Self-Adaptable Computation Offloading Strategy for UAV-Assisted Edge Computing

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-assisted Edge Computing (UAV-EC) leverages UAVs as aerial edge servers to provide computation resources to user equipment (UE) in dynamically changing environments. A critical challenge in UAV-EC lies in making real-time adaptive offloading decisions that determine whether and how UE should offload tasks to UAVs. This problem is typically formulated as Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP). However, most existing offloading methods sacrifice strategy timeliness, leading to significant performance degradation in UAV-EC systems, especially under varying wireless channel quality and unpredictable UAV mobility. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that enhances offloading strategy timeliness in such dynamic settings. Specifically, we jointly optimize offloading decisions, transmit power of UEs, and computation resource allocation, to maximize system utility encompassing both latency reduction and energy conservation. To tackle this combinational optimization problem and obtain real-time strategy, we design a Quality of Experience (QoE)-aware Online Offloading (QO2) algorithm which could optimally adapt offloading decisions and resources allocations to time-varying wireless channel conditions. Instead of directly solving MIP via traditional methods, QO2 algorithm utilizes a deep neural network to learn binary offloading decisions from experience, greatly improving strategy timeliness. This learning-based operation inherently enhances the robustness of QO2 algorithm. To further strengthen robustness, we design a Priority-Based Proportional Sampling (PPS) strategy that leverages historical optimization patterns. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that QO2 outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in solution quality, consistently achieving near-optimal solutions. More importantly, it exhibits strong adaptability to dynamic network conditions. These characteristics make QO2 a promising solution for dynamic UAV-EC systems.