DDPS: Dynamic Differential Pricing-Based Edge Offloading System With Energy Harvesting Devices

Mobile edge computing (MEC) mitigates the energy and computation burdens on mobile users (MUs) by offloading tasks to the network edge. To optimize MEC server utilization through effective resource allocation, a well-designed pricing strategy is indispensable. In this paper, we propose a dynamic differential pricing scheme (DDPS) for an edge offloading scenario with energy harvesting devices, which determines prices based on computing resource usage to enhance edge server (ES) utilization. First, an offloading decision algorithm is proposed to balance harvested and consumed energy, determining whether and how much data to offload. Second, a Stackelberg game-based differential pricing algorithm is proposed to optimize computing resource allocation for MUs and reallocate surplus resources to delay-sensitive devices. Extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DDPS scheme. Specifically, in comparison to the existing best-performing pricing scheme, for different task arrival rates, DDPS can achieve a 5.3% decrease in average execution delay, a 1.7% increase in ES utility ($U_{\text{server}}$, which represents the payment from MUs minus penalties for discarded tasks), and a 2.1% increase in the average ratio of service for MUs. In addition, DDPS also improves 2.8% $U_{\text{server}}$ on average with different ES computation capacities.