LoRa-MAB: A Flexible Simulator for Decentralized Learning Resource Allocation in IoT Networks

Duc-Tuyen Ta (1, 2) , Kinda Khawam (3) , Samer Lahoud (4) , Cédric Adjih (2) , Steven Martin (1)

1 ROCS - LRI - Réseaux et Optimisation Combinatoire Stochastique (LRI)
2 TRiBE - inTeRnet BEyond the usual
3 UVSQ - Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
4 ESIB - Ecole supérieure d'ingénieurs de Beyrouth

LoRaWAN is a media access control (MAC) protocol for wide area networks. It is designed to allow low-powered devices to communicate with Internet-connected applications over long-range wireless connections. The targeted dense deployment will inevitably cause a shortage in radio resources. Hence, autonomous and lightweight radio resource management is crucial to offer ultra-long battery lifetime for LoRa devices. One of the most promising solutions to such a challenge is the use of artificial intelligence. This will enable LoRa devices to use innovative and inherently distributed learning techniques, thus freeing them from draining their limited energy by constantly communicating with a centralized controller. Before proceeding with the deployment of self-managing solutions on top of a LoRaWAN application, it is sensible to conduct simulation-based studies to optimize the design of learning-based algorithms as well as the application under consideration. Unfortunately, a network simulator for such a context is not fully considered or lacks real deployment parameters. In order to address this shortcoming, we have developed a LoRaWAN sim-ulator which aims for resources allocation problem in LoRaWAN network. The Multi-Armed Bandit and its reinforcement learning based algorithm are used to formulate and finding a resource allocation solution. To demonstrate the usefulness of our simu-lator, extensive simulations were run in a realistic environment taking into account physical phenomenon in LoRaWAN such as the capture effect and inter-spreading factor interference. The simulation results show that the proposed simulator provides a flexible and efficient environment to evaluate various network design parameters and self-management solutions as well as verify the effectiveness of the distributed learning algorithms for resource allocation problems in LoRaWAN.

Mots clés: LoRAWAN; Network simulator; Reinforcement learning; Discrete-event simulator

Domaines: Réseaux et télécommunications [cs.NI]

Duc-Tuyen Ta, Kinda Khawam, Samer Lahoud, Cédric Adjih, Steven Martin. LoRa-MAB: A Flexible Simulator for Decentralized Learning Resource Allocation in IoT Networks. WMNC 2019 - 12th IFIP Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference, Sep 2019, Paris, France. pp.55-62, ⟨10.23919/WMNC.2019.8881393⟩. ⟨hal-02431653⟩