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Main Authors: Zhang, Yanning, Liao, Guocheng, Cao, Shengbin, Yang, Ning, Pappas, Nikolaos, Zhang, Meng
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18084
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author Zhang, Yanning
Liao, Guocheng
Cao, Shengbin
Yang, Ning
Pappas, Nikolaos
Zhang, Meng
author_facet Zhang, Yanning
Liao, Guocheng
Cao, Shengbin
Yang, Ning
Pappas, Nikolaos
Zhang, Meng
contents Multicast routing is essential for real-time group applications, such as video streaming, virtual reality, and metaverse platforms, where the Age of Information (AoI) acts as a crucial metric to assess information timeliness. This paper studies dynamic multicast networks with the objective of minimizing the expected average Age of Information (AoI) by jointly optimizing multicast routing and scheduling. The main challenges stem from the intricate coupling between routing and scheduling decisions, the inherent complexity of multicast operations, and the graph representation. We first decompose the original problem into two subtasks amenable to hierarchical reinforcement learning (RL) methods. We propose the first RL framework to address the multicast routing problem, also known as the Steiner Tree problem, by incorporating graph embedding and the successive addition of nodes and links. For graph embedding, we propose the Normalized Graph Attention mechanism (NGAT) framework with a proven contraction mapping property, enabling effective graph information capture and superior generalization within the hierarchical RL framework. We validate our framework through experiments on four datasets, including the real-world AS-733 dataset. The results demonstrate that our proposed scheme can be up to 9.85 times more computationally efficient than traditional multicast routing algorithms, achieving approximation ratios of 1.1-1.3 that are not only comparable to state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods but also highlight its superior generalization capabilities, performing effectively on unseen and more complex tasks. Additionally, our age-optimal TGMS algorithm reduces the average weighted Age of Information (AoI) by 25.6% and the weighted peak age by 29.2% under low-energy scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_18084
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Graph Attention Reinforcement Learning for Multicast Routing and Age-Optimal Scheduling
Zhang, Yanning
Liao, Guocheng
Cao, Shengbin
Yang, Ning
Pappas, Nikolaos
Zhang, Meng
Networking and Internet Architecture
Multicast routing is essential for real-time group applications, such as video streaming, virtual reality, and metaverse platforms, where the Age of Information (AoI) acts as a crucial metric to assess information timeliness. This paper studies dynamic multicast networks with the objective of minimizing the expected average Age of Information (AoI) by jointly optimizing multicast routing and scheduling. The main challenges stem from the intricate coupling between routing and scheduling decisions, the inherent complexity of multicast operations, and the graph representation. We first decompose the original problem into two subtasks amenable to hierarchical reinforcement learning (RL) methods. We propose the first RL framework to address the multicast routing problem, also known as the Steiner Tree problem, by incorporating graph embedding and the successive addition of nodes and links. For graph embedding, we propose the Normalized Graph Attention mechanism (NGAT) framework with a proven contraction mapping property, enabling effective graph information capture and superior generalization within the hierarchical RL framework. We validate our framework through experiments on four datasets, including the real-world AS-733 dataset. The results demonstrate that our proposed scheme can be up to 9.85 times more computationally efficient than traditional multicast routing algorithms, achieving approximation ratios of 1.1-1.3 that are not only comparable to state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods but also highlight its superior generalization capabilities, performing effectively on unseen and more complex tasks. Additionally, our age-optimal TGMS algorithm reduces the average weighted Age of Information (AoI) by 25.6% and the weighted peak age by 29.2% under low-energy scenarios.
title Graph Attention Reinforcement Learning for Multicast Routing and Age-Optimal Scheduling
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18084