Mobile Device Association and Resource Allocation in HCNs With Mobile Edge Computing and Caching

Abstract

To meet the need of computation-sensitive (CS) and high-rate (HR) communications, the mobile edge computing and caching framework has been widely regarded as a promising solution. When such a framework is implemented in heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs), it is a key and open topic how to assign mobile edge computing and caching servers to mobile devices (MDs) with CS and HR communications. In this article, under the resource partitioning and resource constraints, joint MD association and resource allocation is performed to minimize the total delay of MDs. In such a formulated problem, the MD association and resource allocation parameters are in a coupling form. In addition, it is also in nonlinear mixed-integer one and hard to tackle. To solve it, we try to develop an alternating optimization algorithm according to the coalitional game and convex optimization theorems. As for the designed algorithm, we provide some detailed convergence, stability, parallel implement, and computation complexity analyses. At last, in the simulation, we introduce other association algorithms for comparison, and investigate the impacts of MD density, time, and frequency partitioning factors on the delay of MDs. Simulation results show that the designed algorithm can achieve lower network delay than existing algorithms in general.