IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO.

19, 1 OCTOBER 2022 18725

Achieve Load Balancing in Multi-UAV Edge

Computing IoT Networks: A Dynamic
Entry and Exit Mechanism
Hongzhi Guo , Member, IEEE, Xiaoyi Zhou , Graduate Student Member, IEEE,
Yutao Wang , Graduate Student Member, IEEE, and Jiajia Liu , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—With the gradual commercialization of 5G, espe- I. I NTRODUCTION

cially the widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI)
technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand
and has integrated into every aspect of our lives. While enjoy-
ing the convenience brought by IoT, we also face unprecedented
challenges, including ubiquitous and unpredictable demands for
communication and computing resources. In consideration of
their flexible deployment, low cost, and easy expansion, UAV
edge computing IoT networks (UECINs), which adopt unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide fast communication and com-
puting services, have emerged as a promising solution. Note that
there have been a number of studies focusing on UAV’s position
deployment and trajectory design, resource allocation in UECIN.
However, most existing works proposed short-term service pro-
visioning systems with a fixed number of UAVs, ignoring the
problem of UAVs’ limited battery power and the possible changes
of ground users’ number, locations, and resource requirements.
To address these issues, we present a dynamic UECIN framework
with autonomous prediction characteristics, aiming to stably pro-
vide mobile-edge computing services for ground users in a certain
area over a long period of time. This framework can not only
support UAV’s dynamic entry and exit according to the real-time
needs of ground users but also update their position deployment
based on the distribution of ground users. As we know, we are
the first to propose UECIN with a dynamic entry and exit mech-
anism. Besides, an efficient and load-balancing task allocation
scheme is further given, and extensive analysis and numerical
results corroborate the feasibility and superior performance of
our framework.
Index Terms—Entry and exit mechanism, Internet of Things
(IoT) networks, load balancing, mobile-edge computing, multi-
UAV, neural networks.
Manuscript received 3 March 2022; accepted 20 March 2022. Date of pub-
lication 23 March 2022; date of current version 23 September 2022. This work
was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant 62001393; in part by the Natural Science Basic Research Program
of Shaanxi under Grant 2020JC-15; in part by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities under Grant D5000210817; in part by
the Xi’an Unmanned System Security and Intelligent Communications ISTC
Center; and in part by the Special Funds for Central Universities Construction
of World-Class Universities (Disciplines) and Special Development Guidance
under Grant 0639021GH0201024. (Corresponding author: Jiajia Liu.)
Hongzhi Guo, Yutao Wang, and Jiajia Liu are with the National Engineering
Laboratory for Integrated Aero–Space–Ground–Ocean Big Data Application
Technology, School of Cybersecurity, Northwestern Polytechnical University,
Xi’an 710072, Shaanxi, China (e-mail: liujiajia@nwpu.edu.cn).
Xiaoyi Zhou is with the School of Cyber Engineering, Xidian University,
Xi’an 710071, China.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JIOT.2022.3161703
2327-4662 
c 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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ITH the development of artificial intelligence
W (AI) [1], [2] and the gradual commercialization
of 5G technologies, the scale of Internet of Thing (IoT)
networks [3], [4] continues to expand and the communication
rate between devices is gradually increasing, which enables
the application of IoT technologies in many scenarios, such
as smart cities, smart factories, smart agriculture, power
inspection, etc. While enjoying the convenience brought
by IoT, we also face unprecedented challenges, including
ubiquitous and unpredictable demands for communication
and computing resources. In consideration of unmanned aerial
vehicles’ (UAVs’) flexible deployment, low cost, and easy
expansion, UAV edge computing IoT networks (UECINs),
which adopt UAVs to provide fast communication and
computing services, have emerged as a promising solution.
A. Related Works
For application scenarios in remote areas, such as smart
agriculture [5], power inspection [6], and forest protection [7],
the primary issue is the insufficient infrastructure deployment,
which may prevent the collected data from being processed
in time, causing economic property losses. The deployment
of base stations (BSs) in remote areas is not accomplished
overnight [8], and operators may also consider the cost and
benefit of construction. Generally, they will not choose to
build large BSs without strategic significance in remote areas.
Therefore, the opportunity for UAVs comes [9]. Their easy-
to-control features make it easier for them to freely collect
and return data, and their computing and communication
capabilities allow them to serve as aerial BSs [10], [11],
or communication relay nodes [12], [13] to provide services
for ground users. Many existing works have put forward the
application prospects of UAVs in remote areas. For exam-
ple, Maddikunta et al. [14] summarized the applications of
UAVs in smart agriculture, e.g., monitoring the status of
crops, guiding farm animals, and even pollination by UAVs.
Cruz et al. [15] presented a scheme for UAV to automatically
detect tropical rain forest status in real time, and its recogni-
tion algorithm processing is executed on UAV. All these works
show that the application of UAVs in remote areas has great
prospects.
18726
Moreover, for urban scenarios with relatively complete
infrastructure, such as smart cities [16], smart vehicular
networks [17], smart factories [18], etc., their infrastructure
deployment is sufficient for them to complete their usual
tasks. However, they also face some challenges. For example,
the holding of large-scale events may lead to sudden crowd
