Age of Information Analysis of Multi-user Mobile Edge Computing Systems

In this paper, we analyze the age of information (AoI) performance of a multi-user mobile edge computing (MEC) system where a base station (BS) generates and transmits computation-intensive packets to user equipments (UEs). In this MEC system, we consider two computing schemes, namely, the local computing scheme and the edge computing scheme. In the local computing scheme, each packet is transmitted to the UE and then computed by the local server at the UE. In the edge computing scheme, each packet is computed by the edge server at the BS and then transmitted to the UE. Considering exponentially distributed transmission time and computation time and adopting the first come first serve queuing policy, we derive the closed-form expressions for the average AoI of these two computing schemes. Simulation results corroborate our analysis and examine the impact of system parameters on the average AoI.