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Intelligent beam management based on deep reinforcement learning in high-speed railway scenarios

Intelligent beam management based on deep reinforcement learning in high-speed railway scenarios
Intelligent beam management based on deep reinforcement learning in high-speed railway scenarios

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communications can fundamentally solve the problem of spectrum shortage in wireless communication systems, and many progresses have been made in standardization, which laid the foundation for the application of mm-wave in high-speed railway (HSR) scenarios. However, the HSR channel is fast time-varying and difficult to model. Also beamforming is essential to improve the directional gain of the antenna and offset the high path loss of mm-wave. But the high-speed movement of train makes the beam management extremely challenging, and the trade-off between achievable performance and beam training overhead is unavoidable. Reinforcement learning (RL) can offer new solutions to this problem, as it does not need a large number of training samples and other system information, and is capable of achieving high performance with low complexity. In this article, we propose an intelligent beam management scheme based on a deep RL algorithm called deep Q-network (DQN), and our main idea is to exploit the hidden patterns of mm-wave train-ground communication system to improve the downlink signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), while ensuring a certain communication stability and imposing a minimal training overhead. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed DQN-based scheme has better performance than the four baseline schemes, and it also offers great advantages in SNR stability and implementation complexity.

Array signal processing, Communication systems, Rail transportation, Signal to noise ratio, System performance, Train-ground communications, Training, Wireless communication, beam management, deep reinforcement learning, high-speed railway, millimeter-wave communications
0018-9545
3917-3931
Qiao, Yuanyuan
211ac56a-31dc-427b-98c5-049896c8226b
Niu, Yong
1e9137e1-87f3-4e65-b0e2-806a2f249b4a
Zhang, Xiangfei
c28f1e83-6b33-4db0-b293-ed4174a018ca
Chen, Sheng
9310a111-f79a-48b8-98c7-383ca93cbb80
Zhong, Zhangdui
f11c8f1e-7375-4284-bb2f-9dbe2b573ea9
Wang, Ning
12c074fb-be39-46a1-b3b1-670e6e57c16c
Ai, Bo
fc1b180d-18e5-4446-b181-c8d0dd25d14b
Qiao, Yuanyuan
211ac56a-31dc-427b-98c5-049896c8226b
Niu, Yong
1e9137e1-87f3-4e65-b0e2-806a2f249b4a
Zhang, Xiangfei
c28f1e83-6b33-4db0-b293-ed4174a018ca
Chen, Sheng
9310a111-f79a-48b8-98c7-383ca93cbb80
Zhong, Zhangdui
f11c8f1e-7375-4284-bb2f-9dbe2b573ea9
Wang, Ning
12c074fb-be39-46a1-b3b1-670e6e57c16c
Ai, Bo
fc1b180d-18e5-4446-b181-c8d0dd25d14b

Qiao, Yuanyuan, Niu, Yong, Zhang, Xiangfei, Chen, Sheng, Zhong, Zhangdui, Wang, Ning and Ai, Bo (2024) Intelligent beam management based on deep reinforcement learning in high-speed railway scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 73 (3), 3917-3931. (doi:10.1109/TVT.2023.3327762).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communications can fundamentally solve the problem of spectrum shortage in wireless communication systems, and many progresses have been made in standardization, which laid the foundation for the application of mm-wave in high-speed railway (HSR) scenarios. However, the HSR channel is fast time-varying and difficult to model. Also beamforming is essential to improve the directional gain of the antenna and offset the high path loss of mm-wave. But the high-speed movement of train makes the beam management extremely challenging, and the trade-off between achievable performance and beam training overhead is unavoidable. Reinforcement learning (RL) can offer new solutions to this problem, as it does not need a large number of training samples and other system information, and is capable of achieving high performance with low complexity. In this article, we propose an intelligent beam management scheme based on a deep RL algorithm called deep Q-network (DQN), and our main idea is to exploit the hidden patterns of mm-wave train-ground communication system to improve the downlink signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), while ensuring a certain communication stability and imposing a minimal training overhead. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed DQN-based scheme has better performance than the four baseline schemes, and it also offers great advantages in SNR stability and implementation complexity.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 23 October 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 October 2023
Published date: 15 March 2024
Additional Information: Publisher Copyright: © 2023 IEEE.
Keywords: Array signal processing, Communication systems, Rail transportation, Signal to noise ratio, System performance, Train-ground communications, Training, Wireless communication, beam management, deep reinforcement learning, high-speed railway, millimeter-wave communications

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 483585
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/483585
ISSN: 0018-9545
PURE UUID: fd363f8c-a21f-4c08-ab4e-ebbade5379b0

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Date deposited: 01 Nov 2023 18:17
Last modified: 01 May 2024 16:36

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Contributors

Author: Yuanyuan Qiao
Author: Yong Niu
Author: Xiangfei Zhang
Author: Sheng Chen
Author: Zhangdui Zhong
Author: Ning Wang
Author: Bo Ai

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