gatherings, reduced communication quality, and insufficient
computing resources. Mobile devices often fail to receive sig-
nals at meetings or sports events. Furthermore, the occurrence
of traffic accidents may cause road congestion, and the quality
of communications and task processing cannot be guaranteed.
In addition, the quality of Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) commu-
nications between BSs and devices in urban environments is
not always good. In order to solve these emergencies, UAVs
may be a good choice. They are small, flexible, as well as inex-
pensive, and they can be quickly deployed to places where it is
needed for computing and relay work. They can also provide
better Line-of-Sight (LoS) communications for ground users
to make up for the deficiencies of terrestrial networks [19].
Many existing works discussed the application of UAVs in
urban scenarios. Zhang and Ansari [20] proposed to use UAVs
as computing nodes and relay nodes to solve the problem of
limited resources in IoT networks. Khan et al. [21] discussed
the potential of UAV as a relay BS in cellular communica-
tions. Qi et al. [22] developed a future smart city architecture
with UAVs, in which UAVs have a significant impact on the
performance of the entire system. Zhao et al. [23] studied the
caching UAV-assisted secure transmission for scalable videos
in hyperdense networks.
Many facts have proved that UAVs will play an impor-
tant role in future production and life. In the early stage of
UAV research, some researchers optimized the flight path [24],
energy consumption [25], and computing delay [26] of a sin-
gle UAV in the IoT networks. However, the resources and
service capabilities of a single UAV are often limited, and
it is impossible for a single UAV to carry a lot of comput-
ing, communication, and battery resources [27]. Therefore,
the simultaneous service of multiple UAVs is necessary and it
can make up for the shortcomings of insufficient resources of
a single UAV [28]. Multi-UAV systems have higher require-
ments for collaboration between UAVs. The deployment loca-
tion [29], [30], flight path [31], [32], load balancing [33], and
resource and task allocation [34], [35] of UAVs are all current
research hotspots. With the development of machine learn-
ing and reinforcement learning, many works tend to use AI
technologies to solve related problems [36], [37], which is
also the development direction of global technology applica-
tions. Nevertheless, most of these works ignored the long-term
operation requirements of the UAV group.
B. Motivation and Challenges
In our opinion, the continuous and long-term service
of the multi-UAV system is an indispensable requirement.
Many previous studies have focused on energy consumption
optimization, which only prolongs the using time of UAVs and
does not fundamentally solve the problem of continuous ser-
vice provided by UAVs. The battery power of the UAV itself
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IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022
is limited, and it is impossible for a single UAV to fly for
a long time. In order to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS)
of the UAV group, it is necessary to consider the replace-
ment of UAVs. Above all, the timing of the UAVs’ entry and
exit is important. Joining too early results in a waste of UAV
resources, and joining too late may cause the UAV to fall.
Moreover, for a long-running UAV group, the locations and
service requirements of ground users are not static, and thus
the UAV group also needs entry and exit mechanisms and
location deployment strategies. The entry of UAVs and a good
deployment strategy are the guarantee of QoS, and the exit of
UAVs is a saving of resources. Finally, how to balance the
load of each UAV in a time-varying UAV group is also a
challenging problem [38]. For the UAV group, load balancing
among UAVs can not only make full use of the resources of
each UAV but also prevent hardware damage caused by the
long-term high-load operation of some individual UAVs.
C. Contributions
In order to solve the above-mentioned long-term edge com-
puting problem, we propose a dynamic multi-UAV framework
in this article, which includes an autonomous prediction mech-
anism and supports UAVs’ entry and exit operations. In this
framework, we fully consider the energy consumption of UAV
flight, CPU operation, as well as communications, and mon-
itor the battery power of each UAV. In particular, the main
contributions of our framework are as follows.
1) Through the learning of backpropagation (BP) neu-
ral network, the framework can predict the number of
ground users in a certain period of time according to
the conditions such as time as well as date and then
update the number of UAVs in advance. Next, according
to the real-time resource demands of ground users, the
framework fine-tunes the UAV group and finally deter-
mines the number of UAVs providing the service. The
entry and exit of UAVs can be flexibly controlled to
provide good services for ground devices while saving
UAV resource consumption.
2) After the number of UAVs is determined, the UAVs
in this framework can automatically update the service
locations according to the distribution of ground devices
and the number of UAVs. Moreover, the UAVs monitor
their own battery power in real time. When some of them
run out of power, they will ask for new UAVs to replace
the current UAVs and ensure the normal operation of
the whole system.
3) In this framework, the ground devices’ tasks can be
evenly distributed among the UAVs while ensuring that
they can be completed within a specified time. Load
balancing among the flying UAVs can prevent irre-
versible damage such as equipment damage caused by
the long-term high-load operation of some UAVs.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. We
first introduce the structure of our proposed framework and
give the relevant system model in Section II. After that, in
Section III, the definition and formulation of the UAV load-
balancing problem are given, and the schemes for calculating
GUO et al.: ACHIEVE LOAD BALANCING IN MULTI-UAV EDGE COMPUTING IoT NETWORKS 18727

