Adaptive Reinforcement Learning-Based Framework for Energy-Efficient Task Offloading in a Fog–Cloud Environment

Ever-increasing computational demand introduced by the expanding scale of Internet of Things (IoT) devices poses significant concerns in terms of energy consumption in a fog–cloud environment. Due to the limited resources of IoT devices, energy-efficient task offloading becomes even more challenging for time-sensitive tasks. In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning-based framework, namely Adaptive Q-learning-based Energy-aware Task Offloading (AQETO), that dynamically manages the energy consumption of fog nodes in a fog–cloud network. Concurrently, it considers IoT task delay tolerance and allocates computational resources while satisfying deadline requirements. The proposed approach dynamically determines energy states of each fog node using Q-learning depending on workload fluctuations. Moreover, AQETO prioritizes allocation of the most urgent tasks to minimize delays. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of AQETO in terms of the minimization of fog node energy consumption and delay and the maximization of system efficiency.