Rongpeng Li

Yuntao Liu, Qian Huang, Rongpeng Li et al.

Collaborative perception by leveraging the shared semantic information plays a crucial role in overcoming the individual limitations of isolated agents. However, existing collaborative perception methods tend to focus solely on the spatial features of semantic information, while neglecting the importance of the temporal dimension. Consequently, the potential benefits of collaboration remain underutilized. In this article, we propose Select2Col, a novel collaborative perception framework that takes into account the \underline{s}patial-t\underline{e}mpora\underline{l} importanc\underline{e} of semanti\underline{c} informa\underline{t}ion. Within the Select2Col, we develop a collaborator selection method that utilizes a lightweight graph neural network (GNN) to estimate the importance of semantic information (IoSI) of each collaborator in enhancing perception performance, thereby identifying contributive collaborators while excluding those that potentially bring negative impact. Moreover, we present a semantic information fusion algorithm called HPHA (historical prior hybrid attention), which integrates multi-scale attention and short-term attention modules to capture the IoSI in feature representation from the spatial and temporal dimensions respectively, and assigns IoSI-consistent weights for efficient fusion of information from selected collaborators. Extensive experiments on three open datasets demonstrate that our proposed Select2Col significantly improves the perception performance compared to state-of-the-art approaches. The code associated with this research is publicly available at https://github.com/huangqzj/Select2Col/.

Yuxuan Chen, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

Large language models (LLMs) have triggered tremendous success to empower our daily life by generative information. The personalization of LLMs could further contribute to their applications due to better alignment with human intents. Towards personalized generative services, a collaborative cloud-edge methodology is promising, as it facilitates the effective orchestration of heterogeneous distributed communication and computing resources. In this article, we put forward NetGPT to capably synergize appropriate LLMs at the edge and the cloud based on their computing capacity. In addition, edge LLMs could efficiently leverage location-based information for personalized prompt completion, thus benefiting the interaction with the cloud LLM. In particular, we present the feasibility of NetGPT by leveraging low-rank adaptation-based fine-tuning of open-source LLMs (i.e., GPT-2-base model and LLaMA model), and conduct comprehensive numerical comparisons with alternative cloud-edge collaboration or cloud-only techniques, so as to demonstrate the superiority of NetGPT. Subsequently, we highlight the essential changes required for an artificial intelligence (AI)-native network architecture towards NetGPT, with emphasis on deeper integration of communications and computing resources and careful calibration of logical AI workflow. Furthermore, we demonstrate several benefits of NetGPT, which come as by-products, as the edge LLMs' capability to predict trends and infer intents promises a unified solution for intelligent network management & orchestration. We argue that NetGPT is a promising AI-native network architecture for provisioning beyond personalized generative services.

Tianqi Ren, Rongpeng Li, Xianfu Chen et al.

Lossless pixel-level image transmission is a fundamental regime beyond semantic communications, because exact recovery requires both accurate symbol probability modeling and reliable delivery over noisy channels. This paper proposes DDM-SSCC, a discrete-diffusion-model-based separate source-channel coding framework for lossless image transmission. Different from raster-order autoregressive coding, the proposed source codec adapts a diffusion language model to pixel-token restoration and performs synchronized reverse arithmetic coding under bidirectional attention, allowing multiple masked tokens to be coded within one reverse denoising step. This progressive restoration process also yields a more favorable source representation for noisy transmission, since newly restored tokens can serve as bidirectional context in subsequent denoising steps. To bridge the gap between generation-oriented masked denoising and lossless arithmetic coding, we further introduce a Halton-guided denoising order, a mask-ratio-aware cosine schedule, and a lightweight temperature calibration module. These designs respectively improve spatial coverage, adapt the denoising pace to context reliability, and calibrate the probability tables used by arithmetic coding. Experiments on CIFAR10, DIV2K-LR-X4, and Kodak over additive white Gaussian noise and Rayleigh fading channels show that DDM-SSCC achieves better exact-recovery performance than representative lossless and semantic communication baselines, while ablation studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed denoising order, schedule, and calibration modules.

Kun Lu, Rongpeng Li, Honggang Zhang

Continuous one-to-many mapping is a less investigated yet important task in both low-level visions and neural image translation. In this paper, we present a new formulation called MonoPix, an unsupervised and contrastive continuous modulation model, and take a step further to enable a pixel-level spatial control which is critical but can not be properly handled previously. The key feature of this work is to model the monotonicity between controlling signals and the domain discriminator with a novel contrastive modulation framework and corresponding monotonicity constraints. We have also introduced a selective inference strategy with logarithmic approximation complexity and support fast domain adaptations. The state-of-the-art performance is validated on a variety of continuous mapping tasks, including AFHQ cat-dog and Yosemite summer-winter translation. The introduced approach also helps to provide a new solution for many low-level tasks like low-light enhancement and natural noise generation, which is beyond the long-established practice of one-to-one training and inference. Code is available at https://github.com/lukun199/MonoPix.

Zhilin Lu, Rongpeng Li, Kun Lu et al.

Along with the springing up of the semantics-empowered communication (SemCom) research, it is now witnessing an unprecedentedly growing interest towards a wide range of aspects (e.g., theories, applications, metrics and implementations) in both academia and industry. In this work, we primarily aim to provide a comprehensive survey on both the background and research taxonomy, as well as a detailed technical tutorial. Specifically, we start by reviewing the literature and answering the "what" and "why" questions in semantic transmissions. Afterwards, we present the ecosystems of SemCom, including history, theories, metrics, datasets and toolkits, on top of which the taxonomy for research directions is presented. Furthermore, we propose to categorize the critical enabling techniques by explicit and implicit reasoning-based methods, and elaborate on how they evolve and contribute to modern content & channel semantics-empowered communications. Besides reviewing and summarizing the latest efforts in SemCom, we discuss the relations with other communication levels (e.g., conventional communications) from a holistic and unified viewpoint. Subsequently, in order to facilitate future developments and industrial applications, we also highlight advanced practical techniques for boosting semantic accuracy, robustness, and large-scale scalability, just to mention a few. Finally, we discuss the technical challenges that shed light on future research opportunities.

Jianhang Zhu, Rongpeng Li, Xianfu Chen et al.