Fig. 1. Multi-UAV entry and exit system model. ① The replacement process of a fixed UAV with insufficient battery. ② The entry process of a movable
UAV when the UAV group 2 has insufficient resources. ③ The replacement process of a movable UAV with insufficient battery. ④ The exit process of a
movable UAV when the UAV group 1 has redundant resources. ⑤ The UAV position update process when the number of UAVs changes.

the UAVs’ number, deployment location, and task allocation
are proposed to adapt to the requirements of ground devices.
Then, Section IV presents extensive simulation results and
analysis to verify the feasibility and superior performance of
our system. Finally, Section V concludes this article.
reaches a critical value, a new UAV will be requested to
perform replacement operations. We denote pn ∈ {0, 1} as the
working condition of UAV n, where pn = 0 means UAV n
does not get off the ground, and pn = 1 means UAV n has
been launched to work as a BS.

II. S YSTEM M ODEL A. Communication Model

As shown in Fig. 1, we consider an IoT scenario with Regarding the communication process between UAVs and
ground devices covered by UAVs, where the UAVs serve as ground devices, the instantaneous communication distance is
aerial BSs to provide services for the ground devices. In this a factor that has to be considered. The Euclidean distance
figure, we show the possible actions of UAV groups in a time between UAV n and ground device m is given as

slot in different situations. In this system, we divide time into  2  2  2
dm,n = xnUAV − xm,t + yUAV − ym,t + zUAV . (1)
T time slots, and each time slot t ∈ T  {1, 2, . . . , T}. For n n
each ground device m ∈ M  {1, 2, . . . , M}, the location We can get the average path loss between the UAVs
avg
and task arrival information of ground device is defined as and ground devices Lm,n = PLos m,n Lm,n + (1 − Pm,n )Lm,n ,
Los Los NLos

Qm,t = {Lm,t , Dm,t }. Lm,t = {xm,t , ym,t , 0} represents the 2-D Los and LNLos are the path loss of LoS and NLoS links,
Lm,n m,n
location information of ground device m at time t, where xm,t respectively [39], which can be expressed by the following
and ym,t define the location information in the x-axis and y-axis formulas:
directions, respectively. Dm,t = {Dm,0 , Dm,1 , . . . , Dm,T } repre- 4π fc dm,n
sents the task arrival information of ground device m, where
Los
Lm,n = 20 lg + Los (2)
c
Dm,t presents the task situation of ground device m in time and
slot t. Moreover, Dm,t = {λm,t , dm,t , cm,t }, where dm,t is the 4π fc dm,n
size of task, cm,t denotes the computing resources required by NLos
Lm,n = 20 lg + NLos (3)
c
this task, and λm,t ∈ {0, 1} defines whether the ground device
m has a task to be processed by UAVs at time slot t. λm,t = 0 where c is the speed of light, fc means the system carrier
means the task does not need UAVs to cope with, and λm,t = 1 frequency, and Los and NLos represent the average addi-
means the task needs UAVs for processing. tional loss, which depend on the environment of the LoS and
For the set of UAVs N  {1, 2, . . . , N}, NLoS links, respectively. Moreover, PLos m,n is the probability of
each UAV n has the following attributes Pn = the LoS link between the UAV n and the ground device m [40],
comp
{pn , pcomm , p
energy UAV UAV
, L , c , p , ptask }, where p
comp which can be modeled as
n n n n n n n
and pcomm are separately the computing power and the 1
n m,n =
PLos      . (4)
communication power, and pn
energy
denotes the UAV’s initial 1 + a · exp −b · arctan zUAV n /dm,n − a
battery power (full battery power). LnUAV = {xnUAV , yUAV n , zUAV
n } a and b in this formula are environment-related parame-
represents the 3-D location information of UAV n, ptask n is ters, which we set as 4.88 and 0.43, respectively. Next, the
the task processing queue on the UAV n, and cUAV n denotes instantaneous communication rate [41] can be simulated as
the current battery power of UAV n, i.e., real-time battery  avg 
power monitoring. It should be noted that when the battery pm · 10−Lm,n /10
rm,n = B log2 1 + . (5)
power required for task processing and the landing of UAV σ2

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18728 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022

Here, B denotes the channel bandwidth, pm is the communica- Second, the UAV straight flight energy consumption with
tion transmit power of the ground devices, and σ 2 represents fixed height is shown as (11), at the bottom of the page, where
the Gaussian white noise power. c1 = [3/( 2 R2 )], c2 = (ρS/2W), c3 = mu /W, c4 = (ρA/W),
In this way, we can get the communication time when the and c5 = (1/2)d0 ρsA. S is the equivalent plate area of the
ground device m offloads the task to UAV n in time slot t fuselage in m2 , d0 is the fuselage drag ratio, and mu is the
dm,n body mass of UAV in kg.
comm
tm,n,t = . (6) Finally, the UAV vertical climb and descent energy con-
rm,n
sumption can be, respectively, calculated by
Then, we can get the energy consumption of communication  
comm
Em,n,t = tm,n,t
comm
· pcomm . (7) Enup tninitial , tnfinal
n
tnfinal Wv(τ ) − ma(τ )v(τ ) W − ma(τ )
B. Task Computing Model = Q2 + +
tninitial 2 2
According to the above settings of UAVs and ground 
devices, the computing time of the ground device m in time × v(τ )2 + 2(W − ma(τ ))ρA dτ (12)
slot t can be obtained
comp cm,t and
tm,n,t = comp . (8)
pn  
Endown tninitial , tnfinal
The computational energy consumption of UAVs can be
modeled by the following formula [42]: tnfinal Wv(τ ) + ma(τ )v(τ ) W + ma(τ )
 2 = Q2 + +
comp 2 2
Em,n,t = γ cm,t dm,n pcomp
n (9) tninitial

where γ is the related coefficient to the UAVs’ chip × v(τ )2 + 2(W + ma(τ ))ρA dτ. (13)
architecture.

C. Flying Model III. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION AND S OLUTIONS

When considering the flight model, we assume that the
UAVs are not affected by external environmental factors and
only consider UAVs’ weight problem. We divide the flight sta-
tus of UAV into four types, namely, hovering status, vertical
climb status, vertical descent status, and horizontal flying sta-
tus. In addition, we set the UAVs’ acceleration to a and the
maximum flight speed to Vmax . During the flight, the UAVs
first accelerate to the maximum speed with a constant accel-
eration a, then they fly at the maximum speed Vmax , next they
decelerate with the constant acceleration −a, and they finally
can reach the target positions.
Then, we will discuss the flight energy consumption of
UAVs [43]. First, UAV hover energy consumption can be
calculated by
 
Enhover tnhover = (Q0 + Q1 ) · tnhover (10)
√ Definition 1 [Minimizing the Number of UAVs in Multi-UAV
where Q0 = (δ/8)ρsA 3 R3 and Q1 = (1+k)[W 3/2 /( 2 2ρA)].
In these formulas, W is the aircraft weight in Newton, ρ is the
air density in kg/m3 , R is UAVs’ rotor radius in meter, A is
the rotor disc area in m2 , A = π R2 , b is the number of UAVs’
blades, c is the blade chord length of UAVs, s is the rotor
solidity, δ is the profile drag coefficient [44], is the blade
angular velocity, and finally k is the incremental correction
factor to induced power.
In this section, we first formulate the problem of minimizing
the number of UAVs and the problem of load balancing among
UAVs, and then we present our UAV management solutions.
A. Problem Formulation
Although more UAVs can provide better services to ground
users, it is not always better. Compared with the communi-
cation and computing energy consumption of UAVs, flight
energy consumption accounts for a large part of the total
energy consumption. Therefore, minimizing the number of
UAVs is an important measure to save UAV resources. The
UAV exit mechanism may play an important role here. In this
multi-UAV framework, we should minimize the number of
UAVs under the constraint of maximum allowable processing
delay, which can be defined as follows.
Network (MNUMN)]: In multi-UAV assisted edge comput-
ing IoT networks, given the state information of the previous
system in each time slot, such as the ground devices’ locations,
the information of ground devices’ tasks (the input data sizes,
required CPU cycles, and the maximum permissible process-
ing delay). The MNUMN problem is to minimize the number
of UAVs while meeting the maximum permissible processing
delay.

