KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, Feb.

2021 383
Copyright ⓒ 2021 KSII

A Context-aware Task Offloading Scheme

in Collaborative Vehicular Edge
Computing Systems
Zilong Jin1,2, Chengbo Zhang1, Guanzhe Zhao3*, Yuanfeng Jin4, and Lejun Zhang5
1 School of Computer and Software, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology
Nanjing 210044, China
[e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]]
2 Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology (CICAEET)

Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

3 Huihua College of Hebei Normal University,Shijiazhuang 050091, China

[e-mail: [email protected]]
4 Department of Physics, Yanbian University, Yanji 133002, China

[e-mail: [email protected]]
5 College of Information Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, China

[e-mail: [email protected]]
*Corresponding author: Guanzhe Zhao

Received December 11, 2020; revised January 11, 2021; accepted January 23, 2021;
published February 28, 2021

Abstract

With the development of mobile edge computing (MEC), some late-model application
technologies, such as self-driving, augmented reality (AR) and traffic perception, emerge as
the times require. Nevertheless, the high-latency and low-reliability of the traditional cloud
computing solutions are difficult to meet the requirement of growing smart cars (SCs) with
computing-intensive applications. Hence, this paper studies an efficient offloading decision
and resource allocation scheme in collaborative vehicular edge computing networks with
multiple SCs and multiple MEC servers to reduce latency. To solve this problem with effect,
we propose a context-aware offloading strategy based on differential evolution algorithm (DE)
by considering vehicle mobility, roadside units (RSUs) coverage, vehicle priority. On this
basis, an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model is employed to predict
idle computing resources according to the base station traffic in different periods. Simulation
results demonstrate that the practical performance of the context-aware vehicular task
offloading (CAVTO) optimization scheme could reduce the system delay significantly.

Keywords: Differential Evolution, Mobile Edge Computing, Machine Learning,

Computing Offloading, Context-aware

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.61602252,
11761074), the Natural Science Foundation of Jilin Province of China (Grant No.2020122336JC), Project of Jilin
Science and Technology Development for Leading Talent of Science and Technology Innovation in Middle and
Young and Team Project (No. 20200301053RQ) and the Project through the Priority Academic Program
Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institution.

http://doi.org/10.3837/tiis.2021.02.001 ISSN : 1976-7277

384 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

1. Introduction

The emergence of cloud computing and 5G communication technology have caused the
transformation of the automotive industry. The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) [1] devices have
further computational and service capability. Specifically, they can provide wireless
communication services for vehicle terminals, roadside units (RSUs), and pedestrians in
intelligent transportation systems, realizing vehicle to vehicle (V2V), vehicle to infrastructure
(V2I), vehicle to person (V2P), and vehicle to network (V2N) communication modes [2].
Nevertheless, the drawbacks of cloud computing are gradually exposed with the explosive
growth of vehicles and vehicle equipment. The traditional cloud computing solutions [3, 4]
with high latency and low-reliability are difficult to meet users’ higher requirements for
transmission bandwidth and data processing delay in terms of real-time and security. It is easy
to cause frequent traffic jams and traffic accidents. Also, due to the limited computing
capability of automobile terminal, the increasing vehicle data has become an essential factor
in restricting the development of intelligent transportation.
To cope with this disturbing problem, the emerging technique, i.e., mobile edge computing
(MEC) [5-7], is applied to support delay-critical services and compute-intensive applications.
The fusion of MEC and IoV technologies has developed into vehicular edge computing (VEC).
Driven by VEC technology [8, 9], computing resources have been pushed to the edge of RSUs.
The task generated during vehicle driving can be executed locally or offloaded to MEC,
making up for the shortcomings of considerable transmission delay and unstable connection
of traditional centralized IoV network [10, 11].
Computing offloading of VEC is a current research hotspot [12-16]. However, there are
some deficiencies hidden in the existing works. First of all, existing models did not consider
the priority of processing when multiple tasks are concurrent, i.e., the priority of driverless
cars is definitely higher than that of human-crewed vehicles. This is because driverless cars
have stricter requirements for data processing delay and safe driving. Furthermore, current
research ignored the limitation of MEC server resources and MEC server clusters’ load
balancing [17, 18].
To address the above problems and further reduce the task offloading delay to guarantee
driving safety and traffic efficiency. This paper proposes a context-aware vehicular task
offloading (CAVTO) optimization scheme to solve computation and communication resources
allocation problem in a delay-sensitive VEC system. The main contributions in this paper are
summarized as follows.
● A context-aware task offloading framework based on software defined network (SDN)
and network function virtualization (NFV) technology are modeled in a collaborative VEC
system. Furthermore, the optimization function of delay minimization is formulated as an NP-
hard problem.
● A differential evolution (DE) is proposed to solve the joint optimization problem of
offloading decision and resource allocation. The ARIMA model is used to predict idle
computing resources to cooperate vehicular task offloading, improve resource utilization, and
reduce system delay.
● The performance of the context-aware vehicular task offloading (CAVTO) optimization
scheme is evaluated by comparing it with other baseline algorithms. Simulation results show
that the CAVTO scheme could generate an allocation strategy close to the optimal.
This paper is organized as follows: An overview of the related work is summarized in
Section 2. Section 3 presents the offloading framework and formulates the system model.
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 385

