DRL-based Distributed Resource Allocation for Edge Computing in Cell-Free Massive MIMO Network

Abstract: In this paper, with the aim of addressing the stringent computing and quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of recently introduced advanced multimedia services, we consider a cell-free massive MIMO-enabled mobile edge network. In particular, benefited from the reliable cell-free links to offload intensive computation to the edge server, resource-constrained end-users can augment on-board (local) processing with edge computing. To this end, we formulate a joint communication and computing resource allocation (JCCRA) problem to minimize the total energy consumption of the users, while meeting the respective user-specific deadlines. To tackle the problem, we propose a fully distributed solution approach based on cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning framework, wherein each user is implemented as a learning agent to make joint resource allocation relying on local information only. The simulation results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed distributed approach outperforms the heuristic baselines, converging to a centralized target benchmark, without resorting to large overhead. Moreover, we showed that the proposed algorithm has performed significantly better in cell-free system as compared with the cellular MEC systems, e.g., a small cell-based MEC system.