  tnfinal     
Enlf tninitial , tnfinal = Q0 1 + c1 v(τ )2 + Q1 1 + c2 v(τ )2 + c3 a(τ )v(τ )2
tninitial
 
 
· 1 + c2 v(τ )2 + c3 a(τ )v(τ )2 + c24 v(τ )4 − c4 v(τ )2 + c5 v(τ )3 dτ (11)

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GUO et al.: ACHIEVE LOAD BALANCING IN MULTI-UAV EDGE COMPUTING IoT NETWORKS
On the basis of the problem definition and the system model,
the MNUMN problem can be formulated as

N C5 : Eland <= penergy
P1 : min pn (t)
{N,T}
n=1
s.t. C1 : pn ∈ {0, 1} ∀ n ∈ N
C2 : λm,t ∈ {0, 1} ∀ m ∈ M, t ∈ T
M
 t  
N
 comp  the given maximum permissible delay requirement. Constraint
C3 : cm · λm,t < tmax · pn · pn
m=1 n=1
∀ n ∈ N , m ∈ M, t ∈ T (14)
where the function pn (t) is similar to the pn mentioned in our
system model, and they both represent the working condition
of UAV n, except that pn (t) represents the working condition
of UAV in a specific time slot. pn (t) = 0 means UAV n does
not get off the ground at time slot t, and pn (t) = 1 means
UAV n has been launched to work as a BS at time slot t.
Constraints C1 and C2, respectively, constrain the status of
UAVs and ground devices’ tasks. Moreover, C3 ensures that
the UAV’s computing resources can meet the needs of ground
users. The result of problem P1 is expressed as a piecewise
function, in which the computing resource needs of ground
users are the independent variable, and the number of UAVs is
the dependent variable. The resource requirements within each
range correspond to different changes in the number of UAVs.
The solution of problem P1 is to guarantee the service quality
of UAVs. It is necessary to first ensure that the UAVs have
sufficient resources to complete the task within the specified
time, and then it makes sense to consider the problem of task
offloading problem.
In edge computing scenarios, load balancing of edge BSs is
important, especially for small edge computing servers such
as UAVs with limited resources. Load balancing among UAVs
can prevent individual UAVs from operating at high loads for
a long time, avoiding hardware loss and the generation of large
amounts of heat. In addition, load balancing among UAVs is
also conducive to the management of the multi-UAV networks.
If each UAV has different characteristics, it is not conducive to
the management of the UAV group. In this article, our goal is
to balance the task load of each UAV while meeting the maxi-
mum latency requirements of ground devices. Specifically, this
problem can be defined as follows.
Definition 2 [Load Balancing in Multi-UAV Networks
(LBMNs)]: Given the information of the ground devices’ and
UAVs’ locations, the computing resources and maximum per-
missible processing delay required by ground devices in each
time slot, and the information of UAVs’ situation (computing
capacities, real-time battery power, and task buffer queue), the
LBMN problem is to evenly distribute ground devices’ tasks
to UAVs and balance the task load among UAVs.
On the basis of the problem definition and the system model,
the LBMN problem can be formulated as
N   task  N  task  N 2
n=1 len p n − x=1 len p n / p
x=1 n
P2 : min N
{N}
n=1 pn
s.t. C1 : pn ∈ {0, 1} ∀ n ∈ N
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18729
C2 : λm,t ∈ {0, 1} ∀ m ∈ M, t ∈ T
C4 : tn,i <= tmax ∀ n ∈ N , i ∈ I
n ∀ i ∈ N. (15)
Here, len(∗) represents the queue length of ∗. As mentioned
before, constraints C1 and C2, respectively, constrain the status
of UAVs and ground devices’ tasks. Moreover, C4 indicates
that the processing delay of all tasks on UAVs should meet
C5 restricts the power of UAVs to ensure that UAVs can land
safely after the service is completed. Obviously, problem P2
is a simple convex optimization problem. Considering that the
resources required for task processing are different, we set the
optimization objective to minimize the difference in the num-
ber of UAVs’ task loads. It should be noted that the number of
tasks and the number of UAVs in each time slot are variable.
B. Solutions
1) UAV Location Optimization: When the number of UAVs
changes, we need to change the position of UAVs to ensure
good communication coverage for the entire ground area. For
these problems, clustering algorithms are often used to deter-
mine where UAVs are deployed. Here, we use fuzzy C-means
(FCMs) to determine the most optimal positions of movable
UAVs without changing the initial UAV’s (fixed UAV’s) posi-
tion. The initial UAV is deployed in the middle of the area
to provide users in the area with the most basic services and
communication coverage. Compared with the hard clustering
of the K-means algorithm, the soft clustering of the FCM
algorithm determines which cluster the current ground user
belongs to by assigning membership weight and calculating
fuzzy relationships.
In the FCM algorithm, we use a large-scale path-loss
component [45] to replace the traditional clustering by the
Euclidean distance. We set the number of UAVs other than
the initial UAV to be c, so the ground devices M will be
divided into c categories. And there will be c category centers
C. Cn represents the deployment position of UAV n (or the nth
cluster center). First, we set an objective function as follows:

c 
M
G= uηn,m τm,n (16)
n=1 m=1
where τm,n = 1/||LnUAV − Lm ||−2
denotes the large-scale path-
loss component [46], η is a factor of fuzzy relationship, and
un,m represents the fuzzy relationship between device m and
UAV n. FCM is a process of continuously iterative calculation
of fuzzy relationship and cluster centers until they reach the
optimum. So, we update them separately according to
M η
m=1 un,m Lm
Cn =  M η (17)
m=1 un,m
and
1
un,m =   . (18)
c 2
τm,n η−1
k=1 τm,k
18730 IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022

