{"title":"Energy and experimental trust-based task offloading in the domain of connected autonomous vehicles","authors":"Sachin Kumar Gupta , Anuradha Banerjee","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100954","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100954","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Task offloading among connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) has recently gained much attention. The current literature in this context mostly optimizes only the criterion of energy and latency. Further, issues like connectivity and spontaneous attitude of selflessness have remained unexplored despite their importance and probable contribution to preserving vehicles' energy and reducing overall delay in completing the tasks. Therefore, the key objectives of the present study are maximization of residual energy and percentage of successful offloading, as well as minimization of energy consumption and delay. We have also considered trust, which has two components; efficiency and certainty. Efficiency is defined as the inverse of the estimated time duration required to complete the execution of the current task based on the history of the previous sessions. Certainty is related to the stability of the connection between the server and task off-loader vehicles and the selfless cooperation of the server, as revealed from the history of communication with the off-loader. Experimental results show that our proposed method of offloading tasks based on energy and experiential trust (OTEET) increases the offload success percentage and reduces cost by approximately 40%, which can be considered a significant improvement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100954"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zhenzheng Shi, Liang Wang, Yaguang Lin, Anna Cai, Jiamin Fan, Cong Liu
{"title":"Dynamic offloading strategy in SAGIN-based emergency VEC: A multi-UAV clustering and collaborative computing approach","authors":"Zhenzheng Shi, Liang Wang, Yaguang Lin, Anna Cai, Jiamin Fan, Cong Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100952","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100952","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mobile edge computing (MEC) technology can provide stable and efficient computing services for ground vehicles and users. However, maintaining stable MEC services becomes challenging in scenarios where ground MEC servers are damaged or unavailable, such as in post-disaster or remote areas. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes a novel space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) based emergency vehicular edge computing (VEC) framework, leveraging the rapid deployment characteristic of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to provide VEC services for ground vehicles. A distance-based UAV clustering (DUC) algorithm is designed for efficient multi-UAV collaboration, executed by low earth orbit (LEO) satellite with wide coverage. Within each cluster, a task splitting algorithm based on a novel expected computing delay (ECD) metric is performed by the cluster-head UAV (CHU). Focusing on the issue of limited line-of-sight (LoS) range of UAV and computing sustainability during vehicle moving, we propose a dynamic offloading strategy. Simulation results show that the proposed framework enhances UAV utilization by 60% and significantly reduces task process delays across varying scenarios.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100952"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multi-objective resource allocation for UAV-assisted air-ground integrated full-duplex OFDMA networks","authors":"Tong Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100951","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100951","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In multi-UAV-assisted air-ground integrated in-band full-duplex (IBFD) OFDMA networks, both uplink and downlink performances are critical and must be simultaneously considered. This study addresses effective resource allocation in such networks to maximize the total system uplink and downlink rates by jointly optimizing subcarrier assignment and power control. Given the significant trade-off between uplink and downlink transmissions owing to self-interference in IBFD systems and intercell interference, we formulate the resource allocation problem as a multi-objective optimization problem (MOOP), aiming to jointly maximize the uplink and downlink performances. To achieve Pareto optimal solutions, we employ the weighted Tchebycheff technique to transform the MOOP into a single-objective optimization problem (SOOP) and solve it using Successive Convex Approximation (SCA) within a Block Coordinate Descent (BCD) framework. This approach iteratively optimizes the subcarrier assignment and power control and effectively manages the trade-offs between uplink and downlink rates. The proposed method demonstrates the ability to achieve an efficient balance in resource allocation. Simulation results show that our method can obtain Pareto optimal solutions, demonstrating favorable performance trade-offs and fairness under various interference conditions, thereby improving the overall system performance in multi-UAV-assisted air-ground integrated OFDMA networks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100951"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144534422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deep reinforcement learning based migration and execution decisions for multi-hop task offloading in mobile vehicle edge computing","authors":"Wenjie Zhou, Tian Zhang, Zekun Lu, Linbo Zhai","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100950","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100950","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the Internet of Things (IoT) drives the development of Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC), there is a surge in computational demand from emerging in-vehicle applications. Most existing studies do not fully consider the frequent changes in network topology under high mobility of vehicles and the underutilization of idle resources by single-hop offloading. To this end, we propose a task offloading scheme for vehicular edge computing based on multi-hop offloading. The scheme allows task vehicles to offload tasks to service vehicles with excess idle resources outside the communication range, and adapts to dynamic changes in network topology by introducing the concept of neighboring vehicle connection time. This study aims to minimize the delayed energy consumption utility value of the task under the conditions of satisfying the maximum task delay limit, vehicle computational and storage resource constraints. In response to this NP-hard problem, a two-stage reinforcement learning strategy MOCDD (combining Deep Q Network (DQN) and Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG)) is proposed to divide the mixed action space into pure discrete and pure continuous action space to determine task migration, executive decision and vehicle transmission power. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100950"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mingyu Zhang , Zhibo Sun , Fengjie Li , Hong Zhang
