Flat-Rate Pricing for Green Edge Computing with Latency Guarantee: A Stackelberg Game Approach

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a promising paradigm to ease the computation burden of mobile devices by leveraging computing capabilities at the network edge. With the yearning needs for resource provision from the comparatively limited edge servers, an admission control charging a flat-rate price and resistant from self-interested manipulations is proposed to both utilize the scarce resources to the fullest and guarantee end- to-end latency for served mobile devices. Besides, to achieve energy sustainability and maximize profit, edge servers can lessen the energy consumption, and thus the energy expenditure by offloading certain requests to the cloud with a payment. Nonetheless, the cloud can reduce its energy consumption and enlarge the revenue through raising the service price to maximize its profit as well. The inherent hierarchy and interdependence between edge servers and the cloud are captured by Stackelberg game where the unique Stackelberg equilibrium is reached. The utility maximization problems for determining the optimal offloading ratio of edge servers and setting the optimal pricing of the cloud are investigated by exploiting the strict convexity and KKT conditions. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of our scheme and several insights are illustrated.