Online Learning for Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks: Fairness, Communication Efficiency, and Data Privacy

As the Next-Generation (NextG, 5G and beyond) wireless network supports a wider range of services, optimization of resource allocation plays a crucial role in ensuring efficient use of the (limited) available network resources. Note that resource allocation may require knowledge of network parameters (e.g., channel state information and available power level) for package schedule. However, wireless networks operate in an uncertain environment where, in many practical scenarios, these parameters are unknown before decisions are made. In the absence of network parameters, a network controller, who performs resource allocation, may have to make decisions (aimed at optimizing network performance and satisfying users' QoS requirements) while emph{learning}. To that end, this dissertation studies two novel online learning problems that are motivated by autonomous resource management in NextG. Key contributions of the dissertation are two-fold. First, we study reward maximization under uncertainty with fairness constraints, which is motivated by wireless scheduling with Quality of Service constraints (e.g., minimum delivery ratio requirement) under uncertainty. We formulate a framework of combinatorial bandits with fairness constraints and develop a fair learning algorithm that successfully addresses the tradeoff between reward maximization and fairness constraints. This framework can also be applied to several other real-world applications, such as online advertising and crowdsourcing. Second, we consider global reward maximization under uncertainty with distributed biased feedback, which is motivated by the problem of cellular network configuration for optimizing network-level performance (e.g., average user-perceived Quality of Experience). We study both the linear-parameterized and non-parametric global reward functions, which are modeled as distributed linear bandits and kernelized bandits, respectively. For each model, we propose a learning algorithmic framework that can be integrated with different differential privacy models. We show that the proposed algorithms can achieve a near-optimal regret in a communication-efficient manner while protecting users' data privacy ``for free''. Our findings reveal that our developed algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art solutions in terms of the tradeoff among the regret, communication efficiency, and computation complexity. In addition, our proposed models and online learning algorithms can also be applied to several other real-world applications, e.g., dynamic pricing and public policy making, which may be of independent interest to a broader research community.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science and Applications

Department dc:contributor.department

Computer Science and Applications

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Li, Fengjiao

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Ji, Bo

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Lourentzou, Ismini
• Wang, Yu
• Wu, Jie
• Raghvendra, Sharath

• resource allocation
• online bandit learning
• fairness
• communication efficiency
• data privacy

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:36040

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/112878