{"title":"MIEC: A magnetism-inspired framework for MS deployment and joint task offloading and resource allocation optimization in LMREC","authors":"Mingyu Zhang , Zhibo Sun , Fengjie Li , Hong Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100948","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100948","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With the rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) faces challenges in meeting increasing computational demands, especially in resource-constrained environments. To address this issue, we propose the LEO Satellite-MS-RSU Edge Computing (LMREC) framework, which integrates Mobile Servers (MSs), Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks, and Roadside Units (RSUs) into an innovative edge computing architecture. We first introduce “attraction” and “repulsion” metrics to model the willingness of vehicular satellite servers to serve specific users. Subsequently, we design a Magnetic Equilibrium Algorithm (MEA), which dynamically adjusts the MS deployment and service allocation by balancing user-driven attraction and server repulsion. To address the latency sensitivity of task scheduling and user satisfaction in LMREC, we formulate a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) optimization problem for task offloading and resource allocation. Since this optimization problem is intractable to solve in polynomial time, we propose a Magnetic Domain Migration Algorithm (MDMA) to obtain a near-optimal solution. In MDMA, tasks are modeled as magnetic domains migrating in a magnetic field, and the optimization problem is decomposed into subproblems, which are solved using Exact Potential Game Theory, convex optimization, and a hybrid genetic algorithm. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the LMREC framework, demonstrating its superiority over existing methods and its potential to enhance collaboration among end devices, RSUs, and LEO satellite networks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100948"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144491512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Oluwatosin Ahmed Amodu, Huda Althumali, Zurina Mohd Hanapi, Chedia Jarray, Raja Azlina Raja Mahmood, Mohammed Sani Adam, Umar Ali Bukar, Nor Fadzilah Abdullah, Nguyen Cong Luong
{"title":"A Comprehensive Survey of Deep Reinforcement Learning in UAV-Assisted IoT Data Collection","authors":"Oluwatosin Ahmed Amodu, Huda Althumali, Zurina Mohd Hanapi, Chedia Jarray, Raja Azlina Raja Mahmood, Mohammed Sani Adam, Umar Ali Bukar, Nor Fadzilah Abdullah, Nguyen Cong Luong","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100949","url":null,"abstract":"Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) play a critical role in data collection for a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) applications across remote, urban, and marine environments. In large-scale deployments, UAVs often face complex decision-making challenges, for which Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has emerged as a promising solution. This paper presents a comprehensive review of UAV-assisted IoT applications utilizing DRL, covering key research questions, DRL algorithm variants, deployment objectives, architectural features, integrated technologies, UAV roles, optimization constraints, energy management strategies, and performance metrics. Findings indicate that value-based and actor-critic algorithms are the most commonly employed, targeting objectives such as path planning, transmit power control, scheduling, velocity and altitude control, and charging optimization. Architectural considerations include clustering, security, obstacle avoidance, buffered sensors, and multi-UAV coordination. Beyond data collection, UAVs are also used for tasks such as device selection, data aggregation, and sensor charging, with energy management primarily achieved through charging and energy harvesting techniques. Performance is typically assessed using metrics like energy efficiency, throughput, latency, packet loss, and Age of Information (AoI). The paper concludes by outlining several promising research directions and open challenges critical to the successful deployment of UAVs in IoT data collection.","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144515946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"HQA: Hybrid Q-learning and AODV multi-path routing algorithm for Flying Ad-hoc Networks","authors":"Chen Sun, Liang Hou, Suqi Yu, Jian Shu","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100947","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100947","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Reliable and efficient data transmission between Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) nodes is critical for the control of UAV swarms and relies heavily on effective routing protocols in Flying Ad-hoc Networks (FANETs). However, Q-learning-based FANET routing protocols, which are gaining widespread attention, face two significant challenges: 1) insufficient stability of Q-learning leads to unreliable route selection in certain scenarios and higher packet loss rates; 2) in void regions with frequent topology changes and vast path exploration spaces, the slow convergence of Q-learning fails to adapt quickly to dynamic environmental changes, thereby reducing the packet delivery rate (PDR). This paper proposes a hybrid Q-learning/AODV (HQA) multi-path routing algorithm that integrates Q-learning and the AODV protocols to address these challenges. HQA includes a Bayesian stability evaluator for adaptive Q-learning/AODV switching and a dual-update reward mechanism that integrates reliable AODV paths into Q-learning training, enabling rapid void recovery and latency-optimized routing. Experimental results demonstrate HQA's superiority over baseline protocols: Compared to AODV, HQA reduces average end-to-end delay by 13.6–23.9% and improves PDR by 5.4–9.1% in non-void and void states, respectively. It outperforms QMR by 2.2–6.3% in PDR while achieving 25.6% and 53.2% higher average PDR than QMR and AODV across network densities. The hybrid design accelerates convergence by 40% versus standalone Q-learning through AODV-assisted rewards, maintaining scalability under dynamic topology changes. These findings indicate that the HQA algorithm can more rapidly adapt to the rapid changes in FANETs and better handle void regions, offering a promising solution for enhancing the performance and reliability of FANETs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100947"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144491511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mohammed A. Abdelmaguid, Hossam S. Hassanein, Mohammad Zulkernine
