@article {Filali20222174,
	title = {Dynamic SDN-Based Radio Access Network Slicing With Deep Reinforcement Learning for URLLC and eMBB Services},
	journal = {IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering},
	volume = {9},
	number = {4},
	year = {2022},
	note = {cited By 3},
	pages = {2174-2187},
	abstract = {Radio access network (RAN) slicing is a key technology that enables 5G network to support heterogeneous requirements of generic services, namely ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB). In this paper, we propose a two time-scales RAN slicing mechanism to optimize the performance of URLLC and eMBB services. In a large time-scale, an SDN controller allocates radio resources to gNodeBs according to the requirements of the eMBB and URLLC services. In a short time-scale, each gNodeB allocates its available resources to its end-users and requests, if needed, additional resources from adjacent gNodeBs. We formulate this problem as a non-linear binary program and prove its NP-hardness. Next, for each time-scale, we model the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP), where the large-time scale is modeled as a single agent MDP whereas the shorter time-scale is modeled as a multi-agent MDP. We leverage the exponential-weight algorithm for exploration and exploitation (EXP3) to solve the single-agent MDP of the large time-scale MDP and the multi-agent deep Q-learning (DQL) algorithm to solve the multi-agent MDP of the short time-scale resource allocation. Extensive simulations show that our approach is efficient under different network parameters configuration and it outperforms recent benchmark solutions. {\textcopyright} 2013 IEEE.},
	keywords = {5G mobile communication systems, Deep learning, EMBB, Heuristic algorithms, Heuristics algorithm, Learning algorithms, Low-latency communication, Markov processes, Multi agent systems, Network slicing, Optimisations, Optimization, Quality of service, Quality-of-service, Radio access networks, Reinforcement learning, Resource allocation, Resource Management, Software agents, Software defined networking, Software-defined networkings, Time measurement, Ultra reliable low latency communication, URLLC},
	doi = {10.1109/TNSE.2022.3157274},
	url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85126273319\&doi=10.1109\%2fTNSE.2022.3157274\&partnerID=40\&md5=44d6a41c3d7b8b6d8c4d6918856f36c5},
	author = {Filali, A. and Mlika, Z. and Cherkaoui, S. and Kobbane, A.}
}