Algorithm 1 UAV Location Update Algorithm 2) Multi-UAV Autonomously Entry and Exit Solution: In
Input: UAV positions LnUAV , GD positions Lm , Number of this part, we show the specific working process of the entire
iterations TFCM , threshold κ. multi-UAV framework, so as to realize the operation of UAVs’
Output: Category centers C. entry, exit, replacement, position update, task assignment, and
1: Initialize the C according to the current position of UAVs, so on. As shown in Algorithm 2, the whole system runs in time
and calculate un,m by Eq. 18; sequence, and we only set one initial UAV to provide the most
2: G(1) = 1, G(0) = 1, t = 1; basic communication and computing services for the entire
3: while |  G(t) > κ| and t < TFCM do region. It should be noted that before the entire system runs in
4: Update category centers C with Eq. 17; time slots, we use the BP neural network to learn the changes
5: Calculate objective function G(t) using Eq. 16; in regional human flow and form a model to predict changes
6: Update all fuzzy relationships by Eq. 18; in the computing resource requirements of ground users. The
7: G(t) = G(t) − G(t − 1); reason why we use the BP neural network is that it can form a
8: t = t + 1; nonlinear result, and more elements can be added to the input
9: end while layer. In addition to the date Dp , time T p , and the number
of ground devices Nump mentioned in the algorithm, some
other elements can also be added, such as holiday situation,
Algorithm 2 Multi-UAV Network Entry and Exit Algorithm air quality, weather conditions, etc.
(MNEEA) In Algorithm 2, we set a battery power threshold EAlert of
comp
Input: All UAVs’ information Pn , n ∈ N , All ground devices’ UAVs, EAlert = Enhover (tfly ) + Encomm (tfly ) + En (tfly ) + Eland ,
information Qm , m ∈ M, Total time T , Minimum battery where tfly is the time required for the new UAV to launch to the
comp
requirements for UAVs emin , Maximum delay requirement designated position, Enhover (tfly ), Encomm (tfly ), and En (tfly ),
tmax , Previous system situation S = (Dp , T p , Nump ). respectively, represent the flight, communication, and com-
1: Launch of initialized UAV; puting energy consumption of the UAV in this time period,
2: Train the BP neural network model model = BP(S); and Eland is the energy consumption required for the land-
energy
3: for all t ∈ T do ing of UAV. When the remaining power pn of the UAV
4: Determine whether it is necessary to launch new UAVs reaches this threshold, the system starts to request a new UAV
to replace low-power UAVs by power threshold EAlert , for replacement. We ensure the continuity of UAV services
update operational UAVs’ information, and α = 0; through such settings and ensure the safety of UAVs through
5: if the number of ground users has changed then C5 constraint in P2. One more thing needs to be mentioned,
6: β = 0; we set the UAVs to fly vertically first, then they fly straight
7: end if horizontally after reaching the height h, and finally reach the
8: Predict the computing resources required by ground target position. After such settings, the flight energy consump-
users cneed = model(d, t, a); tion of the UAV becomes predictable, which facilitates the
9: Compute the current total resources of the UAVs coffer ; formulation of various decisions of the system. In our experi-
10: while cneed /coffer > tmax do mental simulation, the launch time of one UAV is in the range
11: Add a new UAV to provide services, and α = 1; of [4.898–22.684 s], and the redeployment time of the UAVs
12: end while that have been launched is in the range of [0–17.785 s]. As
13: while [cneed /(coffer − cUAV ) < tmax ] ∩ (β == 0) do the number of UAVs increases, the redeployment positions of
14: Exit the UAV with least remaining battery, and α = the UAVs are closer and closer to the original positions, and
1; the overall redeployment time of the system will be shorter.
15: end while For a long-running system, the flight time is acceptable and
16: if (Suct < 1) ∩ (α == 0) then has to be faced. Moreover, the UAVs that have not reached
17: Add a new UAV to provide services; their destination can still be used as edge BSs, and there will
18: Update α = 1 and β = 1; be no suspension of service.
19: end if In general, the flow of this multi-UAV system in each time
20: if the number of UAVs has changed α == 1 then slot is as follows. First, each UAV checks whether its own
21: Call Algorithm 1 to obtain C; battery power is sufficient to complete the remaining task pro-
22: end if cessing work and UAV landing work. If the battery power is
23: Call Algorithm 3 to assign tasks; insufficient, a new UAV will be launched for replacement.
24: Update the UAV position, battery, task information, task Second, the system predicts the required computing resources
processing success rate Suct ; and available computing resources to determine whether it is
25: end for necessary to join or exit UAVs, so as to save UAV resources
while ensuring the QoSs. Then, the system again determines
whether additional UAVs are needed according to the suc-
cess rate of previous task processing. Such operations can
As shown in Algorithm 1, the FCM algorithm can reach avoid large-scale takeoffs and landings of UAVs and save more
convergence through multiple iterations of Cn and un,m , and resources. Next, if the number of UAVs changes, Algorithm 1
the optimal position of the UAV can be determined. is used to update the best service positions of UAVs. Moreover,

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GUO et al.: ACHIEVE LOAD BALANCING IN MULTI-UAV EDGE COMPUTING IoT NETWORKS 18731

