Buffer-Aided Relay Selection for Cooperative Hybrid NOMA/OMA Networks With Asynchronous Deep Reinforcement Learning
Chong Huang, Gaojie Chen, Yu Gong, Peng Xu, Zhu Han, Jonathon A. Chambers
Abstract
This paper investigates asynchronous reinforcement learning algorithms for joint buffer-aided relay selection and power allocation in the non-orthogonal-multiple-access (NOMA) relay network. With the hybrid NOMA/OMA transmission, we investigate joint relay selection and power allocation to maximize the throughput with the delay constraint. To solve this complicated high-dimensional optimization problem, we propose two asynchronous reinforcement learning-based schemes: the asynchronous deep Q-Learning network (ADQN)-based scheme and the asynchronous advantage actor-critic (A3C)-based scheme, respectively. The A3C-based scheme achieves better performance and robustness when the action space is large, while the ADQN-based scheme converges faster with a small action space. Moreover, a-prior information is exploited to improve the convergence of the proposed schemes. The simulation results show that the proposed asynchronous learning-based schemes can learn from the environment and achieve good convergence.