Dependency-aware Task Offloading and Resource Pricing in Vehicular Edge Computing: A Stackelberg Game Approach

Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) allows vehicles to offload their delay-sensitive tasks to nearby Road Side Units (RSUs) for processing, which improves network quality of service (QoS). However, the self-interested SDN controller is unwilling to ask RSUs to provide free computing resources for vehicles. At the same time, complicated dependencies between vehicular subtasks may cause non-ideal task delay and energy consumption. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a Stackelberg game-based Dependency-aware task Offloading and resource Pricing framework (SDOP). Specifically, we first model a vehicular edge network that partially offloads dependency-aware tasks. Then, we depict the interaction between the SDN controller and vehicles as a Stackelberg game, with the goal of maximizing the utility of both parties. Next, we present a Gradient Ascent Plus Genetic algorithm (GAPG) to solve the problem. Finally, numerous simulations are performed, and the results show that compared with other baseline schemes, the proposed GAPG can significantly improve the utility of both the SDN controller and vehicles under various scenarios.