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Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science)  2026, Vol. 60 Issue (8): 1686-1696    DOI: 10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.08.008
    
Optimization of unmanned aerial vehicle deployment and offloading strategies
Yaoping ZENG(),Huai LI,Shisen CHEN,Jinding LI
School of Communication and Information Engineering, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China
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Abstract  

Aiming at minimizing the computation delay and energy consumption of user equipment (UE) in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) system, a joint optimization of UAV deployment and UE offloading strategy was proposed based on a game-theoretic approach. Considering the selfish and rational nature of the devices, the UAV-assisted MEC system was modeled as a two-layer Stackelberg game, with the UAVs as the leaders and the UEs as the followers. At the follower layer, an improved coalition formation game was utilized to minimize the total computational cost of the UEs. At the leader layer, the throughput of the UAV was maximized through an exact potential game. The existence of Nash equilibra at the follower and leader layers was proved by using backward induction, and the existence of a Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) for the proposed overall game was further proved. A Stackelberg-based two-layer iterative algorithm was proposed to achieve the SE. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the baseline algorithm while guaranteeing convergence and low complexity.



Key wordsmobile edge computing      offloading strategy      deployment strategy      Stackelberg game      coalition formation game      exact potential game     
Received: 10 July 2025      Published: 16 July 2026
CLC:  TN 925  
Fund:  陕西省重点研发计划资助项目(2024NC-YBXM-206);西安邮电大学研究生创新基金资助项目(CXJJYL2024025).
Cite this article:

Yaoping ZENG,Huai LI,Shisen CHEN,Jinding LI. Optimization of unmanned aerial vehicle deployment and offloading strategies. Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science), 2026, 60(8): 1686-1696.

URL:

https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.08.008     OR     https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/Y2026/V60/I8/1686


无人机部署与卸载策略优化

针对无人机(UAV)辅助移动边缘计算(MEC)中最小化用户设备(UE)计算时延和能源消耗问题,基于博弈论方法提出UAV部署与UE卸载策略的联合优化方法. 鉴于设备具有自私性与理性特征,将UAV辅助MEC系统建模为斯塔克尔伯格二层博弈,UAV作为领导者,UE作为追随者. 在追随者层,利用改进的联盟形成博弈最小化 UE 的总计算成本;在领导者层,通过精确势博弈最大化UAV的吞吐量. 通过逆向归纳法分别证明追随者层和领导者层纳什均衡的存在性,进而证明所提整体博弈存在斯塔克尔伯格均衡(SE),并提出基于斯塔克尔伯格的二层迭代算法来达到该SE. 仿真结果表明,所提算法在保证收敛和低复杂度的同时,显著优于基线算法.


关键词: 移动边缘计算,  卸载策略,  部署策略,  斯塔克尔伯格博弈,  联盟形成博弈,  精确势博弈 
Fig.1 Post-disaster UAV-assisted MEC model
Fig.2 Definition of neighbor UEs set
参数数值参数数值
H/m300Cn/(cycles?bit?1[3 000,5 000]
Dmax/m300Fm/GHz[6,9]
a, b9.6,0.28fnloc/GHz[0.1,0.6]
N0/dBm?100Pm,n/W0.5
g0/dB?30κ10?27
B/MHz1Dmin/m25
$\mathit{\Delta} $/Mbit1Rth/(bits?s?12×105
λ4ξ10?3
Tab.1 Main simulation parameter
Fig.3 Convergence behavior of improved coalition formation algorithm
Fig.4 Convergence behavior of alternating iteration algorithm
Fig.5 Performance comparison of total computational cost for different numbers of UEs
Fig.6 Performance comparison of total computational cost for different numbers of UAVs
Fig.7 Performance comparison of total computational cost for different average task sizes
Fig.8 Performance comparison of total computational cost for different average task densities
Fig.9 Total computational cost and number of offloads for different UAV average computational resources
Fig.10 Total computational cost and number of offloads for different UAV communication bandwidths
Fig.11 Total computational cost and number of offloads for different UE delay-sensitive weighting factors
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