435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuhong Xie , Yuan Zhang , Tao Lin , Zipeng Pan , Si-Ze Qian , Bo Jiang , Jinyao Yan
{"title":"Short video preloading via domain knowledge assisted deep reinforcement learning","authors":"Yuhong Xie , Yuan Zhang , Tao Lin , Zipeng Pan , Si-Ze Qian , Bo Jiang , Jinyao Yan","doi":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.01.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dcan.2024.01.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Short video applications like TikTok have seen significant growth in recent years. One common behavior of users on these platforms is watching and swiping through videos, which can lead to a significant waste of bandwidth. As such, an important challenge in short video streaming is to design a preloading algorithm that can effectively decide which videos to download, at what bitrate, and when to pause the download in order to reduce bandwidth waste while improving the Quality of Experience (QoE). However, designing such an algorithm is non-trivial, especially when considering the conflicting objectives of minimizing bandwidth waste and maximizing QoE. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end <strong>D</strong>eep reinforcement learning framework with <strong>A</strong>ction <strong>M</strong>asking called DAM that leverages domain knowledge to learn an optimal policy for short video preloading. To achieve this, we introduce a reward shaping technique to minimize bandwidth waste and use action masking to make actions more reasonable, reduce playback rebuffering, and accelerate the training process. We have conducted extensive experiments using real-world video datasets and network traces including 4G/WiFi/5G. Our results show that DAM improves the QoE score by 3.73%-11.28% compared to state-of-the-art algorithms, and achieves an average bandwidth waste of only 10.27%-12.07%, outperforming all baseline methods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48631,"journal":{"name":"Digital Communications and Networks","volume":"10 6","pages":"Pages 1826-1836"},"PeriodicalIF":7.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139637679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}