Problem solution and algorithm proposal in Section 4. Experiment and simulation in Section
5. At last, a summary of this paper is presented in Section 6.

2. Related Works
The computing offloading of VEC is a research hotspot. The current computing offloading
strategies can be divided into the following aspects: delay minimization, energy consumption
minimization, weighing energy consumption and delay. According to different models, design
one or multiple optimization goals and then use appropriate algorithms to solve them.
From the perspective of offloading architecture design. Sun et al. [19] considered offloading
tasks to service vehicles with the same moving direction within a specific communication
range. An ALTO algorithm based on MAB theory was proposed to achieve offloading delay
minimization. Research [20, 21] employed vehicle cloud and remote cloud collaborative
offloading method, the task is offloaded to vehicle cloud preferentially, and then offloaded to
the remote cloud when computing resources are insufficient, [21] consider the heterogeneity
of vehicle based on [20]. Zhu et al. [22] deployed base stations in different regions, vehicles
entering and leaving must be reported to the base stations, and the base stations are responsible
for task scheduling. Huang et al. [23] creatively proposed a PVEC algorithm that utilized
parked vehicles as idle edge computing nodes and formulated a resource scheduling
optimization problem.
From the perspective of offloading strategy optimization goal. Sun et al. [24] formulated a
mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem to maximize the system’s offloading utility
with the joint optimization of offloading decision and task scheduling. Zhang et al. [25]
proposed an offloading framework by considering the heterogeneous and the mobility of
vehicles. The optimization goal is to minimize the total cost of vehicle task offloading under
the constraints delay. Dai et al. [26] divided the offloading problem into two sub-problems:
specifically, the optimal selection of VEC servers and joint optimization of load balancing and
offloading decisions. Tang et al. [27] minimized the system delay under the condition of
energy constraints. A decision tree algorithm is proposed to solve the task deployment sub-
problem, and a dynamic programming technique is proposed to solve the delayed offloading
sub-problem. Guo et al. [28] proposed a novel resource allocation mechanism for edge
computing resource providers, which performs task offloading under the condition of
observing the resource constraints on the edge server, takes the supplier's income as the
optimization target, and then formulates the resource allocation problem.
From the perspective of the offloading algorithm. Liu et al. [29] used a semi-Markov
decision process and linear programming to solve the optimal multi-resource allocation
problem. Klaimi et al. [30] proposed a dynamic resource allocation algorithm based on game
theory, which minimized CPU resource and energy consumption from the aspects of delay and
request blocking probability. Finally, the existence of Nash equilibrium was proved. Feng et
al. [31] adopted an ant colony optimization to solve the task scheduling problem in the AVE
framework. Tham et al. [32] designed a load balancing optimization method based on a convex
optimization algorithm, which improved the convergence speed and optimized the average
system utilization. Wei et al. [33] combined Q-learning with DNN to optimize the problem of
computing offloading in wireless cellular networks. Li et al. [34] adopted the ADMM method
to study how to perform regression analysis when training samples are kept secret on the
source device.
In the above research scheme, the impact of idle resources on the overall computing
offloading performance has been ignored. In addition, the edge servers’ load balance is not
386 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

