Resource Dimensioning for Single-Cell Edge Video Analytics

Abstract: Edge intelligence is an emerging technology where the base stations located at the edge of the network are equipped with computing units that provide machine learning services to the end users. To provide high-quality services in a cost-efficient way, the wireless and computing resources need to be dimensioned carefully. In this paper, we address the problem of resource dimensioning in a single-cell system that supports edge video analytics under latency and accuracy constraints. We show that the resource-dimensioning problem can be transformed into a convex optimization problem, and we provide numerical results that give insights into the trade-offs between the wireless and computing resources for varying cell sizes and for varying intensity of incoming tasks. Overall, we observe that the wireless and computing resources exhibit opposite trends; the wireless resources favor from smaller cells, where high attenuation losses are avoided, and the computing resources favor from larger cells, where statistical multiplexing allows for computing more tasks. We also show that small cells with low loads have high per-request costs, even when the wireless resources are increased to compensate for the low multiplexing gain at the servers.