Resource Allocation and Task Offloading for MEC-Enabled 6G Networks Using DRL

Abstract

A new paradigm for satisfying the ever-growing demands of real-time Sixth Generation (6G) applications is Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). Additionally, base stations and Internet of Things devices that incorporate renewable energy harvesting capabilities have the potential to lower grid energy use. To maximize system potential and lower carbon emissions, it is crucial to make effective decisions about job offloading and resource allocation. A carbon-aware MEC architecture that uses both grid and renewable energy sources is proposed in this paper. Our goal is to jointly manage resource allocation and task offloading while monitoring carbon emissions and task queue delays to optimize system behavior under uncertainty, specifically for stochastic workloads and variable renewable generation. To balance these two cost components (emissions and queue length), we create a combined optimization problem. We develop a deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG)-based joint optimization technique to address this issue in a constantly changing environment. In the optimization, we consider greedy policy (GP) and full offloading (FO), as well as time-average carbon emission (TACE) and time-average queue length (TAQL) as performance metrics, and time-average queue length (TAQL) and full execution (FE) as baseline strategies; we also evaluate normalized time-average cumulative reward (NTACR). This method uses continuous-action reinforcement learning to generate efficient, real-time control policies. For the proposed MEC network, numerical statistics show that our approach can lead to effective offloading and lower carbon emissions.