considered on the premise of guaranteeing user service quality to improve the system operation
efficiency from the perspective of the service provider. Finally, the communication resources,
computing resources, and storage capacity of the vehicular edge computing network are
limited, and if ignore the reasonable allocation of such resources, it will not be able to deal
with the enormous data generated by the vehicle equipment.

3. System Architecture and Problem Formulation

In this section, a context-aware task offloading framework based on SDN and NFV technology
is modeled in the collaborative VEC system. Furthermore, the delay minimization problem is
formulated by optimizing MEC server resource allocation and vehicle task offloading
decisions.

3.1 System Architecture

As illustrated in Fig. 1, a vehicular task offloading framework with multiple SCs and multiple
RSUs has been considered in this paper. The MEC servers are deployed within the range of
RSUs to provide computing services for resource-constrained vehicles. The RSUs can
communicate with multiple vehicles simultaneously through massive multiple-input multiple-
output (MIMO) [35, 36] technology. The virtual machine is deployed on each MEC server to
facilitate centralized management of the network environment to realize real-time data
perception and rapid response.

Fig. 1. System model of CAVTO architecture

KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 387

In order to further improve system resource utilization, SDN and NFV technology are used
to support VEC system architecture. SDN is a new type of network design concept [37] that
uses a layered idea to separate the data plane from the control plane, realizes openness and
programmability, and breaks the closure of traditional network equipment. NFV [38] builds
many types of network equipment (such as servers, switches, storage, etc.) into a data center
network and forms a virtual machine (VM) [39] by borrowing IT virtualization technology to
make it run on standard server virtualization software so that it can be installed anywhere in
the network without the need to deploy new hardware devices.
Overall, the SDN/NFV-based architecture can be divided into three parts. The bottom is
Data Plane, which comprises date collection from vehicle ad-hoc network (VANET), RSUs,
and MEC servers. The middle layer is Control Plane, and the SDN controller uniformly
manages the vehicle and road information collected by RSUs. The top layer is the core network
layer, supporting information sharing and service migration scheduling between MEC servers.

Fig. 2. Context-aware task offloading decision model

The Fig. 2 shows the detailed function modules in the control plane. It is made up of three
main components, namely, Information Collection, Context-Aware, and Decision Model.
● Information Collection: this module is mainly responsible for the extraction and collection
of information, includes the speed, direction, and driving attributes of the vehicle. It also
perceives information such as the accessible RSU within the vehicle communication range, as
well as the computing resources and communication resources of the attached MEC services.
● Context-Aware: as the core part of the entire computing offloading framework, this module
provides load balancing, real-time monitoring, resource awareness, and prediction services.
The load balancer can improve server performance and effectively prevent data packet loss,
processing speed limit or even collapse caused by server overload. The monitoring service
provides real-time monitoring of devices’ operation in the edge network. In addition, the
ARIMA algorithm is employed in this module to learn the MEC servers’ load changes and
predict idle computing resources to achieve resource scheduling.
● Decision Model: according to the results of context-aware, make corresponding resource
allocation strategy, offloading strategy and scheduling strategy, and send them to RSUs and
vehicles for execution.
388 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

3.2 Offloading Model

Table 1. Model parameters
Parameters Definition
Task The j-th computation task of i-th SC
ij

