In the rapidly evolving landscape of IoT-Edge-Cloud continuum (IECC), effective management of computational tasks offloaded from mobile devices to edge nodes is crucial. This paper presents a Distributed Reinforcement Learning Delay Minimization (DRL-DeMi) scheme for IECC task offloading.

DRL-DeMi is a distributed framework engineered to tackle the challenges arising from the unpredictable load dynamics at edge nodes. It empowers each edge node to independently make offloading decisions, optimizing for non-divisible, latency-sensitive tasks without reliance on prior knowledge of other nodes’ task models and decisions.

By framing the problem as a multi-agent computation offloading scenario, DRL-DeMi aims to minimize expected long-term latency and task drop ratio. Adhering to IECC requirements for seamless task flow within the Edge layer and between Edge-Cloud layers, DRLDeMi considers three computation decision avenues: local computation, horizontal offloading to another edge node, or vertical offloading to the Cloud. Integration of advanced techniques such as long short-term memory (LSTM), double deep Q-network (DQN), and dueling DQN enhances long-term cost estimation, thereby refining decision-making efficacy. Simulation results validate DRL-DeMi’s superiority over baseline offloading algorithms, showcasing reductions in both task drop ratio and average delay.