Channel Selection for Wi-Fi 7 Multi-Link Operation via Optimistic-Weighted VDN and Parallel Transfer Reinforcement Learning

Dense and unplanned IEEE 802.11 Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) deployments and the continuous increase of throughput and latency stringent services for users have led to machine learning algorithms to be considered as promising techniques in the industry and the academia. Specifically, the ongoing IEEE 802.11be EHT —Extremely High Throughput, known as Wi-Fi 7— amendment propose, for the first time, Multi-Link Operation (MLO). Among others, this new feature will increase the complexity of channel selection due the novel multiple interfaces proposal. In this paper, we present a Parallel Transfer Reinforcement Learning (PTRL)-based cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) algorithm named Parallel Transfer Reinforcement Learning Optimistic-Weighted Value Decomposition Networks (oVDN) to improve intelligent channel selection in IEEE 802.11be MLO-capable networks. Additionally, we compare the impact of different parallel transfer learning alternatives and a centralized non-transfer MARL baseline. Two PTRL methods are presented: Multi-Agent System (MAS) Joint Q-function Transfer, where the joint Q-function is transferred and MAS Best/Worst Experience Transfer where the best and worst experiences are transferred among MASs. Simulation results show that oVDN
g
–only the best experiences are utilized– is the best algorithm variant. Moreover, oVDN
g
offers a gain up to 3%, 7.2% and 11% when compared with VDN, VDN-nonQ and non-PTRL baselines. Furthermore, oVDN
g
experienced a reward convergence gain in the 5 GHz interface of 33.3% over oVDN
b
and oVDN where only worst and both types of experiences are considered, respectively. Finally, our best PTRL alternative showed an improvement over the non-PTRL baseline in terms of speed of convergence up to 40 episodes and reward up to 135%.