With the fast development trend of Internet of Things (IoTs), the demand for User Terminals (UTs) such as smartphones, unmanned aerial vehicles, and wearable devices is increasing dramatically. However, UTs are constrained by limited resources, such as CPU computing power, storage space, energy capacities, and environmental awareness, complex computing tasks. To solve the above contradiction, one effective way is to offload complex computing tasks from UTs either to remote cloud servers or nearby edge servers. Compared to cloud servers, edge servers are closer to UTs and thus achieve lower latency; however, edge servers have low computing capacity while cloud servers have relatively sufficient computing power. Therefore, edge computing and cloud computing can cooperate and complement with each other in terms of computing, storage, and communication facilities. The combination of edge and cloud computing will make task execution faster, cheaper, and more stable.
This special issue is devoted to state-of-the-art research covering concepts of task offloading technologies for IoT applications. It is of great significance to the rapid promotion of collaboration between Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC). With the continuous development of theory and methods of decision-making and thorough perception of the hybrid task offloading, and further meets the application requirements on UTs, compensates for the lack of computing capacity and limited battery power for IoT systems.
Guest editors:
Huaming Wu, Tianjin University, China
Adel Nadjaran Toosi, Monash University, Australia
Sukhpal Singh Gill, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Minxian Xu, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, CAS, China