Applying multi-agent deep reinforcement learning for contention window optimization to enhance wireless network performance

Abstract

This paper investigates the Contention Window (CW) optimization problem in multi-agent scenarios, where the fully cooperative among mobile stations is considered. A partially observable environment is employed to model and analyze the CW optimization problem, and Smart Exponential-Threshold-Linear with Deep Q- learning Network (SETL-DQN) Multi-Agent (MA) algorithm is proposed to obtain the optimal system throughput through the CW Threshold optimization. In the determined scenarios, SETL-DQN(MA) can effectively cope with the mutual interaction among mobile stations. The simulation results show that our proposed method is superior from both static and dynamic scenarios and has the highest optimum packet transmission efficiency.