Multi-armed Bandit-Based Rate Control with Logarithmic Rates in CSMA/CA Wireless Networks

Abstract

Herein, we propose to use the log values of the data transmission rates of modulation and coding scheme (MCS) levels for multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms that adjust the MCS levels of packets in carrier-sensing multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA)-based wireless networks. We argue that the utility of the data transmission rates of the MCS levels may not be proportional to their nominal values and suggest using their log values instead of using the data transmission rates directly for computing the expected throughputs in the MAB algorithms. For the demonstrations, we introduce two MAB algorithms that adopt log rates. The algorithms also use a sliding window to cope with non-stationary wireless channel environments. Using the simulation results obtained from the ns-3 network simulator, we show that the proposed MAB algorithms outperform the MAB algorithms that do not use log rates in rapidly changing wireless channel environments.