Adaptive Edge Intelligent Joint Optimization of UAV Computation Offloading and Trajectory Under Time-Varying Channels

With the rapid development of mobile edge computing (MEC) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication networks, UAV-assisted edge computing has emerged as a promising paradigm for low-latency and energy-efficient computation. However, the time-varying nature of air-to-ground channels and the coupling between UAV trajectories and computation offloading decisions significantly increase system complexity. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an Adaptive UAV Edge Intelligence Framework (AUEIF) for joint UAV computation offloading and trajectory optimization under dynamic channels. Specifically, a dynamic graph-based system model is constructed to characterize the spatio-temporal correlation between UAV motion and channel variations. A hierarchical reinforcement learning-based optimization framework is developed, in which a high-level actor–critic module is responsible for generating coarse-grained UAV flight trajectories, while a low-level deep Q-network performs fine-grained optimization of task offloading ratios and computational resource allocation in real time. In addition, an adaptive channel prediction module leveraging long short-term memory (LSTM) networks is integrated to model temporal channel state transitions and to assist policy learning and updates. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed AUEIF achieves significant improvements in end-to-end latency, energy efficiency, and overall system stability compared with conventional deep reinforcement learning approaches and heuristic-based schemes while exhibiting strong robustness against dynamic and fluctuating wireless channel conditions.

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Publication Details

Journal
Drones
Published
2025-12-31
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/drones10010021
Primary Topic
UAV Applications and Optimization
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Adaptive Edge Intelligent Joint Optimization of UAV Computation Offloading and Trajectory Under Time-Varying Channels

Dimin Xie, Jinwei Xie
Drones
UAV Applications and Optimization
article

Adaptive Edge Intelligent Joint Optimization of UAV Computation Offloading and Trajectory Under Time-Varying Channels

Dimin Xie, Jinwei Xie
article en

Abstract

With the rapid development of mobile edge computing (MEC) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication networks, UAV-assisted edge computing has emerged as a promising paradigm for low-latency and energy-efficient computation. However, the time-varying nature of air-to-ground channels and the coupling between UAV trajectories and computation offloading decisions significantly increase system complexity. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an Adaptive UAV Edge Intelligence Framework (AUEIF) for joint UAV computation offloading and trajectory optimization under dynamic channels. Specifically, a dynamic graph-based system model is constructed to characterize the spatio-temporal correlation between UAV motion and channel variations. A hierarchical reinforcement learning-based optimization framework is developed, in which a high-level actor–critic module is responsible for generating coarse-grained UAV flight trajectories, while a low-level deep Q-network performs fine-grained optimization of task offloading ratios and computational resource allocation in real time. In addition, an adaptive channel prediction module leveraging long short-term memory (LSTM) networks is integrated to model temporal channel state transitions and to assist policy learning and updates. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed AUEIF achieves significant improvements in end-to-end latency, energy efficiency, and overall system stability compared with conventional deep reinforcement learning approaches and heuristic-based schemes while exhibiting strong robustness against dynamic and fluctuating wireless channel conditions.

DronesVol. 10(1)
Zhejiang Energy Research Institute (CN), Zhejiang Institute of Science and Technology Information (CN)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 20%
UAV Applications and Optimization
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Adaptive Edge Intelligent Joint Optimization of UAV Computation Offloading and Trajectory Under Time-Varying Channels — Dimin Xie, Jinwei Xie · Drones (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS