Service Migration Algorithm for Satellite-terrestrial Edge Computing Networks

Objective In highly dynamic Satellite-Terrestrial Edge Computing Networks (STECN), achieving coordinated optimization between user service latency and system migration cost is a central challenge in service migration algorithm design. Existing approaches often fail to maintain stable performance in such environments. To address this, a Multi-Agent Service Migration Optimization (MASMO) algorithm based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning is proposed to provide an intelligent and forward-looking solution for dynamic service management in STECN.Methods The service migration optimization problem is formulated as a Multi-Agent Markov Decision Process (MAMDP), which offers a framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty. The environment represents the spatiotemporal characteristics of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network, where satellite movement and satellite-user visibility define time-varying service availability. Service latency is expressed as the sum of transmission delay and computation delay. Migration cost is modeled as a function of migration distance between satellite nodes to discourage frequent or long-range migrations. A Trajectory-Aware State Enhancement (TASE) method is proposed to incorporate predictable orbital information of LEO satellites into the agent state representation, improving proactive and stable migration actions. Optimization is performed using the recurrent Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (rMAPPO) algorithm, which is suitable for cooperative multi-agent tasks. The reward function balances the objectives by penalizing high migration cost and rewarding low service latency.Results and DiscussionsSimulations are conducted in dynamic STECN scenarios to compare MASMO with MAPPO, MADDPG, Greedy, and Random strategies. The results consistently confirm the effectiveness of MASMO. As the number of users increases, MASMO shows slower performance degradation. With 16 users, it reduces average service latency by 2.90%, 6.78%, 11.01%, and 14.63% compared with MAPPO, MADDPG, Greedy, and Random. It also maintains high cost efficiency, lowering migration cost by up to 30.57% at 16 users (Fig. 4). When satellite resources increase, MASMO consistently leverages the added availability to reduce both latency and migration cost, whereas myopic strategies such as Greedy do not exhibit similar improvements. With 10 satellites, MASMO achieves the lowest service latency and outperforms the next-best method by 7.53% (Fig. 5). These findings show that MASMO achieves an effective balance between transmission latency and migration latency through its forward-looking decision policy.Conclusions This study addresses the service migration challenge in STECN through the MASMO algorithm, which integrates the TASE method with rMAPPO. The method improves service latency and reduces migration cost at the same time, demonstrating strong performance advantages. The trajectory-enhanced state representation improves foresight and stability of migration behavior in predictable dynamic environments. This study assumes ideal real-time state perception, and future work should evaluate communication delays and partial observability, as well as investigate scalability in larger satellite constellations with heterogeneous user demands.