Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Inference Task Scheduling and Offloading for Maximum Inference Accuracy under Time and Energy Constraints

The journey towards realizing real-time AI-driven IoT applications is facing a significant hurdle caused by the limited resources of IoT devices. Particularly for battery-powered edge devices, the decision between performing task inference locally or by offloading to edge servers, all while ensuring timely results and conserving energy, is a critical issue. This problem is further complicated when an edge device houses multiple local inference models. The challenge of effectively allocating inference models to tasks between local models and edge server models under strict time and energy constraints while maximizing overall accuracy is recognized as a strongly NP-hard problem and has not been addressed in the literature. Therefore, in this work we propose MASITO, a novel multi-agent deep reinforcement learning framework designed to address this intricate problem. By dividing the problem into two sub-problems namely task scheduling and edge server selection we propose a cooperative multi-agent system for addressing each sub-problem. MASITO’s design allows for faster training and more robust schedules using cooperative behavior where agents compensate for each other’s sub-optimal actions. Moreover, MASITO dynamically adapts to different network configurations which allows for high-mobility edge computing applications. Experiments on the ImageNet-mini dataset demonstrate the framework’s efficacy, outperforming genetic algorithms (GAs), simulated annealing (SA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) in scheduling times by providing lower times ranging from 60% up to 90% while maintaining comparable average accuracy in worst-case scenarios and superior accuracy in best-case scenarios.