A Deep Q-Learning Framework for Enhanced QoE and Energy Optimization in Fog Computing

Fog computing, an evolution of cloud computing, has become increasingly popular for its ability to lessen the burden of such a centralized computing paradigm by distributing tasks generated by IoT across fog layers. Effectively managing real-time, delay-sensitive, and diverse IoT applications to enhance the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) presents significant challenges due to the dispersed nature and limited resources of fog nodes. Previous studies in fog computing task offloading have typically focused on either energy consumption or service delay. This paper introduces an optimization framework for task offloading within fog computing environments that aims to balance improved user QoE with reduced energy consumption, employing Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Given the NP-hard nature of this framework, we have devised a Deep Q-Learning (DQL) based model for task offloading, termed ELTO-DQL, which aims for near-optimal solutions in polynomial time. Experimental results indicate that the ELTO-DQL model enhances energy efficiency and QoE by up to 19% and 15% respectively, outperforming contemporary benchmarks.