Jiajia Liu^1,2, Shuchen Pang³, Peng Xie³, Haitao Zhou³, Chenxi Du³, Haoran Hu³, Bo Tang³, Jianhua Liu³, Fei Jia¹, Huibing Zhang^1,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.077824 - 09 April 2026

Abstract In the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted edge computing system, the broadcast characteristics of the UAV signal, the high mobility of the UAV, and the limited airborne energy make the task offloading strategy face challenges such as increased risk of information disclosure, limited computing resources, and the trade-off between energy consumption and flight time. To address these issues, we propose a K-means in-depth reinforcement learning algorithm based on Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). The proposed method first leverages the K-means clustering algorithm to determine the optimal deployment of ground jammers based on the final distribution of mobile… More >

Hitesh Mohapatra^*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.076726 - 09 April 2026

Abstract This review examines current approaches to real-time decision-making and task optimization in Internet of Things systems through the application of machine learning models deployed at the network edge. Existing literature shows that edge-based distributed intelligence reduces cloud dependency. It addresses transmission latency, device energy use, and bandwidth limits. Recent optimization strategies employ dynamic task offloading mechanisms to determine optimal workload placement across local devices and edge servers without centralized coordination. Empirical findings from the literature indicate performance improvements with latency reductions of approximately 32.8% and energy efficiency gains of 27.4% compared to conventional cloud-centric models.… More >

Fangxiang Hu¹, Qi Fu^1,2,*, Shiwen Zhang¹, Jing Huang¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.074154 - 09 April 2026

Abstract In the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) environment, the growing demand for computational resources from diverse vehicular applications often exceeds the capabilities of intelligent connected vehicles. Traditional approaches, which rely on one or more computational resources within the cloud-edge-device computing model, struggle to ensure overall service quality when handling high-density traffic flows and large-scale tasks. To address this issue, we propose a computational offloading scheme based on a cloud-edge-device collaborative 6G IoV edge computing model, namely, Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning-based and Server-weighted scoring Selection (MADRLSS), which aims to optimize dynamic offloading decisions and resource allocation. The… More >

Xiaocong Wang¹, Jiajian Li¹, Peng Zhao¹, Hui Lian², Yanjun Shi^1,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.87, No.2, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2026.075202 - 12 March 2026

Abstract With the widespread deployment of assembly robots in smart manufacturing, efficiently offloading tasks and allocating resources in highly dynamic industrial environments has become a critical challenge for Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). To address this challenge, this paper constructs a cloud-edge-end collaborative MEC system that enables assembly robots to offload complex workflow tasks via multiple paths (horizontal, vertical, and hybrid collaboration). To mitigate uncertainties arising from mobility, the location prediction module is employed. This enables proactive channel-quality estimation, providing forward-looking insights for offloading decisions. Furthermore, we propose a fairness-aware joint optimization framework. Utilizing an improved Multi-Agent More > Graphic Abstract

Yonghua Huo^1,2, Ying Liu^1,*, Anni Jiang³, Yang Yang³

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.072681 - 12 January 2026

Abstract With the advent of sixth-generation mobile communications (6G), space–air–ground integrated networks have become mainstream. This paper focuses on collaborative scheduling for mobile edge computing (MEC) under a three-tier heterogeneous architecture composed of mobile devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and macro base stations (BSs). This scenario typically faces fast channel fading, dynamic computational loads, and energy constraints, whereas classical queuing-theoretic or convex-optimization approaches struggle to yield robust solutions in highly dynamic settings. To address this issue, we formulate a multi-agent Markov decision process (MDP) for an air–ground-fused MEC system, unify link selection, bandwidth/power allocation, and task… More >

Sai Xu^1,*, Jun Liu^1,*, Shengyu Huang¹, Zhi Li²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.3, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.071865 - 12 January 2026

Abstract In scenarios where ground-based cloud computing infrastructure is unavailable, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) act as mobile edge computing (MEC) servers to provide on-demand computation services for ground terminals. To address the challenge of jointly optimizing task scheduling and UAV trajectory under limited resources and high mobility of UAVs, this paper presents PER-MATD3, a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning algorithm with prioritized experience replay (PER) into the Centralized Training with Decentralized Execution (CTDE) framework. Specifically, PER-MATD3 enables each agent to learn a decentralized policy using only local observations during execution, while leveraging a shared replay buffer with More >

Lincong Zhang¹, Yuqing Liu¹, Kefeng Wei², Weinan Zhao¹, Bo Qian^1,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.86, No.1, pp. 1-18, 2026, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.069108 - 10 November 2025

Abstract In the field of edge computing, achieving low-latency computational task offloading with limited resources is a critical research challenge, particularly in resource-constrained and latency-sensitive vehicular network environments where rapid response is mandatory for safety-critical applications. In scenarios where edge servers are sparsely deployed, the lack of coordination and information sharing often leads to load imbalance, thereby increasing system latency. Furthermore, in regions without edge server coverage, tasks must be processed locally, which further exacerbates latency issues. To address these challenges, we propose a novel and efficient Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL)-based approach aimed at minimizing average… More >

Xianwei Li^1,2, Bo Wei^3,4, Xiaoying Yang^5,6,*, Amr Tolba⁷, Zijian Zeng⁸, Osama Alfarraj^7,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.85, No.2, pp. 3437-3455, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.067200 - 23 September 2025

Abstract With the advancements of the next-generation communication networking and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, a variety of computation-intensive applications (e.g., autonomous driving and face recognition) have emerged. The execution of these IoT applications demands a lot of computing resources. Nevertheless, terminal devices (TDs) usually do not have sufficient computing resources to process these applications. Offloading IoT applications to be processed by mobile edge computing (MEC) servers with more computing resources provides a promising way to address this issue. While a significant number of works have studied task offloading, only a few of them have considered More >

Qian Wang¹, Ya Zhou^1,2,*

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.84, No.2, pp. 3835-3856, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.065465 - 03 July 2025

Abstract Edge computing has transformed smart grids by lowering latency, reducing network congestion, and enabling real-time decision-making. Nevertheless, devising an optimal task-offloading strategy remains challenging, as it must jointly minimise energy consumption and response time under fluctuating workloads and volatile network conditions. We cast the offloading problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and solve it with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). Specifically, we present a three-tier architecture—end devices, edge nodes, and a cloud server—and enhance Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) to learn adaptive, energy-aware policies. A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) extracts high-level features from system states, enabling More >

Yiwei Zhang, Xin Cui^*, Qinghui Zhao

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.84, No.2, pp. 2355-2373, 2025, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2025.065430 - 03 July 2025

Abstract The rapid advance of Connected-Automated Vehicles (CAVs) has led to the emergence of diverse delay-sensitive and energy-constrained vehicular applications. Given the high dynamics of vehicular networks, unmanned aerial vehicles-assisted mobile edge computing (UAV-MEC) has gained attention in providing computing resources to vehicles and optimizing system costs. We model the computing offloading problem as a multi-objective optimization challenge aimed at minimizing both task processing delay and energy consumption. We propose a three-stage hybrid offloading scheme called Dynamic Vehicle Clustering Game-based Multi-objective Whale Optimization Algorithm (DVCG-MWOA) to address this problem. A novel dynamic clustering algorithm is designed… More >