The surging demand for high-definition video streaming services and large neural network models (e.g., Generative Pre-trained Transformer, GPT) implies a tremendous explosion of Internet traffic. To mitigate the traffic pressure, architectures with in-network storage have been proposed to cache popular contents at devices in closer proximity to users. Correspondingly, in order to maximize caching utilization, it becomes essential to devise an effective popularity prediction method. In that regard, predicting popularity with dynamic graph neural network (DGNN) models achieve remarkable performance. However, DGNN models still suffer from tackling sparse datasets where most users are inactive. Therefore, we propose a reformative temporal graph network, named semantics-enhanced temporal graph network (STGN), which attaches extra semantic information into the user-content bipartite graph and could better leverage implicit relationships behind the superficial topology structure. On top of that, we customize its temporal and structural learning modules to further boost the prediction performance. Specifically, in order to efficiently aggregate the diversified semantics that a content might possess, we design a user-specific attention (UsAttn) mechanism for temporal learning module. Unlike the attention mechanism that only analyzes the influence of genres on content, UsAttn also considers the attraction of semantic information to a specific user. Meanwhile, as for the structural learning, we introduce the concept of positional encoding into our attention-based graph learning and adopt a semantic positional encoding (SPE) function to facilitate the analysis of content-oriented user-association analysis. Finally, extensive simulations verify the superiority of our STGN models and demonstrate the effectiveness in content caching.

Jianhang Zhu, Rongpeng Li, Guoru Ding et al.

Along with the fast development of network technology and the rapid growth of network equipment, the data throughput is sharply increasing. To handle the problem of backhaul bottleneck in cellular network and satisfy people's requirements about latency, the network architecture like information-centric network (ICN) intends to proactively keep limited popular content at the edge of network based on predicted results. Meanwhile, the interactions between the content (e.g., deep neural network models, Wikipedia-alike knowledge base) and users could be regarded as a dynamic bipartite graph. In this paper, to maximize the cache hit rate, we leverage an effective dynamic graph neural network (DGNN) to jointly learn the structural and temporal patterns embedded in the bipartite graph. Furthermore, in order to have deeper insights into the dynamics within the evolving graph, we propose an age of information (AoI) based attention mechanism to extract valuable historical information while avoiding the problem of message staleness. Combining this aforementioned prediction model, we also develop a cache selection algorithm to make caching decisions in accordance with the prediction results. Extensive results demonstrate that our model can obtain a higher prediction accuracy than other state-of-the-art schemes in two real-world datasets. The results of hit rate further verify the superiority of the caching policy based on our proposed model over other traditional ways.

Bingyan Wang, Rongpeng Li, Jianhang Zhu et al.

In recent years, with the rapid development of deep learning and natural language processing technologies, semantic communication has become a topic of great interest in the field of communication. Although existing deep learning-based semantic communication approaches have shown many advantages, they still do not make sufficient use of prior knowledge. Moreover, most existing semantic communication methods focus on the semantic encoding at the transmitter side, while we believe that the semantic decoding capability of the receiver should also be concerned. In this paper, we propose a knowledge enhanced semantic communication framework in which the receiver can more actively utilize the facts in the knowledge base for semantic reasoning and decoding, on the basis of only affecting the parameters rather than the structure of the neural networks at the transmitter side. Specifically, we design a transformer-based knowledge extractor to find relevant factual triples for the received noisy signal. Extensive simulation results on the WebNLG dataset demonstrate that the proposed receiver yields superior performance on top of the knowledge graph enhanced decoding.

Xingfu Yi, Rongpeng Li, Chenghui Peng et al.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) over massive applications including Internet-of-things on cellular network raises the concern of technical challenges such as privacy, heterogeneity and resource efficiency. Federated learning is an effective way to enable AI over massive distributed nodes with security. However, conventional works mostly focus on learning a single global model for a unique task across the network, and are generally less competent to handle multi-task learning (MTL) scenarios with stragglers at the expense of acceptable computation and communication cost. Meanwhile, it is challenging to ensure the privacy while maintain a coupled multi-task learning across multiple base stations (BSs) and terminals. In this paper, inspired by the natural cloud-BS-terminal hierarchy of cellular works, we provide a viable resource-aware hierarchical federated MTL (RHFedMTL) solution to meet the heterogeneity of tasks, by solving different tasks within the BSs and aggregating the multi-task result in the cloud without compromising the privacy. Specifically, a primal-dual method has been leveraged to effectively transform the coupled MTL into some local optimization sub-problems within BSs. Furthermore, compared with existing methods to reduce resource cost by simply changing the aggregation frequency, we dive into the intricate relationship between resource consumption and learning accuracy, and develop a resource-aware learning strategy for local terminals and BSs to meet the resource budget. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of RHFedMTL in terms of improving the learning accuracy and boosting the convergence rate.

Siyu Tong, Xiaoxue Yu, Rongpeng Li et al.

Semantic communication (SemCom) demonstrates strong superiority over conventional bit-level accurate transmission, by only attempting to recover the essential semantic information of data. In this paper, in order to tackle the non-differentiability of channels, we propose an alternate learning based SemCom system for visual transmission, named SparseSBC. Specially, SparseSBC leverages two separate Deep Neural Network (DNN)-based models at the transmitter and receiver, respectively, and learns the encoding and decoding in an alternate manner, rather than the joint optimization in existing literature, so as to solving the non-differentiability in the channel. In particular, a ``self-critic" training scheme is leveraged for stable training. Moreover, the DNN-based transmitter generates a sparse set of bits in deduced ``semantic bases", by further incorporating a binary quantization module on the basis of minimal detrimental effect to the semantic accuracy. Extensive simulation results validate that SparseSBC shows efficient and effective transmission performance under various channel conditions, and outperforms typical SemCom solutions.

Yuming Xiang, Sizhao Li, Rongpeng Li et al.

Adaptive multi-agent formation control, which requires the formation to flexibly adjust along with the quantity variations of agents in a decentralized manner, belongs to one of the most challenging issues in multi-agent systems, especially under communication-limited constraints. In this paper, we propose a novel Consensus-based Decentralized Adaptive Formation (Cons-DecAF) framework. Specifically, we develop a novel multi-agent reinforcement learning method, Consensus-oriented Multi-Agent Communication (ConsMAC), to enable agents to perceive global information and establish the consensus from local states by effectively aggregating neighbor messages. Afterwards, we leverage policy distillation to accomplish the adaptive formation adjustment. Meanwhile, instead of pre-assigning specific positions of agents, we employ a displacement-based formation by Hausdorff distance to significantly improve the formation efficiency. The experimental results through extensive simulations validate that the proposed method has achieved outstanding performance in terms of both speed and stability.

Ziqiong Wang, Tianqi Ren, Rongpeng Li et al.

