Fair Dynamic Spectrum Access via Fully Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yubo, Botelho, Pedro, Gordon, Trevor, Zussman, Gil, Kadota, Igor
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866909559782637568
author Zhang, Yubo
Botelho, Pedro
Gordon, Trevor
Zussman, Gil
Kadota, Igor
author_facet Zhang, Yubo
Botelho, Pedro
Gordon, Trevor
Zussman, Gil
Kadota, Igor
contents We consider a decentralized wireless network with several source-destination pairs sharing a limited number of orthogonal frequency bands. Sources learn to adapt their transmissions (specifically, their band selection strategy) over time, in a decentralized manner, without sharing information with each other. Sources can only observe the outcome of their own transmissions (i.e., success or collision), having no prior knowledge of the network size or of the transmission strategy of other sources. The goal of each source is to maximize their own throughput while striving for network-wide fairness. We propose a novel fully decentralized Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based solution that achieves fairness without coordination. The proposed Fair Share RL (FSRL) solution combines: (i) state augmentation with a semi-adaptive time reference; (ii) an architecture that leverages risk control and time difference likelihood; and (iii) a fairness-driven reward structure. We evaluate FSRL in more than 50 network settings with different number of agents, different amounts of available spectrum, in the presence of jammers, and in an ad-hoc setting. Simulation results suggest that, when we compare FSRL with a common baseline RL algorithm from the literature, FSRL can be up to 89.0% fairer (as measured by Jain's fairness index) in stringent settings with several sources and a single frequency band, and 48.1% fairer on average.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_24296
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fair Dynamic Spectrum Access via Fully Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Zhang, Yubo
Botelho, Pedro
Gordon, Trevor
Zussman, Gil
Kadota, Igor
Networking and Internet Architecture
Machine Learning
We consider a decentralized wireless network with several source-destination pairs sharing a limited number of orthogonal frequency bands. Sources learn to adapt their transmissions (specifically, their band selection strategy) over time, in a decentralized manner, without sharing information with each other. Sources can only observe the outcome of their own transmissions (i.e., success or collision), having no prior knowledge of the network size or of the transmission strategy of other sources. The goal of each source is to maximize their own throughput while striving for network-wide fairness. We propose a novel fully decentralized Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based solution that achieves fairness without coordination. The proposed Fair Share RL (FSRL) solution combines: (i) state augmentation with a semi-adaptive time reference; (ii) an architecture that leverages risk control and time difference likelihood; and (iii) a fairness-driven reward structure. We evaluate FSRL in more than 50 network settings with different number of agents, different amounts of available spectrum, in the presence of jammers, and in an ad-hoc setting. Simulation results suggest that, when we compare FSRL with a common baseline RL algorithm from the literature, FSRL can be up to 89.0% fairer (as measured by Jain's fairness index) in stringent settings with several sources and a single frequency band, and 48.1% fairer on average.
title Fair Dynamic Spectrum Access via Fully Decentralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24296