{"title":"Securing the unforeseen: Enhancing VANET security with dynamic honeypots and attack rate analysis","authors":"Mohammed A. Abdelmaguid, Hossam S. Hassanein, Mohammad Zulkernine","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100946","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100946","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing known threats constitutes the foundational layer of cybersecurity defenses. However, the real challenge emerges in anticipating and mitigating unforeseen attacks. Current security methodologies work well against familiar threats but often struggle with new or unforeseen attacks. This paper examines the Trust Origin within Trust Management Systems (TMS) by linking it to the network attack rate, thereby refining trust assessments and predicting new attacks. Combining Machine Learning (ML) algorithms with honeypots, we offer a comprehensive defense for Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs), adept at detecting anticipated and unexpected attacks through attack rate analysis. Our methodology evaluates the network's security status by examining its ability to identify known attacks, referred to as prepared-for attacks. Subsequently, this information serves as a foundation to predict future attacks that still need to be identified, termed unprepared-for attacks. Through extensive testing, we demonstrate the viability of a dual strategy that encompasses the detection of prepared-for attacks and the prediction of unprepared-for ones. Experimental results reveal a significant improvement in predicting unprepared-for attacks, evidenced by enhanced accuracy, precision, and recall. Additionally, we conduct experiments to determine the optimal deployment of honeypots for maximum efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100946"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144337779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peng Chen , Ting Zhou , Zhimin Chen , Fan Meng , Jun Liu
{"title":"BFP-Net: A DL-based ISAC beamforming prediction method for extended vehicle","authors":"Peng Chen , Ting Zhou , Zhimin Chen , Fan Meng , Jun Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100945","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100945","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To enable the next generation of connected autonomous vehicles, the millimeter wave (mmWave)-based integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system will be a critical technology in future vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks. However, the rapid mobility of vehicles and the narrow beamwidth of mmWave signals present significant challenges for beam alignment, and point-target modeling methods often lead to substantial overhead, high latency, and complications. To address these issues, in this paper, a hybrid analog-digital (HAD) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) ISAC framework is adopted for the mmWave-based V2X network to reduce hardware costs and power consumption. Then, considering the narrow beamwidth of the mmWave system, the vehicle is modeled as an extended surface target with multiple scattering points, and a new association technique for these points is developed to improve prediction accuracy. Hence, a deep learning (DL)-based beamforming prediction network, namely beamforming prediction network (BFP-Net), is designed according to the ISAC signal beam prediction protocol and enables roadside units (RSUs) to transmit ISAC signals effectively for both downlink communication and sensing operations. The BFP-Net leverages a convolutional neural network long-short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) architecture to capture spatial and temporal correlations, providing enhanced modeling capabilities for beam prediction. Moreover, for highly dynamic vehicles, the BFP-Net predicts optimal beams for future time slots by extracting features from the received echo signals and eliminates the repetitive beam training inherent in the traditional communication protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms extended Kalman filter (EKF)-based methods in the mmWave V2X scenario, achieving higher beam gains and better performance for high-speed vehicles, and substantially reduces the overhead associated with beam training compared to the conventional neural network relying on pilot signals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100945"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144243172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Multi-Head Attention mechanism assisted MADDPG algorithm for real-time data collection in Internet of Drones","authors":"A.K.M. Atiqur Rahman , Muntasir Chowdhury Mridul , Palash Roy , Md. Abdur Razzaque , Md. Rajin Saleh , Mohammad Mehedi Hassan , Md Zia Uddin","doi":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100944","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.vehcom.2025.100944","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Flexible movement and rapid deployment capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have enabled them to be ideal for fresh and real-time data collection in the Internet of Drones (IoD) network. With the rising demand for IoD applications, optimizing the Age of Information (AoI), and energy efficiency of drones has become a challenging problem. The existing literature works are either limited by considering single-drone data collection from 2D space or by not prioritizing data from diverse IoT devices. In this paper, we have developed an optimization framework for multi-drone-assisted data collection in 3D space, which brings a trade-off between minimizing drone energy consumption and AoI, exploiting the Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem. However, due to the NP-hardness of the developed optimization framework for large networks, we have devised a Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (MADDPG) algorithm, supported and enhanced by a Multi-Head Attention (MHA) mechanism for multi-drone-assisted data collection to minimize drone energy consumption and AoI jointly, namely MECAO. The MHA in the MECAO system helps prioritize IoT data sources and ensures the timely collection of important data. This system enables the agents to coordinate effectively among themselves and provides innovative solutions to complex network issues. Our findings demonstrate substantial advancements in real-time data collection and drone performance, offering a practical and efficient solution for modern IoD applications. The developed MECAO system is implemented in the OpenAI Gym simulator platform, and the simulation trace file content depicts the improvement in AoI by up to 56% while the energy consumption is reduced by as high as 38.5%, respectively, compared to the state-of-the-art works.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54346,"journal":{"name":"Vehicular Communications","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 100944"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144205001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}