Separate Source-Channel Coding (SSCC) remains attractive for text transmission due to its modularity and compatibility with mature entropy coders and powerful channel codes. However, SSCC often suffers from a pronounced cliff effect in low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) regimes, where residual bit errors after channel decoding can catastrophically break lossless source decoding, especially for Arithmetic Coding (AC) driven by Large Language Models (LLMs). This paper proposes a receiver-side In-Context Decoding (ICD) framework that enhances SSCC robustness without modifying the transmitter. ICD leverages an Error Correction Code Transformer (ECCT) to obtain bit-wise reliability for the decoded information bits. Based on the context-consistent bitstream, ICD constructs a confidence-ranked candidate pool via reliability-guided bit flipping, samples a compact yet diverse subset of candidates, and applies an LLM-based arithmetic decoder to obtain both reconstructions and sequence-level log-likelihoods. A reliability-likelihood fusion rule then selects the final output. We further provide theoretical guarantees on the stability and convergence of the proposed sampling procedure. Extensive experiments over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading channels demonstrate consistent gains compared with conventional SSCC baselines and representative Joint Source-Channel Coding (JSCC) schemes.

Sizhao Li, Yuming Xiang, Rongpeng Li et al.

Multi-Robot System (MRS) has garnered widespread research interest and fostered tremendous interesting applications, especially in cooperative control fields. Yet little light has been shed on the compound ability of formation, monitoring and defence in decentralized large-scale MRS for pursuit avoidance, which puts stringent requirements on the capability of coordination and adaptability. In this paper, we put forward a decentralized Imitation learning based Alternative Multi-Agent Proximal Policy Optimization (IA-MAPPO) algorithm to provide a flexible and communication-economic solution to execute the pursuit avoidance task in well-formed swarm. In particular, a policy-distillation based MAPPO executor is firstly devised to capably accomplish and swiftly switch between multiple formations in a centralized manner. Furthermore, we utilize imitation learning to decentralize the formation controller, so as to reduce the communication overheads and enhance the scalability. Afterwards, alternative training is leveraged to compensate the performance loss incurred by decentralization. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of IA-MAPPO and extensive ablation experiments further show the performance comparable to a centralized solution with significant decrease in communication overheads.

Yuxuan Chen, Rongpeng Li, Xiaoxue Yu et al.

Optimizing the deployment of large language models (LLMs) in edge computing environments is critical for enhancing privacy and computational efficiency. Toward efficient wireless LLM inference in edge computing, this study comprehensively analyzes the impact of different splitting points in mainstream open-source LLMs. On this basis, this study introduces a framework taking inspiration from model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL) to determine the optimal splitting point across the edge and user equipment (UE). By incorporating a reward surrogate model, our approach significantly reduces the computational cost of frequent performance evaluations. Extensive simulations demonstrate that this method effectively balances inference performance and computational load under varying network conditions, providing a robust solution for LLM deployment in decentralized settings.

Ziqiong Wang, Rongpeng Li

While Separate Source-Channel Coding (SSCC) retains the practical benefits of modular system design, its effectiveness in noisy text transmission is fundamentally constrained by the fragility of autoregressive source decoding. In low-SNR regimes, even a small number of residual bit errors after channel decoding may derail the subsequent lossless reconstruction process, especially when Arithmetic Coding (AC) relies on Large Language Model (LLM)-based probability estimation. Existing remedies either strengthen channel decoding based solely on channel observations or introduce contextual information only at the receiver for post-hoc correction, yet neither fully addresses the fragility of source probability modeling under residual channel errors. To this end, this paper proposes a Memory-Augmented Source Coding (MASC) scheme for robust SSCC-based transmission. Rather than treating context as external side information, MASC internalizes contextual patterns into a source model shared by both the transmitter-side source encoder and the receiver-side source decoder. Specifically, MASC employs a shared Parameterized Contextual Memory (PCM) to encode multi-order $n$-gram patterns, and further introduces a Mixture-of-Memory-Experts Router (MMER) to perform sparse, hidden-state-dependent routing over memory experts during autoregressive source modeling. By adaptively activating only the most relevant memories at each coding step, MASC refines source probability estimation, shortens average codelength, and mitigates the sensitivity of source decoding to residual channel errors. Extensive experiments over Rayleigh fading and AWGN channels demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme compared with state-of-the-art methods.

Adnan Shahid, Adrian Kliks, Ahmed Al-Tahmeesschi et al.

This white paper discusses the role of large-scale AI in the telecommunications industry, with a specific focus on the potential of generative AI to revolutionize network functions and user experiences, especially in the context of 6G systems. It highlights the development and deployment of Large Telecom Models (LTMs), which are tailored AI models designed to address the complex challenges faced by modern telecom networks. The paper covers a wide range of topics, from the architecture and deployment strategies of LTMs to their applications in network management, resource allocation, and optimization. It also explores the regulatory, ethical, and standardization considerations for LTMs, offering insights into their future integration into telecom infrastructure. The goal is to provide a comprehensive roadmap for the adoption of LTMs to enhance scalability, performance, and user-centric innovation in telecom networks.

Renxuan Tan, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

Transcending the single-preference paradigm, aligning LLMs with diverse human values is pivotal for robust deployment. Contemporary Multi-Objective Preference Alignment (MPA) approaches predominantly rely on static linear scalarization or rigid gradient projection to navigate these trade-offs. However, by enforcing strict conflict avoidance or simultaneous descent, these paradigms often prematurely converge to local stationary points. While mathematically stable, these points represent a conservative compromise where the model sacrifices potential global Pareto improvements to avoid transient local trade-offs. To break this deadlock, we propose Pareto-Lenient Consensus (PLC), a game-theoretic framework that reimagines alignment as a dynamic negotiation process. Unlike rigid approaches, PLC introduces consensus-driven lenient gradient rectification, which dynamically tolerates local degradation provided there is a sufficient dominant coalition surplus, thereby empowering the optimization trajectory to escape local suboptimal equilibrium and explore the distal Pareto-optimal frontier. Theoretical analysis validates PLC can facilitate stalemate escape and asymptotically converge to a Pareto consensus equilibrium. Moreover, extensive experiments show that PLC surpasses baselines in both fixed-preference alignment and global Pareto frontier quality. This work highlights the potential of negotiation-driven alignment as a promising avenue for MPA. Our codes are available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/aaa-6BB8.

Renxuan Tan, Rongpeng Li, Xiaoxue Yu et al.

Federated learning (FL) in multi-service provider (SP) ecosystems is fundamentally hampered by non-cooperative dynamics, where privacy constraints and competing interests preclude the centralized optimization of multi-SP communication and computation resources. In this paper, we introduce PAC-MCoFL, a game-theoretic multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) framework where SPs act as agents to jointly optimize client assignment, adaptive quantization, and resource allocation. Within the framework, we integrate Pareto Actor-Critic (PAC) principles with expectile regression, enabling agents to conjecture optimal joint policies to achieve Pareto-optimal equilibria while modeling heterogeneous risk profiles. To manage the high-dimensional action space, we devise a ternary Cartesian decomposition (TCAD) mechanism that facilitates fine-grained control. Further, we develop PAC-MCoFL-p, a scalable variant featuring a parameterized conjecture generator that substantially reduces computational complexity with a provably bounded error. Alongside theoretical convergence guarantees, our framework's superiority is validated through extensive simulations -- PAC-MCoFL achieves approximately 5.8% and 4.2% improvements in total reward and hypervolume indicator (HVI), respectively, over the latest MARL solutions. The results also demonstrate that our method can more effectively balance individual SP and system performance in scaled deployments and under diverse data heterogeneity.

