Joint wireless power transfer and task offloading in mobile edge computing: a survey

The promising technique of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) to end devices and sensors has gained the attention of researchers recently. Mobile edge computing (MEC) is also succeeding from Cloud Computing due to its minimum latency constraints. In MEC, smart devices offload computation intensive tasks to the MEC server which achieves low latency. However, limitations exist for smart device battery lifetime and task execution delay because of an effective decision in the offloading scenario necessitating joint WPT and MEC offloading. The joint WPT and MEC offloading decisions are based on real time application requirements, placement of Base Station (BS) with power transfer capabilities for smart devices, and offloading opportunities in the MEC. To meet the energy consumption requirement, a BS integrated with MEC server and power transfer capability transfers wireless power to end devices as an incentive and offers opportunities for offloading. Transferring wireless power to end devices effectively meets the requirement of smart devices while extending battery lifetime. This article encapsulates the state of art work in methodologies of offloading in MEC and WPT to end nodes. We consider MEC offloading techniques with WPT and real time application requirements while summarizing related studies. We formulate a taxonomy of joint WPT and offloading in MEC. We compare the state-of-the-art studies based on parameters identified from taxonomy. Finally, we provide the challenges and debate future research directions relevant to the domain of joint MEC-WPT.