X ij X ij =1 if the k-th task of j-th SC is offloaded to MEC server. Otherwise, X ij =0

b The data size of the computing task
w The priority of task processing
t limit The delay constraint
rm The coverage of RSU
lm The vertical distance from RSU to the roadside
fm The computing capability of the MEC server.
Tijlocal Local processing tasks delay
Tijstay The time from entry to departure within the coverage of RSU
r up The uplink transmission rate
Tijup The uplink transmission delay
Tijcom The computing delay of task processing
r down The downlink transmission rate
Tijdown The downlink transmission delay

Table 1 shows some important parameters in the vehicular edge computing model, we assume
that there are n SCs driving on the road. Each SC has k tasks to handle, the j-th computation
task of i-th SC is denoted by Taskij ,where i  N , N = {1,2, , n} and j  K , K = {1,2, , k} .
For each Taskij , it can be represented by a tuple {b, w, t limit } , where b represents the data size
of the computing task, w represents the priority of task processing, the purpose is to distinguish
this task as a traditional computing task or a safety-oriented computing task, t limit is the delay
constraint. There are also m RSUs evenly distributed on the side of the road. Each RSU
equipped with a MEC server can be regarded as a service node. The heterogeneity of RSU and
MEC servers enables service nodes to have different coverage and computing capabilities. For
each service nodes S m , it can be represented by a tuple {rm , lm , f m } , in which rm is the coverage
of RSU, lm is the vertical distance from RSU to the roadside, and f m is the computing
capability of the MEC server.
Due to the limited computing resources of the vehicle itself, it is not enough to support the
completion of the entire computing task locally. Offloading tasks to nearby RSUs with MEC
servers is an effective solution. For each independent subtask Taskij , its offloading strategy
can be expressed as:

X ij = {0,1} (1)

where X ij = 0 denotes the task will be executed locally, and X ij = 1 denotes the task will be
offloaded to RSUs for processing.
The entire offloading process is divided into three stages. First, the SCs upload the
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 389

computation task to the RSUs through the V2I communication method. Then, RSUs transfer
the task to the MEC servers and take advantage of powerful computing resources to process
the task. Finally, the computation result will be returned to SCs. Therefore, the delay in the
entire offloading process is mainly caused by the task upload delay, the computing delay on
MEC servers, and the result return delay. Since RSUs and MEC servers are connected by
optical fiber, the transmission delay is negligible.

3.2.1 Local Computing Model

When the subtask Taskij of the vehicle is executed locally, the local computing delay can be
expressed as :

(1 − X ij )  bij  C local
T local
ij = (2)
f i local

local
where bij is the date size of Taskij , C local means CPU cycles per bit of vehicle, and f i is
the computing capacity of i-th SC.

3.2.2 MEC Computing Model

According to the scene shown in Fig. 3, the vehicle Ci travels at a constant speed at the speed
of Vi . Due to the mobility of the vehicle, the distance between the vehicle and the center of
stay
RSU is constantly changing. The Ti is the time from entry to the departure of the vehicle
Ci within the coverage of RSU, which can be specifically expressed as:

2 r2 − l2
Ti stay = (3)
vi

When the vehicle reaches the coverage area of the RSUs, the SCs communicate with RSUs
through LTE-V2I mode. According to the Shannon formula, the uplink transmission rate can
be calculated as:

pi  hi
r up = Bij  log 2 (1 + ) (4)
Bij  N

where Bij denotes allocated channel bandwidth, Pi is the transmit power of i-th SC, and hi
means channel gain.
390 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

Fig. 3. Driving map of the vehicle within the coverage of RSU

The transmission delay of the uplink can be expressed as:

d ij  X ij
Tijup = (5)
r up

After the vehicular task is uploaded to the RSU, computing resources are provided through
the attached MEC server. Therefore, the computing delay of task processing can be expressed
as:

dij  X ij  C mec
T com
ij = (6)
f mmec

mec
where C mec implies the number of CPU cycles of unit data in the MEC system and f m
represents computing resource allocated by m-th MEC server.
Finally, after the task has been processed, the MEC servers return the computing result to
SCs. The downlink transmission delay is:

  d ij  X ij
Tijdown = (7)
r down

where  is the ratio of the size of the upload task and the returned computing result.
It is worth noting that the MEC servers can only start processing the task after the server
has received the task of WDs completely, and the MEC servers can only start sending back
the computing results at the end of completing the entire computing task.
In summary, the total computing offloading delay of processing Taskij can be expressed as:

Tijmec = Tijup + Tijcom + Tijdown (8)

3.3 Problem Formulation

Based on the above-mentioned offloading model, the goal of this article is to minimize the
average task processing delay of the vehicles through the joint optimization of computing
resource allocation and transmission bandwidth allocation. An objective function Obj is
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 391

introduced, which can be expressed as:

n k

 (T + T
i =1 j =1
local
ij
mec
ij )
Obj = (9)
nk
The final computing offloading problem model can be established as:

min Obj ( X ij , Bij , f mmec , wi )

s.t． C1 : X ij = {0,1}
n
C2 : 0   Bij  Btotal
i =1
m
C3 : 0   f mmec  ftotal (10)
m =1

C4 : Ti mec  Ti stay
n
C5 : max  wi
i =1

where constraint C1 is the offloading decision of vehicle, constraint C 2 means the allocated
bandwidth cannot exceed the total bandwidth, constraint C3 means the allocated computing
resource cannot exceed the total resource of MEC servers, constraint C 4 is set to ensure that
the task processing will not be interrupted, the computing task is required to be completed
before the vehicle leaves the range of the RSU, constraint C5 is to maximize the weight, that
is, to deal with the higher priority security tasks preferentially.

4. Proposed Scheme
In this section, we propose a CAVTO optimization scheme to solve the above optimization
problem. The CAVTO optimization scheme is mainly divided into two parts. Firstly, a
differential evolution algorithm (DE) is proposed to optimize offloading decision and resource
allocation in collaborative vehicular edge computing networks to minimize the average delay.
Secondly, the ARIMA-based machine learning algorithms are used to predict idle computing
resources to ensure MEC server load balance and improve utilization efficiency. The specific
expression is as follows.

4.1 Latency Optimization

The optimization problem of the above equation (10) is an NP-hard problem. We consider
adopting the DE algorithm to get the optimal solution. DE algorithm is a heuristic search
algorithm based on the biological evolution process. Simulate the problem to be solved as a
biological evolution process, and find the optimal solution through evolution. DE algorithms
usually start with a set of possible potential solutions, which are composed of genetically
encoded individuals. After fitness calculation, selection, crossover, and mutation, these
individuals evolve from generation to generation to produce better approximate solutions.
Algorithm 1 shows detailed steps.
392 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

Algorithm 1 Latency Optimization Based on Differential Evolution Algorithm

Input: Population size: N ,Dimension: M , Max iteration: G , Number of SCs: n ,
Number of tasks: k ,Total bandwidth: Btotal , Total computing resources: f M .
Output: The optimal solution: Sij* = { X ij , Bij , f mmec }
*
The minimal delay: Obj
1 g =0
2 for i = 1 to N do
3 for j = 1 to M do
4 Initialize population Sij (0)
5 end
6 end
7 while ( g  G) do
8 for i = 1 to N do
9 for j = 1 to M do
10 Mutation according to Eq. (14);
11 Crossover according to Eq. (15);
12 end
13 Selection according to Eq. (13);
14 end
15 g = g +1
16 End
*
17 return S ij* , Obj

The floating-point encoding is employed to replace traditional binary encoding, which can
effectively reduce storage space and reduce algorithm complexity. The chromosome coding
method is shown in Fig. 4, the total number of computing tasks for all vehicles is set to the
chromosome length, each gene represents a computing task Taskij , and the value of the
corresponding gene S ij represents offloading strategy X ij , bandwidth allocation strategy Bij
computing resource allocation strategy f mmec and task processing priority wi , whose strategy
set can be expressed as:

Sij = { X ij , Bij , f mmec } (11)

Fig. 4. Chromosome encoding

KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 393

After the population coding is completed, the fitness needs to be set. The greater the fitness,
the more chance it will be inherited to the next generation. Since the objective function is to
minimize the average delay of vehicular offloading, the fitness is set as:

1
Fit = (12)
Obj

The principle of selection is that the higher fitness, the more likely to be selected. According
to the roulette wheel selection, the selection probability is expressed as:

Fit (i )
P (i ) = (13)

N
i =1
Fit (i )

The mutation operation is to change the gene position, so that the algorithm has the ability
of local random search and avoid premature convergence. Randomly select three different
individuals Sr1 ( g ), Sr 2 ( g ), Sr 3 ( g ) in the strategy set, the produced intermediate expressed as:

I i ( g + 1) = Sr1 ( g ) + F  ( Sr 2 ( g ) − Sr 3 ( g )) (14)

where F is the scaling factor.

The purpose of crossover operation is to increase the diversity of solutions, The result of
crossover between Si ( g ) and I i ( g + 1) is:

 I ( g + 1) rand (0,1)  CR
H i ( g + 1) =  i (15)
 Si ( g ) otherwise

where CR is crossover probability.

Through the above steps, the solution set of the strategy Sij = { X ij , Bij , f mmec } evolves from
generation to generation, producing better and better approximate solutions. Finally, record
*
the optimal solution S * , and calculate the minimum average delay Obj .

4.2 Resource Prediction

In context-aware collaborative vehicular edge computing networks, the SDN controller can
monitor MEC servers load changes in real time. In different regions, the traffic flow at different
time periods is very different, which leads to server load unbalanced. In order to improve
resource utilization, adaptively learning the load changes of the server and realizing resource
prediction and scheduling is an effective way to improve traffic conditions. Therefore, the
ARIMA model is applied to predict the number of vehicles arriving in the area in the next time
period based on the historical data of traffic flow.
The basic idea of the ARIMA model [40] is that the time-varying data sequence is a random
sequence, which can be described by a certain mathematical model to predict the future value
from the past value and the current value of the time series. The ARIMA ( p, d , q) model can
be expressed as:
394 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

yT =  + i =1Yi yT −i + T + i =1i T −i
p q
(16)

where p is the autoregressive order, d denotes the difference times and q is the average
moving order.
Suppose there are R regions in the vehicular edge network, which can be represented by
T
set {1,2, r, R} . P ( Ar ) is the traffic flow of region Ar in period T . According to the traffic
flow over the past T periods P ( Ar ), P ( Ar ), , P ( Ar ) , the traffic flow in period T + 1 can be
1 2 T

predicted. The greater the traffic flow in a period of time, the higher the server load in the area.
T +1 T +1 T +1
After the prediction is completed, the sequence P ( A1 ), P ( A2 ), , P ( Ar ) can be get. In
descending order according to traffic flow, take out the top H regions and bottom L regions.
Dispatch the computing resources in the L regions to the H regions, and cooperate to
complete the computing offloading.
The resource prediction based on ARIMA model mainly consists of 4 steps.
1 2 T
Step 1: Check whether the data sequence over the past T periods P ( Ar ), P ( Ar ), , P ( Ar )
is stationary. If the series is nonstationary, perform d order difference operation until a
stationary sequence is obtained.
Step 2: Determine ARIMA model parameters p and q according to sequence characteristics.
Step 3: Calculate the autocorrelation function and partial correlation function of the time
series, check whether the ARIMA model ( p, d , q) is satisfied.
T +1
Step 4: If satisfied, forecast the traffic flow P ( Ar ) in period T + 1 . Otherwise, repeat
Step 2 and Step 3.
T +1 T +1 T +1
Step 5: Sort sequence P ( A1 ), P ( A2 ), , P ( Ar ) in descending order to implement
resource scheduling.