Shiyi Yang, Xiaoxue Yu, Rongpeng Li et al.

Operating Large Language Models (LLMs) on edge devices is increasingly challenged by limited communication bandwidth and strained computational and memory costs. Thus, cloud-assisted remote fine-tuning becomes indispensable. Nevertheless, existing Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) approaches typically employ fixed or heuristic rank configurations, and the subsequent over-the-air transmission of all LoRA parameters could be rather inefficient. To address this limitation, we develop AirLLM, a hierarchical diffusion policy framework for communication-aware LoRA adaptation. Specifically, AirLLM models the rank configuration as a structured action vector that spans all LoRA-inserted projections. To solve the underlying high-dimensional sequential decision-making problem, a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) agent generates coarse-grained decisions by jointly observing wireless states and linguistic complexity, which are then refined via Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models (DDIM) to produce high-resolution, task- and channel-adaptive rank vectors. The two modules are optimized alternatively, with the DDIM trained under the Classifier-Free Guidance (CFG) paradigm to maintain alignment with PPO rewards. Experiments under varying signal-to-noise ratios demonstrate that AirLLM consistently enhances fine-tuning performance while significantly reducing transmission costs, highlighting the effectiveness of reinforcement-driven, diffusion-refined rank adaptation for scalable and efficient remote fine-tuning over the air.

Ruoqi Wen, Jiahao Huang, Rongpeng Li et al.

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have attracted significant attention in recent years and Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown remarkable performance in improving the autonomy of vehicles. In that regard, the widely adopted Model-Free RL (MFRL) promises to solve decision-making tasks in connected AVs (CAVs), contingent on the readiness of a significant amount of data samples for training. Nevertheless, it might be infeasible in practice and possibly lead to learning instability. In contrast, Model-Based RL (MBRL) manifests itself in sample-efficient learning, but the asymptotic performance of MBRL might lag behind the state-of-the-art MFRL algorithms. Furthermore, most studies for CAVs are limited to the decision-making of a single AV only, thus underscoring the performance due to the absence of communications. In this study, we try to address the decision-making problem of multiple CAVs with limited communications and propose a decentralized Multi-Agent Probabilistic Ensembles with Trajectory Sampling algorithm MA-PETS. In particular, in order to better capture the uncertainty of the unknown environment, MA-PETS leverages Probabilistic Ensemble (PE) neural networks to learn from communicated samples among neighboring CAVs. Afterwards, MA-PETS capably develops Trajectory Sampling (TS)-based model-predictive control for decision-making. On this basis, we derive the multi-agent group regret bound affected by the number of agents within the communication range and mathematically validate that incorporating effective information exchange among agents into the multi-agent learning scheme contributes to reducing the group regret bound in the worst case. Finally, we empirically demonstrate the superiority of MA-PETS in terms of the sample efficiency comparable to MFBL.

Yuxuan Chen, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

We present MERLOT, a scalable mixture-of-expert (MoE) based refinement of distilled large language model optimized for encrypted traffic classification. By applying model distillation techniques in a teacher-student paradigm, compact models derived from GPT-2-base retain high classification accuracy while minimizing computational costs. These models function as specialized experts in an MoE architecture, dynamically assigned via a gating network. Unlike generation-based methods, our approach directly classifies encrypted traffic using the final decoder token with contextual feature embedding as input. Experiments on 10 datasets show superior or competitive performance over the state-of-the-art models while significantly reducing resource demands, underscoring its effectiveness and robustness.

Wei Geng, Baidi Xiao, Rongpeng Li et al.

Generally, Reinforcement Learning (RL) agent updates its policy by repetitively interacting with the environment, contingent on the received rewards to observed states and undertaken actions. However, the environmental disturbance, commonly leading to noisy observations (e.g., rewards and states), could significantly shape the performance of agent. Furthermore, the learning performance of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) is more susceptible to noise due to the interference among intelligent agents. Therefore, it becomes imperative to revolutionize the design of MARL, so as to capably ameliorate the annoying impact of noisy rewards. In this paper, we propose a novel decomposition-based multi-agent distributional RL method by approximating the globally shared noisy reward by a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and decomposing it into the combination of individual distributional local rewards, with which each agent can be updated locally through distributional RL. Moreover, a diffusion model (DM) is leveraged for reward generation in order to mitigate the issue of costly interaction expenditure for learning distributions. Furthermore, the optimality of the distribution decomposition is theoretically validated, while the design of loss function is carefully calibrated to avoid the decomposition ambiguity. We also verify the effectiveness of the proposed method through extensive simulation experiments with noisy rewards. Besides, different risk-sensitive policies are evaluated in order to demonstrate the superiority of distributional RL in different MARL tasks.

Kechen Meng, Sinuo Zhang, Rongpeng Li et al.

In wireless communication systems, efficient and adaptive resource allocation plays a crucial role in enhancing overall Quality of Service (QoS). While centralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) frameworks rely on a central coordinator for policy training and resource scheduling, they suffer from scalability issues and privacy risks. In contrast, the Distributed Training with Decentralized Execution (DTDE) paradigm enables distributed learning and decision-making, but it struggles with non-stationarity and limited inter-agent cooperation, which can severely degrade system performance. To overcome these challenges, we propose the Multi-Agent Conditional Diffusion Model Planner (MA-CDMP) for decentralized communication resource management. Built upon the Model-Based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL) paradigm, MA-CDMP employs Diffusion Models (DMs) to capture environment dynamics and plan future trajectories, while an inverse dynamics model guides action generation, thereby alleviating the sample inefficiency and slow convergence of conventional DTDE methods. Moreover, to approximate large-scale agent interactions, a Mean-Field (MF) mechanism is introduced as an assistance to the classifier in DMs. This design mitigates inter-agent non-stationarity and enhances cooperation with minimal communication overhead in distributed settings. We further theoretically establish an upper bound on the distributional approximation error introduced by the MF-based diffusion generation, guaranteeing convergence stability and reliable modeling of multi-agent stochastic dynamics. Extensive experiments demonstrate that MA-CDMP consistently outperforms existing MARL baselines in terms of average reward and QoS metrics, showcasing its scalability and practicality for real-world wireless network optimization.