Algorithm 3 Approximate Load-Balancing Task Allocation C. Analysis of Algorithms

Algorithm
In this part, we analyze the computational complexity of
Input: All UAVs’ information Pn , n ∈ N , All ground devices’ the above algorithms. First, the computational complexity of
information Qm , m ∈ M, Time slot t. Algorithm 1 is O(M · N). In this algorithm, the complexity of
Output: Updated UAV information Pn , n ∈ N . updating category centers in step 4 can be obtained as O(M·N)
1: for all m ∈ M do
by (17), and the complexity of calculating objective function
2: Pre-allocate the tasks to the UAV in the cluster center; in step 5 can be obtained as O(M · N) according to (16).
3: Update operational UAVs’ information; Step 6 calculates all fuzzy relationships between ground users
4: end for
and UAVs, so its complexity is also O(M · N). Based on the
5: Calculate the average number of tasks that each UAV
above analysis, we can get that the complexity of Algorithm
should get av and initialize K; 1 is O(M · N).
6: for all n ∈ N do
Next, for Algorithm 2, its computational complexity is O(T ·
7: n ) > av then
if len(ptask bsize ), where bsize is the number of neurons in the hidden layer
8: UAV n only keeps the first av tasks, and the remain- in a three-layer neural network. In this algorithm, we ignore
ing tasks are stored in K; the influence of Algorithms 1 and 3 on the complexity of
9: else this algorithm. And we can see that the algorithm only loops
10: UAV n only keeps all tasks; between steps 10–12 and 13–15, but the purpose of these two
11: end if loops is to determine the number of UAVs that enter or exit,
12: end for
so we consider its complexity to be O(1). For the BP neural
13: for all n ∈ N do
network in this algorithm, we need to predict the ground user
14: n ) <= av and K! = ∅ do
while len(ptask state of this time slot in step 8, so its time complexity is
15: UAV n chooses the closest task in K; O(bsize ) according to the setting of the neural network model.
16: end while Then, the complexity of Algorithm 2 should be O(T · bsize ).
17: end for
Finally, for Algorithm 3, its computational complexity
18: for all n ∈ N do
should be O(M · log2 (M/N)). Steps 1–4 preassign tasks
19: Sort the task queue in UAV n according to time with a greedy task assignment scheme, and its complexity
sequence; should be O(M). Steps 6–12 select tasks that are suitable
20: end for
for assignment, and its complexity should be O(M). Steps
13–17 allocate the filtered tasks, so the complexity should
be O(len(K)). Finally, steps 18–20 quickly sort the tasks
in each UAV, so the average time complexity should be
O(N·[M/N]·log2 (M/N)) = O(M·log2 (M/N)). To sum up, the
Algorithm 3 is used to allocate the remaining tasks of UAVs
time complexity of Algorithm 3 should be O(M · log2 (M/N)).
and the newly arrived tasks in the time slot, which can real-
ize load balancing among UAVs while guaranteeing service
quality. Finally, according to the computing, communication, IV. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
and flight process of each UAV, the battery power, task In this section, we conduct a series of simulation exper-
queue, and real-time location information of each UAV are iments and obtain some numerical results to evaluate the
updated. performance of our proposed solutions. They all prove that
3) Load-Balancing UAV Task Allocation: In this part, we the effectiveness of our schemes for the optimization of UAVs’
will describe our UAV task allocation solution. The determina- quantity control and task load balancing.
tion of task offloading positions has always been an important
research direction in the field of edge computing. A good A. Parameter Settings
offloading position can save more task processing time and Without loss of generality, we assume that the UAV group
energy consumption. Moreover, the research on UAVs’ load- serves a geographic area of size 500 × 500 m2 . For the tasks
balancing problem is also of great significance. Load balancing in ground devices, we assume the size of task is between 0.5
between UAVs can increase the service life of UAVs and and 1 MB, the CPU cycles required by task is between 50
prevent the occurrence of long-time high-load work of individ- and 150 Megacycles, and λm,t is random within 0 and 1. For
ual UAVs. In addition, the high-load operation of individual the UAVs, we assume that all UAVs are isomorphic, and each
UAVs may generate additional heat, resulting in a waste of UAV has the same computing, communication, and flight capa-
resources. bilities. The CPU cycle frequency and communication power
As shown in Algorithm 3, the whole process can be divided of UAV are set to 1 GHz and 1 W separately, and the ini-
into three parts. First, the UAVs screen their preallocated tasks, tial power of UAV is 500 kJ. In terms of communication, the
and the tasks before t time slot are retained in the origi- channel bandwidth B is set to 1 MHz, and the communication
nal UAV to the greatest extent. Then, the UAVs with fewer transmit power pm is set to 30 dBm. In terms of UAV flight,
tasks select the nearest tasks for processing. Finally, each UAV we assume that the UAV has a constant acceleration of 5 m/s2
sorts the tasks by time slot and prioritizes the tasks that arrive and a maximum flight speed of 30 m/s. The aircraft weight
first. in Newton is set to 20 N, the air density ρ = 1.225 kg/m3 ,

