Fabrizio Granelli

John Sengendo, Fabrizio Granelli

As we evolve towards more heterogeneous and cutting-edge mobile networks, Network Digital Twins (NDTs) are proving to be a promising paradigm in solving challenges faced by network operators, as they give a possibility of replicating the physical network operations and testing scenarios separately without interfering with the live network. However, with mobile networks becoming increasingly dynamic and heterogeneous due to massive device connectivity, replicating traffic and having NDTs synchronized in real-time with the physical network remains a challenge, thus necessitating the need to develop real-time adaptive mechanisms to bridge this gap. In this part II of our work, we implement a novel framework that integrates an adaptive Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller to dynamically improve synchronization. Additionally, through an interactive user interface, results of our enhanced approach demonstrate an improvement in real-time traffic synchronization.

Martino Chiarani, Swastika Roy, Christos Verikoukis et al.

In recent years, network slicing has embraced artificial intelligence (AI) models to manage the growing complexity of communication networks. In such a situation, AI-driven zero-touch network automation should present a high degree of flexibility and viability, especially when deployed in live production networks. However, centralized controllers suffer from high data communication overhead due to the vast amount of user data, and most network slices are reluctant to share private data. In federated learning systems, selecting trustworthy clients to participate in training is critical for ensuring system performance and reliability. The present paper proposes a new approach to client selection by leveraging an XAI method to guarantee scalable and fast operation of federated learning based analytic engines that implement slice-level resource provisioning at the RAN-Edge in a non-IID scenario. Attributions from XAI are used to guide the selection of devices participating in training. This approach enhances network trustworthiness for users and addresses the black-box nature of neural network models. The simulations conducted outperformed the standard approach in terms of both convergence time and computational cost, while also demonstrating high scalability.