Learning to Reflect: Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for CSI-Free mmWave Beam-Focusing

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Le, Hieu, Bedir, Oguz, Ibrahim, Mostafa, Tao, Jian, Ekin, Sabit
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Le, Hieu
Bedir, Oguz
Ibrahim, Mostafa
Tao, Jian
Ekin, Sabit
author_facet Le, Hieu
Bedir, Oguz
Ibrahim, Mostafa
Tao, Jian
Ekin, Sabit
contents Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces promise to transform wireless environments, yet practical deployment is hindered by the prohibitive overhead of Channel State Information (CSI) estimation and the dimensionality explosion inherent in centralized optimization. This paper proposes a Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (HMARL) framework for the control of mechanically reconfigurable reflective surfaces in millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems. We introduce a "CSI-free" paradigm that substitutes pilot-based channel estimation with readily available user localization data. To manage the massive combinatorial action space, the proposed architecture utilizes Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (MAPPO) under a Centralized Training with Decentralized Execution (CTDE) paradigm. The proposed architecture decomposes the control problem into two abstraction levels: a high-level controller for user-to-reflector allocation and decentralized low-level controllers for low-level focal point optimization. Comprehensive ray-tracing evaluations demonstrate that the framework achieves 2.81-7.94 dB RSSI improvements over centralized baselines, with the performance advantage widening as system complexity increases. Scalability analysis reveals that the system maintains sustained efficiency, exhibiting minimal per-user performance degradation and stable total power utilization even when user density doubles. Furthermore, robustness validation confirms the framework's viability across varying reflector aperture sizes (45-99 tiles) and demonstrates graceful performance degradation under localization errors up to 0.5 m. By eliminating CSI overhead while maintaining high-fidelity beam-focusing, this work establishes HMARL as a practical solution for intelligent mmWave environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_07370
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning to Reflect: Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for CSI-Free mmWave Beam-Focusing
Le, Hieu
Bedir, Oguz
Ibrahim, Mostafa
Tao, Jian
Ekin, Sabit
Machine Learning
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces promise to transform wireless environments, yet practical deployment is hindered by the prohibitive overhead of Channel State Information (CSI) estimation and the dimensionality explosion inherent in centralized optimization. This paper proposes a Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (HMARL) framework for the control of mechanically reconfigurable reflective surfaces in millimeter-wave (mmWave) systems. We introduce a "CSI-free" paradigm that substitutes pilot-based channel estimation with readily available user localization data. To manage the massive combinatorial action space, the proposed architecture utilizes Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (MAPPO) under a Centralized Training with Decentralized Execution (CTDE) paradigm. The proposed architecture decomposes the control problem into two abstraction levels: a high-level controller for user-to-reflector allocation and decentralized low-level controllers for low-level focal point optimization. Comprehensive ray-tracing evaluations demonstrate that the framework achieves 2.81-7.94 dB RSSI improvements over centralized baselines, with the performance advantage widening as system complexity increases. Scalability analysis reveals that the system maintains sustained efficiency, exhibiting minimal per-user performance degradation and stable total power utilization even when user density doubles. Furthermore, robustness validation confirms the framework's viability across varying reflector aperture sizes (45-99 tiles) and demonstrates graceful performance degradation under localization errors up to 0.5 m. By eliminating CSI overhead while maintaining high-fidelity beam-focusing, this work establishes HMARL as a practical solution for intelligent mmWave environments.
title Learning to Reflect: Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for CSI-Free mmWave Beam-Focusing
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.07370