Distributed Cooperative Q-learning for Power Allocation in Cognitive Femtocell Networks
This addresses interference control for femtocell networks in telecommunications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing Q-learning methods.
The paper tackled interference management in cognitive femtocell networks by proposing a distributed Q-learning technique for power allocation, with simulation results showing that the cooperative approach improved convergence speed, fairness, and aggregate femtocell capacity.
In this paper, we propose a distributed reinforcement learning (RL) technique called distributed power control using Q-learning (DPC-Q) to manage the interference caused by the femtocells on macro-users in the downlink. The DPC-Q leverages Q-Learning to identify the sub-optimal pattern of power allocation, which strives to maximize femtocell capacity, while guaranteeing macrocell capacity level in an underlay cognitive setting. We propose two different approaches for the DPC-Q algorithm: namely, independent, and cooperative. In the former, femtocells learn independently from each other while in the latter, femtocells share some information during learning in order to enhance their performance. Simulation results show that the independent approach is capable of mitigating the interference generated by the femtocells on macro-users. Moreover, the results show that cooperation enhances the performance of the femtocells in terms of speed of convergence, fairness and aggregate femtocell capacity.