Spatial Intelligence toward Trustworthy Vehicular IoT

Spatial challenges for the vehicular Internet of Things come from mobility, high density, sparse connectivity, and heterogeneity. In this article, we propose two techniques, namely decentralized moving edge and multi-tier multi-access edge clustering, to handle these challenges. The “vehicle as an edge” concept of the decentralized moving edge provides a more suitable solution to meet the throughput and latency performance requirements by conducting distributed communication, data caching, and computing tasks at vehicles. Multi-tier multi-access edge clustering generates different levels of clusters for more efficient integration of different types of access technologies including licensed/unlicensed long-range low-throughput communications and unlicensed short-range high-throughput communications. We employ fuzzy logic to jointly consider multiple inherently contradictory metrics and use Q-learning to achieve a self-evolving capability. Realistic computer simulations are conducted to show the advantage of the proposed protocols over alternatives, and several open research problems are discussed.