Deep Q-Learning Technique for Offloading Offline/Online Computation in Blockchain-Enabled Green IoT-Edge Scenarios

Abstract

The number of Internet of Things (IoT)-related innovations has recently increased exponentially, with numerous IoT objects being invented one after the other. Where and how many resources can be transferred to carry out tasks or applications is known as computation offloading. Transferring resource-intensive computational tasks to a different external device in the network, such as a cloud, fog, or edge platform, is the strategy used in the IoT environment. Besides, offloading is one of the key technological enablers of the IoT, as it helps overcome the resource limitations of individual objects. One of the major shortcomings of previous research is the lack of an integrated offloading framework that can operate in an offline/online environment while preserving security. This paper offers a new deep Q-learning approach to address the IoT-edge offloading enabled blockchain problem using the Markov Decision Process (MDP). There is a substantial gap in the secure online/offline offloading systems in terms of security, and no work has been published in this arena thus far. This system can be used online and offline while maintaining privacy and security. The proposed method employs the Post Decision State (PDS) mechanism in online mode. Additionally, we integrate edge/cloud platforms into IoT blockchain-enabled networks to encourage the computational potential of IoT devices. This system can enable safe and secure cloud/edge/IoT offloading by employing blockchain. In this system, the master controller, offloading decision, block size, and processing nodes may be dynamically chosen and changed to reduce device energy consumption and cost. TensorFlow and Cooja's simulation results demonstrated that the method could dramatically boost system efficiency relative to existing schemes. The findings showed that the method beats four benchmarks in terms of cost by 6.6%, computational overhead by 7.1%, energy use by 7.9%, task failure rate by 6.2%, and latency by 5.5% on average.