Long-/Short-Term Reinforcement Learning for Multi-APs Channel Allocation in IEEE 802.11ax WLANs

IEEE 802.11ax system has been adopted to provide enhanced throughput performance for next-generation wireless local area networks. Its orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) allows massive users to concurrently utilize different subbands for data transmission from their corresponding access points (APs). However, severe adjacent channel interference (ACI) incurs overlapping channels under the scenarios of dense users with multiple APs, which should be properly alleviated to provide adequate system throughput. In this paper, we propose a long-/short-term reinforcement learning channel allocation (LSRCA) scheme to effectively mitigate ACI for multi-AP scenarios in IEEE 802.11ax systems. With the considerations of signal features from both long and short time durations, the LSRCA algorithm can maximize effective sum rate through online adaptation and learning via the updates of two Q-tables for weighting adjustments and action execution. Experimental results in realistic fields have demonstrated the effectiveness of LSRCA scheme by providing higher system throughput compared to existing benchmark methods.