Sequential Task Assignment and Resource Allocation in V2X-Enabled Mobile Edge Computing

Nowadays, the convergence of mobile edge computing (MEC) and vehicular networks has emerged as a vital enabler for the ever-increasing intelligent onboard applications. This paper proposes a multi-tier task offloading mechanism for MEC-enabled vehicular networks leveraging vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. The study focuses on applications with sequential subtasks and explores the collaboration of two tiers. In the Vehicle Tier, the requesting vehicle (RV)-service vehicle (SV) matching scheme and the inter-vehicle collaborative computation are studied, with joint optimization of task offloading decision, communication, and computing resource allocation to minimize energy consumption while satisfying delay requirements. In the Roadside Unit (RSU) Tier, collaboration among RSUs is investigated to further address multi-access issues of uplink subchannels and computing resources for serving unmatched RVs. To tackle this intricate problem, a layered optimization framework is first proposed to obtain task offloading decisions and optimal continuous resource allocation, after which a subchannel allocation scheme is designed to recover the discrete solution with low complexity. Extensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate that the proposed method reduces average energy consumption by at least 15% compared with recent utility maximization and energy cost minimization benchmarks under varying task delay requirements and vehicle scales.