4.3 CAVTO Optimization Scheme

Combining the DE-based delay optimization algorithm and ARIMA-based resource prediction
algorithm, the CATVO optimization scheme is proposed in Algorithm 2. First, based on
historical data, the traffic flow of different areas in the next time period can be predicted. The
traffic flow indirectly reflects the load condition of the server in this region. Then, low-load
MEC servers assists in performing computing offloading for high-load MEC servers. Finally,
the DE algorithm is adopted to jointly optimize resource allocation and offloading decisions.
The result shows that the CATVO optimization scheme not only effectively reduces the
offloading delay, but also improves resource utilization.

Algorithm 2 CAVTO optimization scheme

Input: Population size: N ,Dimension: M , Max iteration: G , Number of SCs: n ,
Number of tasks: k ,Total bandwidth: Btotal , Total computing resources: f M .
1 2
Data of traffic flow P ( Ar ), P ( Ar ), , PT ( Ar )
Output: The optimal solution: Sij* (T + 1) = { X ij , Bij , f mmec }

The minimal delay: Obj (T + 1)

*

T +1
1 Predict P ( A1 ), PT +1 ( A2 ), , PT +1 ( Ar ) according to ARIMA algorithm
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 395

T +1
2 Sort sequence P ( A1 ), PT +1 ( A2 ), , PT +1 ( Ar ) in descending order
3 Scheduling the computing resources from L regions to the H regions
4 Adopt algorithm.1
Return Sij* (T + 1) and Obj (T + 1)
*
5

5. Simulation Results and Analysis

In this section, we set the environmental parameters of the simulation experiment and evaluate
the performance of the CAVTO optimization scheme by comparing other baseline algorithms.
The specific details are shown as follows.

5.1 Parameters Settings

The scenario assumed in this article is on a one-way traffic road. The task of the driving vehicle
can be executed locally or offloaded to the RSUs. Due to the heterogeneity of vehicles, assume
that the number of computing tasks for the vehicle is 5-10. The computing capability of each
vehicle is randomly distributed as 4 × 106 ~ 2 × 107 cycles/s, and each car travels at a certain
speed. The specific simulation parameters are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Simulation parameters

Parameters Value

RSU coverage radius 100~200/m

Vertical distance from RSU to road 30~50/m
Transmission bandwidth 5 MHz
Vehicle computing capability 4 × 106 ~ 2 × 107 cycles/s
Vehicle transmission power 1.3 W
Gaussian white noise power 3 × 10−13 W
Channel gain 4
Number of tasks unit vehicle 5~10
MEC server computing capability 8 × 107 ~ 2 × 108 cycles/s
Task weight coefficient 0~3
Data size of vehicular task 100 kb
Task computing capability 50 cycles/bit

5.2 Experiment Results

Suppose there are five vehicles driving RSU in the same time period. In order to allocate
resources reasonably, make wise offloading decisions. The DE algorithm is employed to
minimize the average system delay. As shown in Fig. 5, we initialize the population size to
100, evolution algebra is set as 150, and reorganization probability is 0.1. The experimental
results show that the optimal objective function value gets the minimum 1806 ms after 140
iterations. The detailed allocation strategy of the DE algorithm is shown in Fig. 6.
396 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

Fig. 5. The DE offloading scheme

Fig. 6. Allocation strategy of DE algorithm

In terms of idle resource prediction, we use the ARIMA model to predict the traffic flow
in the next period. The data set is provided by the Korea Expressway Corporation [41], the
data format is shown in Fig. 7. This data records the hourly traffic flow on a certain highway.
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 397

Fig. 7. Traffic flow data set

Fig. 8. Model sequence diagram

After initial processing of the data, we calculate the characteristic of standardized residual,
histogram plus estimated density, autocorrelation function, and partial correlation function,
etc. The purpose is to analyze the reliability and periodicity of the data, and check whether the
data obey the normal distribution. The result is as shown in Fig. 8. The calculation shows that
the data set has good stationarity and is suitable for the ARIMA model.
Fig. 9 presents the traffic flow prediction based on the ARIMA model. According to the
traffic flow in the past six days, predict the traffic flow situation within 24 hours. Set the time
node with less traffic as the idle resource node of this region, and dispatch computing resources
to other regions to improve offloading efficiency.
398 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

Fig. 9. Traffic flow prediction based on ARIMA model

5.3 Algorithm Performance Evaluation

In order to further evaluate the performance of the CAVTO optimization scheme, compare
CAVTO with the following offloading schemes: 1) Local Execution (LE): all the computing
tasks of vehicle execute locally. 2) MEC Execution (ME): all the computing tasks will be
offloaded to RSUs for execution. 3) Differential Evolution algorithm (DE): which without
considering resource forecast and schedule.