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18732
Fig. 2. Illustration of UAV target locations and ground users’ clustering situation. (a) Clustering scene with 70 users and 2 UAVs. (b) Clustering scene with
70 users and 3 UAVs. (c) Clustering scene with 70 users and 4 UAVs.
TABLE I
PARAMETER S ETTINGS
UAVs’ rotor radius R = 0.4 m, the rotor solidity s = 0.05,
profile drag coefficient δ = 0.012, the blade angular velocity
= 300 radians/s, and the incremental correction factor to
induced power k = 0.1. Table I lists the parameter settings in
our simulation experiments.
B. Numerical Results
In Fig. 2, there are 70 ground devices randomly distributed
in this area. With the increase of the number of UAVs, we
show the process of repeated reclustering of ground devices
and repeated updating of the UAVs’ target positions, which
demonstrates the results of Algorithm 1 in detail. The posi-
tions of black five-pointed star in the figure are the target
positions of UAVs, and the randomly distributed dots of vari-
ous colors are the position display of ground devices. Different
colors represent different clustering groups. We can find that
the ground devices are classified into several uniform groups
and the UAVs’ target points are all at the centers of the ground
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IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022
Fig. 3. Comparison of the predicted number of ground users and the actual
number of ground users. The actual number is updated every 5 min, and the
figure shows changes in the actual number and predicted number at 288 time
points (24 h).
Fig. 4. Convergence behaviors of BP neural network under different gradient
descent algorithms.
device clustering groups, which proves that our Algorithm 1
is effective.
Then, in Fig. 3, we compare the predicted and actual number
of ground users within 24 h. The data set updates the number
of ground users every 5 min, so the actual number is constantly
fluctuating around the predicted result curve. From the figure,
we can see that the BP neural network used in Algorithm 2
can effectively predict the number of ground users in each
period. In addition, in Fig. 4, we further show the process
of minimizing the loss function of the BP neural network
under different gradient descent algorithms, i.e., stochastic
gradient descent (SGD), root mean-square prop (RMSProp),
and adaptive moment estimation (Adam). Adam combines the
advantages of Momentum and RMSProp algorithms, so it can
GUO et al.: ACHIEVE LOAD BALANCING IN MULTI-UAV EDGE COMPUTING IoT NETWORKS
Fig. 5. Illustration of the changes in actual required ground resources and the
number of UAVs under different strategies. The shaded green area indicates
the range of possible variations in ground resource requirements.
not only dynamically adjust the learning rate of each parame-
ter but also has a faster convergence speed. Therefore, we use
the Adam algorithm in our experiment, and it performs well
compared with other algorithms.
Fig. 5 shows how the number of UAVs changes with the
demand for ground resources in our system. Among them, the
green line represents the real-time resource demand change
of ground users, and the green shadow around it represents
the range of possible variations in ground resource require-
ments. Then, the red line in the figure represents the change
in the minimum number of UAVs required with the change of
ground resource requirements. The blue line in the figure rep-
resents the change in the number of UAVs under our scheme.
Through the comparison of the schemes, we can find that the
number of UAVs in our scheme is always 1–2 more than the
number of UAVs in the enumeration method, which can meet
the goal of approximately minimizing the number of UAVs.
Moreover, our scheme is more stable than the enumeration
method, and the frequency of changes in the number of UAVs
is relatively small, which can save more energy consumption
for UAV redeployment. It turns out that the change in the num-
ber of UAVs in our solutions is indeed related to the change
in the actual required ground resources, which also proves the
feasibility and timeliness of the entry and exit mechanism of
our algorithm.
Next, as shown in Fig. 6, we show the task processing fail-
ure rates under different strategies. The blue line represents the
task processing failure rate with the fixed number of UAVs.
The red line represents the task processing failure rate with
the help of BP neural network prediction. The black line rep-
resents the task processing failure rate of our solution. First,
for a UAV group with a fixed number of UAVs, the change in
its task processing failure rate has a great relationship with the
change in the number of ground users. We can find that the
change of the blue line is similar to the change in the num-
ber of users in Fig. 3. Second, for the UAV group assisted by
BP neural network prediction, it can complete the tasks bet-
ter than the UAV group with a fixed number of UAVs. The
red line often fluctuates around 100%, which is caused by
the difference between the predicted and actual ground user
number. And it proves that the BP neural network prediction
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18733
Fig. 6. Comparison of the task processing failure rates under different
strategies. The strategy represented by the red line has four fixed UAVs.
Fig. 7. Comparison of the UAVs’ task load standard deviation under different
strategies. This standard deviation represents the difference between UAVs’
task loads.
strategy can basically meet the user resource requirements, but
it cannot fully meet the actual needs of ground users. Finally,
the solution we proposed is based on the BP neural network
and refers to the number of real-time ground users to finally
determine the number of UAVs at each moment. We can see
that our solution can ensure that all tasks of users in this area
can be processed in time after the system is stable. It should
be noted that the success rate in our experiment is not always
100%, and the success rate may not be 100% when the UAV
group performs entry and exit operations. What we show in
this figure is the task processing success rate after the UAV
group is stabilized.
After proving the performance of Algorithms 1 and 2, we
need to prove the correctness of our load-balancing algorithm.
Fig. 7 shows the comparison of UAVs’ task load standard devi-
ation under different task allocation schemes. The larger the
standard deviation, the more uneven the task distribution in
the UAV group. We compare our scheme with the other two
schemes. For the greedy algorithm [47], it offloads the task
to the nearest UAV with available resources and full cover-
age. For the enumeration method, it ignores the geographical
factors of ground devices and UAVs, and simply groups tasks
to achieve the most uniform distribution effect. Through the
comparison of the three, we can find that our scheme and
the enumeration method have better task load-balancing effect,
but the complexity of the enumeration method is O(M N ) and
there is a big gap between the O(M · log2 (M/N)) of our
18734
Fig. 8. Comparison of the UAVs’ task load status under different solutions.
(a) Illustration of UAVs’ task load status with our load-balancing algorithm.
(b) Illustration of UAVs’ task load status with greedy algorithm.
load-balancing algorithm. Moreover, the enumeration method
ignores the deployment of UAVs and ground devices, and
the communication problem after task assignment is also an
important factor to be considered. It is not worth the extra
communication cost for a relatively small load imbalance.
Overall, this figure proves that our Algorithm 3 has a good
effect on load balancing and can achieve near-optimal task
load balancing.
In the previous experiments, we proved the feasibility of our
algorithms in long-term operation. Below we will intercept the
system operation in a short period of time for analysis. We fix
the number of ground users at 70, and the number of UAVs
needed at this time is 5 according to the algorithms above.