Niannian Wu, Rongpeng Li, Zongyu Yang et al.

Traditional PID controllers have limited adaptability for plasma shape control, and task-specific reinforcement learning (RL) methods suffer from limited generalization and the need for repetitive retraining. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a novel framework for developing a versatile, zero-shot control policy from a large-scale offline dataset of historical PID-controlled discharges. Our approach synergistically combines Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (GAIL) with Hilbert space representation learning to achieve dual objectives: mimicking the stable operational style of the PID data and constructing a geometrically structured latent space for efficient, goal-directed control. The resulting foundation policy can be deployed for diverse trajectory tracking tasks in a zero-shot manner without any task-specific fine-tuning. Evaluations on the HL-3 tokamak simulator demonstrate that the policy excels at precisely and stably tracking reference trajectories for key shape parameters across a range of plasma scenarios. This work presents a viable pathway toward developing highly flexible and data-efficient intelligent control systems for future fusion reactors.

Renxuan Tan, Rongpeng Li, Fei Wang et al.

Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols, essential for wireless networks, are typically manually configured. While deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based protocols enhance task-specified network performance, they suffer from poor generalizability and resilience, demanding costly retraining to adapt to dynamic environments. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a game-theoretic LLM-empowered multi-agent DRL (MARL) framework, in which the uplink transmission between a base station and a varying number of user equipments is modeled as a dynamic multi-follower Stackelberg game (MFSG), capturing the network's natural hierarchical structure. Within this game, LLM-driven agents, coordinated through proximal policy optimization (PPO), synthesize adaptive, semantic MAC protocols in response to network dynamics. Protocol action grammar (PAG) is employed to ensure the reliability and efficiency of this process. Under this system, we further analyze the existence and convergence behavior in terms of a Stackelberg equilibrium by studying the learning dynamics of LLM-empowered unified policies in response to changing followers. Simulations corroborate that our framework achieves a 77.6% greater throughput and a 65.2% fairness improvement over conventional baselines. Besides, our framework generalizes excellently to a fluctuating number of users without requiring retraining or architectural changes.

Zongyu Yang, Zhenghao Yang, Wenjing Tian et al.

In magnetically confined fusion device, the complex, multiscale, and nonlinear dynamics of plasmas necessitate the integration of extensive diagnostic systems to effectively monitor and control plasma behaviour. The complexity and uncertainty arising from these extensive systems and their tangled interrelations has long posed a significant obstacle to the acceleration of fusion energy development. In this work, a large-scale model, fusion masked auto-encoder (FusionMAE) is pre-trained to compress the information from 88 diagnostic signals into a concrete embedding, to provide a unified interface between diagnostic systems and control actuators. Two mechanisms are proposed to ensure a meaningful embedding: compression-reduction and missing-signal reconstruction. Upon completion of pre-training, the model acquires the capability for 'virtual backup diagnosis', enabling the inference of missing diagnostic data with 96.7% reliability. Furthermore, the model demonstrates three emergent capabilities: automatic data analysis, universal control-diagnosis interface, and enhancement of control performance on multiple tasks. This work pioneers large-scale AI model integration in fusion energy, demonstrating how pre-trained embeddings can simplify the system interface, reducing necessary diagnostic systems and optimize operation performance for future fusion reactors.

Ziyao Wang, Rongpeng Li, Sizhao Li et al.

Intelligent control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) swarms has emerged as a critical research focus, and it typically requires the swarm to navigate effectively while avoiding obstacles and achieving continuous coverage over multiple mission targets. Although traditional Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) approaches offer dynamic adaptability, they are hindered by the semantic gap in numerical communication and the rigidity of homogeneous role structures, resulting in poor generalization and limited task scalability. Recent advances in Large Language Model (LLM)-based control frameworks demonstrate strong semantic reasoning capabilities by leveraging extensive prior knowledge. However, due to the lack of online learning and over-reliance on static priors, these works often struggle with effective exploration, leading to reduced individual potential and overall system performance. To address these limitations, we propose a Role-Adaptive LLM-Driven Yoked navigation algorithm RALLY. Specifically, we first develop an LLM-driven semantic decision framework that uses structured natural language for efficient semantic communication and collaborative reasoning. Afterward, we introduce a dynamic role-heterogeneity mechanism for adaptive role switching and personalized decision-making. Furthermore, we propose a Role-value Mixing Network (RMIX)-based assignment strategy that integrates LLM offline priors with MARL online policies to enable semi-offline training of role selection strategies. Experiments in the Multi-Agent Particle Environment (MPE) environment and a Software-In-The-Loop (SITL) platform demonstrate that RALLY outperforms conventional approaches in terms of task coverage, convergence speed, and generalization, highlighting its strong potential for collaborative navigation in agentic multi-UAV systems.

Rongpeng Li, Jianhang Zhu, Jiahao Huang et al.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) have emerged as a promising solution towards ameliorating urban traffic congestion, with Traffic Signal Control (TSC) identified as a critical component. Although Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) algorithms have shown potential in optimizing TSC through real-time decision-making, their scalability and effectiveness often suffer from large-scale and complex environments. Typically, these limitations primarily stem from a fundamental mismatch between the exponential growth of the state space driven by the environmental heterogeneities and the limited modeling capacity of current solutions. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel MARL framework that integrates Dynamic Graph Neural Networks (DGNNs) and Topological Data Analysis (TDA), aiming to enhance the expressiveness of environmental representations and improve agent coordination. Furthermore, inspired by the Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture in Large Language Models (LLMs), a topology-assisted spatial pattern disentangling (TSD)-enhanced MoE is proposed, which leverages topological signatures to decouple graph features for specialized processing, thus improving the model's ability to characterize dynamic and heterogeneous local observations. The TSD module is also integrated into the policy and value networks of the Multi-agent Proximal Policy Optimization (MAPPO) algorithm, further improving decision-making efficiency and robustness. Extensive experiments conducted on real-world traffic scenarios, together with comprehensive theoretical analysis, validate the superior performance of the proposed framework, highlighting the model's scalability and effectiveness in addressing the complexities of large-scale TSC tasks.

Xiaoxue Yu, Xingfu Yi, Rongpeng Li et al.

