FAuNO: Semi-Asynchronous Federated Reinforcement Learning Framework for Task Offloading in Edge Systems
This addresses resource bottlenecks in edge computing for connected-device networks, but appears incremental as it builds on existing federated and multi-agent RL methods.
The paper tackles the challenge of decentralized task offloading in edge systems by proposing FAuNO, a federated reinforcement learning framework, which experiments show matches or exceeds baselines in reducing task loss and latency.
Edge computing addresses the growing data demands of connected-device networks by placing computational resources closer to end users through decentralized infrastructures. This decentralization challenges traditional, fully centralized orchestration, which suffers from latency and resource bottlenecks. We present \textbf{FAuNO} -- \emph{Federated Asynchronous Network Orchestrator} -- a buffered, asynchronous \emph{federated reinforcement-learning} (FRL) framework for decentralized task offloading in edge systems. FAuNO adopts an actor-critic architecture in which local actors learn node-specific dynamics and peer interactions, while a federated critic aggregates experience across agents to encourage efficient cooperation and improve overall system performance. Experiments in the \emph{PeersimGym} environment show that FAuNO consistently matches or exceeds heuristic and federated multi-agent RL baselines in reducing task loss and latency, underscoring its adaptability to dynamic edge-computing scenarios.