Next, we will show the UAVs’ internal task load and energy
consumption situations in a short period of time.
In Fig. 8, we compare the changes of UAVs’ task load with
different algorithms. Fig. 8(a) shows the changes of UAVs’
task load with our load-balancing algorithm. In this exper-
iment, we show the load status of UAVs over a period of
time after the number of UAVs stabilizes. We can see that
although the load of UAVs is different at each time, the
load gap between UAVs is small and the task load between
UAVs is basically in a balanced state. In contrast, Fig. 8(b)
shows the changes of UAVs’ task load with greedy algorithm,
and the task load of each UAV is greatly different. Facts
have proved that the load-balancing algorithm we proposed
is indeed effective.
As shown in Fig. 9, we show the UAV battery power
changes under the two solutions without calculating the flight
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IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022
Fig. 9. Comparison of UAVs’ battery power changes under different solu-
tions. (a) Illustration of UAVs’ battery power changes with our load-balancing
algorithm. (b) Illustration of UAVs’ battery power changes with greedy
algorithm.
energy consumption. Among them, Fig. 9(a) shows the UAV
battery power changes with our load-balancing algorithm. We
can see that the UAVs’ energy consumption in each time
period is similar, and the battery level is basically the same
at each time point. This is because the load-balancing algo-
rithm we proposed allows the tasks in the UAV group to be
evenly distributed to each UAV and the task processing energy
consumption of every UAV is basically the same. In addi-
tion, Fig. 9(b) shows the UAV battery power changes with
the greedy algorithm. We can see that the battery power gap
between the UAVs is not large at the beginning, but with the
long-term operation, the battery power gap between UAVs is
getting bigger and bigger. The reason for this phenomenon
is the unbalanced task load between UAVs. One UAV with
a large task load may consume more power to complete the
tasks compared with other UAVs. What is more, the long-
term high-load operation of individual UAVs may generate
more heat, waste more resources, and even cause damage to
the UAVs’ hardware facilities. Finally, there is another point
that needs to be mentioned is the management of the UAV
group. The UAV group’s framework we proposed allows each
UAV to maintain a smaller difference and makes them easier
to manage. In contrast, the UAVs with greedy algorithm have
their own characteristics, which is not conducive to the unified
management of the UAV group.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this article, we proposed a load-balancing multi-UAV
edge computing framework that supports a dynamic entry and
GUO et al.: ACHIEVE LOAD BALANCING IN MULTI-UAV EDGE COMPUTING IoT NETWORKS
exit mechanism. The framework aims to use multiple UAVs to
provide continuous high-quality edge computing services for
users within a certain area, and the framework can redeploy the
UAVs according to ground devices’ resource requirements and
changes in locations. After simulation experiments, we proved
the superiority of the framework in terms of self-adaptation.
The framework can realize the automatic entry, exit, and
replacement of UAVs, and save UAV resources as much as
possible while ensuring service quality and flying safety of
UAVs. In addition, the task allocation plan we proposed can
reasonably allocate tasks according to the urgency of tasks
while meeting the delay requirements of ground devices. The
load is basically balanced among the UAVs, which prevents
irreversible damage to hardware equipment and additional
energy waste caused by the high-load operation of individual
UAVs. In the future, we will consider expanding the service
scope, investing more UAVs to provide services for ground
users. Moreover, we will further consider the limited number
of UAVs and how to allocate the number of UAVs working at
each time slot while ensuring the UAV group’s continuity and
task completion rate.
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Hongzhi Guo (Member, IEEE) received the
B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in computer sci-
ence and technology from Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin, China, in 2004, 2006, and
2011, respectively.
He is currently an Associate Professor with
the School of Cybersecurity, Northwestern
Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China. He has
published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in
many prestigious IEEE journals and conferences.
His research interests cover edge computing,
SAGSIN, IoT security, AI security, and 5G security.
Dr. Guo was the recipient of the WiMob Best Paper Award in 2019, and
received the IEEE TVT Top Reviewer Award in 2019. He has been actively
joining the society activities, such as serving as an Associate Editor for
IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON V EHICULAR T ECHNOLOGY since January 2021
and Frontiers in Communications and Network since January 2021, and an
Editor for International Journal of Multimedia Intelligence and Security
since March 2019.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on November 05,2023 at 07:17:29 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE INTERNET OF THINGS JOURNAL, VOL. 9, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2022
Xiaoyi Zhou (Graduate Student Member, IEEE)
received the B.S. degree in cyber engineering from
Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 2019, where he
is currently pursuing the master’s degree.
His research interests cover mobile-edge com-
puting, UAV-aided edge computing, and vehicular
network.
Yutao Wang (Graduate Student Member, IEEE)
received the B.S. degree in computer science and
technology from Southwest University, Chongqing,
China, in 2020. She is currently pursuing the
master’s degree with the School of Cybersecurity,
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an,
China.
Her research interests cover mobile-edge
computing and space–ground cooperative
computing.
Jiajia Liu (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
degree in computer science from Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin, China, in 2004, the M.S. degree
in computer science from Xidian University, Xi’an,
China, in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in information
sciences from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, in
2012.
He has been a Full Professor (Vice Dean)
with the School of Cybersecurity, Northwestern
Polytechnical University, Xi’an. He has published
more than 220 peer-reviewed papers in many high-
quality publications, including prestigious IEEE journals and conferences.
His research interests cover a wide range of areas, including intelligent and
connected vehicles, mobile/edge/cloud computing and storage, IoT security,
wireless and mobile ad hoc networks, and SAGIN.
Prof. Liu received the IEEE ComSoc Best YP in Academia Award in
2020, the IEEE VTS Early Career Award in 2019, the IEEE ComSoc Asia–
Pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award in 2017, and the IEEE ComSoc
Asia–Pacific Outstanding Paper Award in 2019. He has been actively join-
ing the society activities, such as serving as an Associate Editor for IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON W IRELESS C OMMUNICATIONS since May 2018 and an
Editor for IEEE N ETWORK since July 2015 and IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
C OGNITIVE C OMMUNICATIONS AND N ETWORKING since January 2019. He
served as an Associate Editor for IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON C OMPUTERS
from October 2015 to June 2017 and IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON V EHICULAR
T ECHNOLOGY from January 2016 to December 2020. He is the Chair of IEEE
IoT-AHSN TC and is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications
Society and Vehicular Technology Society.