In the evolution towards 6G, integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) with advanced network infrastructure emerges as a pivotal strategy for enhancing network intelligence and resource utilization. Existing distributed learning frameworks like Federated Learning and Split Learning often struggle with significant challenges in dynamic network environments including high synchronization demands, costly communication overhead, severe computing resource consumption, and data heterogeneity across network nodes. These obstacles hinder the applications of ubiquitous computing capabilities of 6G networks, especially in light of the trend of escalating model parameters and training data volumes. To address these challenges effectively, this paper introduces ``Snake Learning", a cost-effective distributed learning framework. Specifically, Snake Learning respects the heterogeneity of inter-node computing capability and local data distribution in 6G networks, and sequentially trains the designated part of model layers on individual nodes. This layer-by-layer serpentine update mechanism contributes to significantly reducing the requirements for storage, memory and communication during the model training phase, and demonstrates superior adaptability and efficiency for both classification and fine-tuning tasks across homogeneous and heterogeneous data distributions.

Fei Ni, Bingyan Wang, Rongpeng Li et al.

In the swiftly advancing realm of communication technologies, Semantic Communication (SemCom), which emphasizes knowledge understanding and processing, has emerged as a hot topic. By integrating artificial intelligence technologies, SemCom facilitates a profound understanding, analysis and transmission of communication content. In this chapter, we clarify the means of knowledge learning in SemCom with a particular focus on the utilization of Knowledge Graphs (KGs). Specifically, we first review existing efforts that combine SemCom with knowledge learning. Subsequently, we introduce a KG-enhanced SemCom system, wherein the receiver is carefully calibrated to leverage knowledge from its static knowledge base for ameliorating the decoding performance. Contingent upon this framework, we further explore potential approaches that can empower the system to operate in evolving knowledge base more effectively. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility of integration with Large Language Models (LLMs) for data augmentation, offering additional perspective into the potential implementation means of SemCom. Extensive numerical results demonstrate that the proposed framework yields superior performance on top of the KG-enhanced decoding and manifests its versatility under different scenarios.

Xing Xu, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

The paper considers independent reinforcement learning (IRL) for multi-agent decision-making process in the paradigm of federated learning (FL). We show that FL can clearly improve the policy performance of IRL in terms of training efficiency and stability. However, since the policy parameters are trained locally and aggregated iteratively through a central server in FL, frequent information exchange incurs a large amount of communication overheads. To reach a good balance between improving the model's convergence performance and reducing the required communication and computation overheads, this paper proposes a system utility function and develops a consensus-based optimization scheme on top of the periodic averaging method, which introduces the consensus algorithm into FL for the exchange of a model's local gradients. This paper also provides novel convergence guarantees for the developed method, and demonstrates its superior effectiveness and efficiency in improving the system utility value through theoretical analyses and numerical simulation results.

Kun Lu, Rongpeng Li, Xianfu Chen et al.

We introduce a new semantic communication mechanism - SemanticRL, whose key idea is to preserve the semantic information instead of strictly securing the bit-level precision. Unlike previous methods that mainly concentrate on the network or structure design, we revisit the learning process and point out the semantic blindness of commonly used objective functions. To address this semantic gap, we introduce a schematic shift that learns from semantic similarity, instead of relying on conventional paired bit-level supervisions like cross entropy and bit error rate. However, developing such a semantic communication system is indeed a nontrivial task considering the non-differentiability of most semantic metrics as well as the instability from noisy channels. To further resolve these issues, we put forward a self-critic reinforcement learning (RL) solution which allows an efficient and stable learning on any user-defined semantic measurement, and take a step further to simultaneously tackle the non-differentiable semantic channel optimization problem via self-critic stochastic iterative updating (SCSIU) training on the decoupled semantic transceiver. We have firstly tested the proposed method in the challenging European-parliament dataset, which confirms the superiority of our method in revealing the semantic meanings, and better handling the semantic noise. Apart from the experimental results, we further provide an in-depth look at how the semantic model behaves, along with its superb generalization ability in real-life examples. An RL-based image transmission extension is also exemplified, so as to prove the generalization ability and motivate future discussion.

Qingyang Zhou, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

With the development of deep learning (DL), natural language processing (NLP) makes it possible for us to analyze and understand a large amount of language texts. Accordingly, we can achieve a semantic communication in terms of joint semantic source and channel coding over a noisy channel with the help of NLP. However, the existing method to realize this goal is to use a fixed transformer of NLP while ignoring the difference of semantic information contained in each sentence. To solve this problem, we propose a new semantic communication system based on Universal Transformer. Compared with the traditional transformer, an adaptive circulation mechanism is introduced in the Universal Transformer. Through the introduction of the circulation mechanism, the new semantic communication system can be more flexible to transmit sentences with different semantic information, and achieve better end-to-end performance under various channel conditions.

Rongpeng Li

Online reinforcement learning (RL) has been widely applied in information processing scenarios, which usually exhibit much uncertainty due to the intrinsic randomness of channels and service demands. In this paper, we consider an un-discounted RL in general Markov decision processes (MDPs) with both endogeneous and exogeneous uncertainty, where both the rewards and state transition probability are unknown to the RL agent and evolve with the time as long as their respective variations do not exceed certain dynamic budget (i.e., upper bound). We first develop a variation-aware Bernstein-based upper confidence reinforcement learning (VB-UCRL), which we allow to restart according to a schedule dependent on the variations. We successfully overcome the challenges due to the exogeneous uncertainty and establish a regret bound of saving at most $\sqrt{S}$ or $S^{\frac{1}{6}}T^{\frac{1}{12}}$ compared with the latest results in the literature, where $S$ denotes the state size of the MDP and $T$ indicates the iteration index of learning steps.

Xing Xu, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

The paper considers independent reinforcement learning (IRL) for multi-agent collaborative decision-making in the paradigm of federated learning (FL). However, FL generates excessive communication overheads between agents and a remote central server, especially when it involves a large number of agents or iterations. Besides, due to the heterogeneity of independent learning environments, multiple agents may undergo asynchronous Markov decision processes (MDPs), which will affect the training samples and the model's convergence performance. On top of the variation-aware periodic averaging (VPA) method and the policy-based deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm (i.e., proximal policy optimization (PPO)), this paper proposes two advanced optimization schemes orienting to stochastic gradient descent (SGD): 1) A decay-based scheme gradually decays the weights of a model's local gradients with the progress of successive local updates, and 2) By representing the agents as a graph, a consensus-based scheme studies the impact of exchanging a model's local gradients among nearby agents from an algebraic connectivity perspective. This paper also provides novel convergence guarantees for both developed schemes, and demonstrates their superior effectiveness and efficiency in improving the system's utility value through theoretical analyses and simulation results.

Shibo Shen, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

In this paper, we propose a novel network training mechanism called "dynamic channel propagation" to prune the neural networks during the training period. In particular, we pick up a specific group of channels in each convolutional layer to participate in the forward propagation in training time according to the significance level of channel, which is defined as channel utility. The utility values with respect to all selected channels are updated simultaneously with the error back-propagation process and will adaptively change. Furthermore, when the training ends, channels with high utility values are retained whereas those with low utility values are discarded. Hence, our proposed scheme trains and prunes neural networks simultaneously. We empirically evaluate our novel training scheme on various representative benchmark datasets and advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures, including VGGNet and ResNet. The experiment results verify the superior performance and robust effectiveness of our approach.

Filip Ilievski, Daniel Garijo, Hans Chalupsky et al.

Knowledge graphs (KGs) have become the preferred technology for representing, sharing and adding knowledge to modern AI applications. While KGs have become a mainstream technology, the RDF/SPARQL-centric toolset for operating with them at scale is heterogeneous, difficult to integrate and only covers a subset of the operations that are commonly needed in data science applications. In this paper we present KGTK, a data science-centric toolkit designed to represent, create, transform, enhance and analyze KGs. KGTK represents graphs in tables and leverages popular libraries developed for data science applications, enabling a wide audience of developers to easily construct knowledge graph pipelines for their applications. We illustrate the framework with real-world scenarios where we have used KGTK to integrate and manipulate large KGs, such as Wikidata, DBpedia and ConceptNet.

Xing Xu, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

With the rapid evolution of wireless mobile devices, there emerges an increased need to design effective collaboration mechanisms between intelligent agents, so as to gradually approach the final collective objective through continuously learning from the environment based on their individual observations. In this regard, independent reinforcement learning (IRL) is often deployed in multi-agent collaboration to alleviate the problem of a non-stationary learning environment. However, behavioral strategies of intelligent agents in IRL can only be formulated upon their local individual observations of the global environment, and appropriate communication mechanisms must be introduced to reduce their behavioral localities. In this paper, we address the problem of communication between intelligent agents in IRL by jointly adopting mechanisms with two different scales. For the large scale, we introduce the stigmergy mechanism as an indirect communication bridge between independent learning agents, and carefully design a mathematical method to indicate the impact of digital pheromone. For the small scale, we propose a conflict-avoidance mechanism between adjacent agents by implementing an additionally embedded neural network to provide more opportunities for participants with higher action priorities. In addition, we present a federal training method to effectively optimize the neural network of each agent in a decentralized manner. Finally, we establish a simulation scenario in which a number of mobile agents in a certain area move automatically to form a specified target shape. Extensive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Chen Qi, Yuxiu Hua, Rongpeng Li et al.

Network slicing promises to provision diversified services with distinct requirements in one infrastructure. Deep reinforcement learning (e.g., deep $\mathcal{Q}$-learning, DQL) is assumed to be an appropriate algorithm to solve the demand-aware inter-slice resource management issue in network slicing by regarding the varying demands and the allocated bandwidth as the environment state and the action, respectively. However, allocating bandwidth in a finer resolution usually implies larger action space, and unfortunately DQL fails to quickly converge in this case. In this paper, we introduce discrete normalized advantage functions (DNAF) into DQL, by separating the $\mathcal{Q}$-value function as a state-value function term and an advantage term and exploiting a deterministic policy gradient descent (DPGD) algorithm to avoid the unnecessary calculation of $\mathcal{Q}$-value for every state-action pair. Furthermore, as DPGD only works in continuous action space, we embed a k-nearest neighbor algorithm into DQL to quickly find a valid action in the discrete space nearest to the DPGD output. Finally, we verify the faster convergence of the DNAF-based DQL through extensive simulations.

Yuxiu Hua, Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao et al.

Network slicing is a key technology in 5G communications system. Its purpose is to dynamically and efficiently allocate resources for diversified services with distinct requirements over a common underlying physical infrastructure. Therein, demand-aware resource allocation is of significant importance to network slicing. In this paper, we consider a scenario that contains several slices in a radio access network with base stations that share the same physical resources (e.g., bandwidth or slots). We leverage deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to solve this problem by considering the varying service demands as the environment state and the allocated resources as the environment action. In order to reduce the effects of the annoying randomness and noise embedded in the received service level agreement (SLA) satisfaction ratio (SSR) and spectrum efficiency (SE), we primarily propose generative adversarial network-powered deep distributional Q network (GAN-DDQN) to learn the action-value distribution driven by minimizing the discrepancy between the estimated action-value distribution and the target action-value distribution. We put forward a reward-clipping mechanism to stabilize GAN-DDQN training against the effects of widely-spanning utility values. Moreover, we further develop Dueling GAN-DDQN, which uses a specially designed dueling generator, to learn the action-value distribution by estimating the state-value distribution and the action advantage function. Finally, we verify the performance of the proposed GAN-DDQN and Dueling GAN-DDQN algorithms through extensive simulations.

Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao, Xing Xu et al.

The fifth-generation cellular networks (5G) has boosted the unprecedented convergence between the information world and physical world. On the other hand, empowered with the enormous amount of data and information, artificial intelligence (AI) has been universally applied and pervasive AI is believed to be an integral part of the six-generation cellular networks (6G). Consequently, benefiting from the advancement in communication technology and AI, we boldly argue that the conditions for collective intelligence (CI) will be mature in the 6G era and CI will emerge among the widely connected beings and things. Afterwards, we highlight the potential huge impact of CI on both communications and intelligence. In particular, we introduce a regular language (i.e., the information economy metalanguage) supporting the future collective communications to augment human intelligence and explain its potential applications in naming Internet information and pushing information centric networks forward. Meanwhile, we propose a stigmergy-based federated collective intelligence and demonstrate its achievement in a simulated scenario where the agents collectively work together to form a pattern through simple indirect communications. In a word, CI could advance both communications and intelligence.

Anna Dai, Zhifeng Zhao, Honggang Zhang et al.

Collective intelligence is manifested when multiple agents coherently work in observation, interaction, decision-making and action. In this paper, we define and quantify the intelligence level of heterogeneous agents group with the improved Anytime Universal Intelligence Test(AUIT), based on an extension of the existing evaluation of homogeneous agents group. The relationship of intelligence level with agents composition, group size, spatial complexity and testing time is analyzed. The intelligence level of heterogeneous agents groups is compared with the homogeneous ones to analyze the effects of heterogeneity on collective intelligence. Our work will help to understand the essence of collective intelligence more deeply and reveal the effect of various key factors on group intelligence level.

Xing Hsu, Zhifeng Zhao, Rongpeng Li et al.

Stigmergy has proved its great superiority in terms of distributed control, robustness and adaptability, thus being regarded as an ideal solution for large-scale swarm control problems. Based on new discoveries on astrocytes in regulating synaptic transmission in the brain, this paper has mapped stigmergy mechanism into the interaction between synapses and investigated its characteristics and advantages. Particularly, we have divided the interaction between synapses which are not directly connected into three phases and proposed a stigmergic learning model. In this model, the state change of a stigmergy agent will expand its influence to affect the states of others. The strength of the interaction is determined by the level of neural activity as well as the distance between stigmergy agents. Inspired by the morphological and functional changes in astrocytes during environmental enrichment, it is likely that the regulation of distance between stigmergy agents plays a critical role in the stigmergy learning process. Simulation results have verified its importance and indicated that the well-regulated distance between stigmergy agents can help to obtain stigmergy learning gain.

Yuxiu Hua, Zhifeng Zhao, Rongpeng Li et al.

Time series prediction can be generalized as a process that extracts useful information from historical records and then determines future values. Learning long-range dependencies that are embedded in time series is often an obstacle for most algorithms, whereas Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) solutions, as a specific kind of scheme in deep learning, promise to effectively overcome the problem. In this article, we first give a brief introduction to the structure and forward propagation mechanism of the LSTM model. Then, aiming at reducing the considerable computing cost of LSTM, we put forward the Random Connectivity LSTM (RCLSTM) model and test it by predicting traffic and user mobility in telecommunication networks. Compared to LSTM, RCLSTM is formed via stochastic connectivity between neurons, which achieves a significant breakthrough in the architecture formation of neural networks. In this way, the RCLSTM model exhibits a certain level of sparsity, which leads to an appealing decrease in the computational complexity and makes the RCLSTM model become more applicable in latency-stringent application scenarios. In the field of telecommunication networks, the prediction of traffic series and mobility traces could directly benefit from this improvement as we further demonstrate that the prediction accuracy of RCLSTM is comparable to that of the conventional LSTM no matter how we change the number of training samples or the length of input sequences.

Jiaqi Li, Zhifeng Zhao, Rongpeng Li et al.

Software Defined Internet of Things (SD-IoT) Networks profits from centralized management and interactive resource sharing which enhances the efficiency and scalability of IoT applications. But with the rapid growth in services and applications, it is vulnerable to possible attacks and faces severe security challenges. Intrusion detection has been widely used to ensure network security, but classical detection means are usually signature-based or explicit-behavior-based and fail to detect unknown attacks intelligently, which are hard to satisfy the requirements of SD-IoT Networks. In this paper, we propose an AI-based two-stage intrusion detection empowered by software defined technology. It flexibly captures network flows with a globle view and detects attacks intelligently through applying AI algorithms. We firstly leverage Bat algorithm with swarm division and Differential Mutation to select typical features. Then, we exploit Random forest through adaptively altering the weights of samples using weighted voting mechanism to classify flows. Evaluation results prove that the modified intelligent algorithms select more important features and achieve superior performance in flow classification. It is also verified that intelligent intrusion detection shows better accuracy with lower overhead comparied with existing solutions.

Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao, Qi Sun et al.

Network slicing is born as an emerging business to operators, by allowing them to sell the customized slices to various tenants at different prices. In order to provide better-performing and cost-efficient services, network slicing involves challenging technical issues and urgently looks forward to intelligent innovations to make the resource management consistent with users' activities per slice. In that regard, deep reinforcement learning (DRL), which focuses on how to interact with the environment by trying alternative actions and reinforcing the tendency actions producing more rewarding consequences, is assumed to be a promising solution. In this paper, after briefly reviewing the fundamental concepts of DRL, we investigate the application of DRL in solving some typical resource management for network slicing scenarios, which include radio resource slicing and priority-based core network slicing, and demonstrate the advantage of DRL over several competing schemes through extensive simulations. Finally, we also discuss the possible challenges to apply DRL in network slicing from a general perspective.

Yuxiu Hua, Zhifeng Zhao, Rongpeng Li et al.

Traffic prediction plays an important role in evaluating the performance of telecommunication networks and attracts intense research interests. A significant number of algorithms and models have been put forward to analyse traffic data and make prediction. In the recent big data era, deep learning has been exploited to mine the profound information hidden in the data. In particular, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), one kind of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) schemes, has attracted a lot of attentions due to its capability of processing the long-range dependency embedded in the sequential traffic data. However, LSTM has considerable computational cost, which can not be tolerated in tasks with stringent latency requirement. In this paper, we propose a deep learning model based on LSTM, called Random Connectivity LSTM (RCLSTM). Compared to the conventional LSTM, RCLSTM makes a notable breakthrough in the formation of neural network, which is that the neurons are connected in a stochastic manner rather than full connected. So, the RCLSTM, with certain intrinsic sparsity, have many neural connections absent (distinguished from the full connectivity) and which leads to the reduction of the parameters to be trained and the computational cost. We apply the RCLSTM to predict traffic and validate that the RCLSTM with even 35% neural connectivity still shows a satisfactory performance. When we gradually add training samples, the performance of RCLSTM becomes increasingly closer to the baseline LSTM. Moreover, for the input traffic sequences of enough length, the RCLSTM exhibits even superior prediction accuracy than the baseline LSTM.

Jiaqi Li, Zhifeng Zhao, Rongpeng Li

As an inevitable trend of future 5G networks, Software Defined architecture has many advantages in providing central- ized control and flexible resource management. But it is also confronted with various security challenges and potential threats with emerging services and technologies. As the focus of network security, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are usually deployed separately without collaboration. They are also unable to detect novel attacks with limited intelligent abilities, which are hard to meet the needs of software defined 5G. In this paper, we propose an intelligent intrusion system taking the advances of software defined technology and artificial intelligence based on Software Defined 5G architecture. It flexibly combines security function mod- ules which are adaptively invoked under centralized management and control with a globle view. It can also deal with unknown intrusions by using machine learning algorithms. Evaluation results prove that the intelligent intrusion detection system achieves a better performance.

Rongpeng Li, Zhifeng Zhao, Jianchao Zheng et al.

Traffic learning and prediction is at the heart of the evaluation of the performance of telecommunications networks and attracts a lot of attention in wired broadband networks. Now, benefiting from the big data in cellular networks, it becomes possible to make the analyses one step further into the application level. In this paper, we firstly collect a significant amount of application-level traffic data from cellular network operators. Afterwards, with the aid of the traffic "big data", we make a comprehensive study over the modeling and prediction framework of cellular network traffic. Our results solidly demonstrate that there universally exist some traffic statistical modeling characteristics, including ALPHA-stable modeled property in the temporal domain and the sparsity in the spatial domain. Meanwhile, the results also demonstrate the distinctions originated from the uniqueness of different service types of applications. Furthermore, we propose a new traffic prediction framework to encompass and explore these aforementioned characteristics and then develop a dictionary learning-based alternating direction method to solve it. Besides, we validate the prediction accuracy improvement and the robustness of the proposed framework through extensive simulation results.