Minimizing IoT Energy Consumption by IRS-Aided UAV Mobile Edge Computing

In this letter, we design new methods for jointly optimizing the reflection coefficients of Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRSs) and path selection, in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-Assisted Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) system that serves Internet of Things (IoT) devices. A general mathematical formulation is presented for the problem of minimizing the total energy consumption of the system. Furthermore, the problem is solved for two cases, namely, when all IRS elements have the same or different reflection coefficients. Numerical results highlight the benefits of allowing the UAV to choose between locally processing tasks and relaying them to the ground MEC server.