Fast Transmission Control Adaptation for URLLC via Channel Knowledge Map and Meta-Learning

TL;DR

This paper introduces two novel methods, a deep reinforcement learning scheme with channel knowledge maps and a meta-learning approach, to enable reliable, low-latency wireless communication in unknown environments for mission-critical IoT applications.

Contribution

It proposes a power scaling scheme with DRL and a meta-learning algorithm for rapid adaptation in URLLC, leveraging historical channel data and spatial correlations.

Findings

DRL-based algorithm effectively meets URLLC reliability requirements.

Meta-learning approach quickly adapts to new environments with minimal updates.

Both methods validate improved adaptation and reliability in simulations.

Abstract

This paper considers methods for delivering ultra reliable low latency communication (URLLC) to enable mission-critical Internet of Things (IoT) services in wireless environments with unknown channel distribution. The methods rely upon the historical channel gain samples of a few locations in a target area. We formulate a non-trivial transmission control adaptation problem across the target area under the URLLC constraints. Then we propose two solutions to solve this problem. The first is a power scaling scheme in conjunction with the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm with the help of the channel knowledge map (CKM) without retraining, where the CKM employs the spatial correlation of the channel characteristics from the historical channel gain samples. The second solution is model agnostic meta-learning (MAML) based metareinforcement learning algorithm that is trained from the known channel gain samples following distinct channel distributions and can quickly adapt to the new environment within a few steps of gradient update. Simulation results indicate that the DRL-based algorithm can effectively meet the reliability requirement of URLLC under various quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. Then the adaptation capabilities of the power scaling scheme and meta-reinforcement learning algorithm are also validated.