PLTO: Path Loss-Aware Task Offloading for Vehicular Cooperative Perception

Leveraging task offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) via V2X can present unique and robust solutions to the challenges associated with cooperative perception in Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). However, making task offloading decisions that account for the risk of communication failure due to path loss, while adhering to the stringent QoS requirements of cooperative perception has been mostly overlooked. In this paper, we propose PLTO, a Path Loss-Aware Task Offloading scheme that accounts for path loss for Line-of-Sight (LOS), Obstructed LoS (OLoS), and Non-LoS (NLoS) propagation in vehicular communications. We formulate the task offloading problem as a 0–1 Integer Linear Program (0–1 ILP) that aims to minimize the path loss and response delay, while sustaining a certain satisfactory level of improved perception and situational awareness demanded by users. We also propose PLTO-Heuristic (PLTO-H), a scheme to solve the task offloading problem using the MTHG heuristic. Extensive simulations show that PLTO yields significant improvements of up to 17%, 10%, and 23% in terms of packet delivery ratio, Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), and average response delay, respectively, compared to a baseline task offloading scheme that does not consider communication efficiency. In addition, PLTO-H achieves a near optimal solution, with a small gap of up to 6%, 5% and 1.2% in terms of packet delivery ratio, RSSI, and satisfaction ratio, respectively.