Fig. 10. The average delay of tasks processing with the increasing of vehicles
KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 15, NO. 2, February 2021 399

The Fig. 10 reveals the relationship between the number of vehicles and the average delay.
It can be seen from the diagram, as the number of vehicles increases, the CAVTO scheme and
DE algorithm show a slow upward trend; the DE algorithm is inferior to CATVO in average
delay because there is no prediction and scheduling of idle resources. The ME strategy offloads
all computing tasks to RSUs. In the beginning, the delay optimization performed well.
However, as the number of vehicles increased, channel congestion was caused, and the supply
of resources exceeded demand, which causes a large delay. In summary, CAVTO is superior
to the other three algorithms and reduces the average delay by up to 16% compared with the
DE strategy.
Furthermore, in order to study the number of vehicular tasks with different priorities, the
total weight (  i =1 wi ) of task completion under different offloading schemes has been
n

researched through repeated experiments.

Fig. 11. The total weight of tasks completion under different offloading schemes

It can be seen from Fig. 11, the total weight of the CAVTO optimization scheme is the
largest, which explains that the strategy pays more attention to priority processing of high-
priority tasks. Compared with DE, ME, LE strategies that do not consider priority, the CAVTO
optimization scheme has increased by 20%, 31%, and 52%, respectively.

6. Conclusion
In this paper, an effective CAVTO optimization scheme is proposed in a vehicular edge
computing system with multiple SCs and multiple MEC servers. Technologically, an
improved differential evolution algorithm is designed to figure out the joint optimization
problem of offloading decision and resource allocation. Furthermore, the ARIMA-based
machine learning algorithms are used to predict idle computing resources to ensure MEC
server load balance and improve utilization efficiency. The experimental results demonstrate
that the CAVTO optimization scheme could generate a near-best resource allocation strategy
by comparing baseline algorithms and reduce the system delay significantly.
400 Jin et al.: A Context-Aware Task Offloading Scheme in Collaborative Vehicular Edge Computing System

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Zilong Jin received the B.E. degree in computer engineering from the Harbin University of
Science and Technology, China, in 2009, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer
engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in 2011 and 2016, respectively. He is
currently an Assistant Professor with the School of Computer and Software, Nanjing
University of Information Science and Technology, China. His research interests include
wireless sensor networks, mobile wireless networks, and cognitive radio networks.

Chengbo Zhang received his B.E. degree in computer science from Nanjing University of
Information Science and Technology, China, in 2019. Now he is a master student in School
of Computer and Software, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology. His
main research interests include internet of mobile communication and edge computing.

Guanzhe Zhao received B.E. degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering from Yan
Shan University, China, in 2009, and M.S. degree in the Department of Electronics and Radio
Engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in 2011. He is currently a Lecturer in
Huihua College of Hebei Normal University. His research interests are in communication
systems, cognitive radio networks, and deep learning.

Yuanfeng Jin received the B.S. and the M.S. degree in Department of Mathematics from
the YanBian University, China, in 1998 and 2004, respectively, and Ph.D. degrees in
Department of Applied Mathematics from Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in 2010. He
is currently a professor in Mathematics at Departmet of Mathematics of Yanbian University,
China. His research interests are numerical algorithms, partial differential equations and
scientific computation.

Lejun Zhang received the M.S. degree in computer science and technology from the Harbin
Institute of Technology and the Ph.D. degree in computer science and technology from Harbin
Engineering University. He is currently a Professor with Yangzhou University, China. His
research interests include computer networks, social network analysis, and information
security.