Reliable Distributed Computing for Metaverse: A Hierarchical Game-Theoretic Approach

Abstract

The metaverse is regarded as a new wave of technological transformation that provides a virtual space for people to interact with each other through digital avatars. To achieve immersive user experiences in the metaverse, real-time rendering is the key technology. However, computing intensive tasks of real-time graphic and audio rendering from metaverse service providers cannot be processed efficiently on a single resource-limited mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) device. Alternatively, such devices can adopt the collaborative computing paradigm based on Coded Distributed Computing (CDC) to support metaverse services. Therefore, this paper introduces a reliable collaborative CDC framework for metaverse. In the framework, idle resources from mobile devices, acting as CDC workers, are aggregated to handle intensive computation tasks in the metaverse. A coalition can be formed among reliable workers based on a reputation metric which is maintained in a double blockchains database. The framework also considers an incentive to attract reliable workers to participate and process computation tasks of metaverse services. Moreover, the framework is designed with a hierarchical structure composed of coalition formation and Stackelberg games in the lower and upper levels to determine stable coalitions and rewards for reliable workers, respectively. The simulation results illustrate that the proposed framework is resistant to malicious workers. Compared with the random worker selection scheme, the proposed coalition formation and Stackelberg game can improve the utilities of both metaverse service providers and CDC workers.

MetaChain: A Novel Blockchain-based Framework for Metaverse Applications

“…The resource capacity of each MU is set as R = [100, 200, 300, 500] and their unit costs are C = [0.2, 0.1, 0.3, 0.2]. The priority of each shard is set at α = [4,6]. Under this parameter setting, we first examine the utility function of one MU and show the MU's optimal strategy when the other MUs' and the MSP's strategies are fixed.…”

“…Most of the existing works focus on resource allocations for Metaverse, such as [3]- [6]. Although a few proposed frameworks suggest using blockchain, e.g., [3], [4], none of them attempts to utilize blockchain to facilitate Metaverse interactions, e.g., digital asset tradings and service selling. Moreover, blockchain's scalability issue is not addressed in both [3] and [4].…”

“…Although a few proposed frameworks suggest using blockchain, e.g., [3], [4], none of them attempts to utilize blockchain to facilitate Metaverse interactions, e.g., digital asset tradings and service selling. Moreover, blockchain's scalability issue is not addressed in both [3] and [4]. If this issue still persists, blockchain might become the bottleneck in future Metaverse applications that involve millions or even billions of users.…”

A Dynamic Hierarchical Framework for IoT-assisted Metaverse Synchronization

“…Despite some early discussion of the benefits and challenges brought by virtual services in terms of user experiences [3]- [6], novel applications in the Metaverse have attract research attention, e.g., the authors in [11] build a university campus prototype to study social good in the Metaverse, whereas the authors in [18] propose a Blockchain-based framework for Metaverse applications. An incentive mechanism design for leveraging coded distributed computing for Metaverse services is studied in [19]. In [20], the interconnection of edge intelligence and the Metaverse is considered.…”