Graph Neural Network-Based Multicast Routing for On-Demand Streaming Services in 6G Networks

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Main Authors: Wang, Xiucheng, Wang, Zien, Cheng, Nan, Xu, Wenchao, Quan, Wei, Shen, Xuemin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Wang, Xiucheng
Wang, Zien
Cheng, Nan
Xu, Wenchao
Quan, Wei
Shen, Xuemin
author_facet Wang, Xiucheng
Wang, Zien
Cheng, Nan
Xu, Wenchao
Quan, Wei
Shen, Xuemin
contents The increase of bandwidth-intensive applications in sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, such as real-time volumetric streaming and multi-sensory extended reality, demands intelligent multicast routing solutions capable of delivering differentiated quality-of-service (QoS) at scale. Traditional shortest-path and multicast routing algorithms are either computationally prohibitive or structurally rigid, and they often fail to support heterogeneous user demands, leading to suboptimal resource utilization. Neural network-based approaches, while offering improved inference speed, typically lack topological generalization and scalability. To address these limitations, this paper presents a graph neural network (GNN)-based multicast routing framework that jointly minimizes total transmission cost and supports user-specific video quality requirements. The routing problem is formulated as a constrained minimum-flow optimization task, and a reinforcement learning algorithm is developed to sequentially construct efficient multicast trees by reusing paths and adapting to network dynamics. A graph attention network (GAT) is employed as the encoder to extract context-aware node embeddings, while a long short-term memory (LSTM) module models the sequential dependencies in routing decisions. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed method closely approximates optimal dynamic programming-based solutions while significantly reducing computational complexity. The results also confirm strong generalization to large-scale and dynamic network topologies, highlighting the method's potential for real-time deployment in 6G multimedia delivery scenarios. Code is available at https://github.com/UNIC-Lab/GNN-Routing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_11109
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Graph Neural Network-Based Multicast Routing for On-Demand Streaming Services in 6G Networks
Wang, Xiucheng
Wang, Zien
Cheng, Nan
Xu, Wenchao
Quan, Wei
Shen, Xuemin
Networking and Internet Architecture
Machine Learning
The increase of bandwidth-intensive applications in sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, such as real-time volumetric streaming and multi-sensory extended reality, demands intelligent multicast routing solutions capable of delivering differentiated quality-of-service (QoS) at scale. Traditional shortest-path and multicast routing algorithms are either computationally prohibitive or structurally rigid, and they often fail to support heterogeneous user demands, leading to suboptimal resource utilization. Neural network-based approaches, while offering improved inference speed, typically lack topological generalization and scalability. To address these limitations, this paper presents a graph neural network (GNN)-based multicast routing framework that jointly minimizes total transmission cost and supports user-specific video quality requirements. The routing problem is formulated as a constrained minimum-flow optimization task, and a reinforcement learning algorithm is developed to sequentially construct efficient multicast trees by reusing paths and adapting to network dynamics. A graph attention network (GAT) is employed as the encoder to extract context-aware node embeddings, while a long short-term memory (LSTM) module models the sequential dependencies in routing decisions. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed method closely approximates optimal dynamic programming-based solutions while significantly reducing computational complexity. The results also confirm strong generalization to large-scale and dynamic network topologies, highlighting the method's potential for real-time deployment in 6G multimedia delivery scenarios. Code is available at https://github.com/UNIC-Lab/GNN-Routing.
title Graph Neural Network-Based Multicast Routing for On-Demand Streaming Services in 6G Networks
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11109