Dynamic resource allocation with integrated reinforcement learning for a D2D-enabled LTE-A network with access to unlicensed band

We propose a dynamic resource allocation algorithm for device-to-device (D2D) communication underlying a Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) network with reinforcement learning (RL) applied for unlicensed channel allocation. In a considered system, the inband and outband resources are assigned by the LTE evolved NodeB (eNB) to different device pairs to maximize the network utility subject to the target signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) constraints. Because of the absence of an established control link between the unlicensed and cellular radio interfaces, the eNB cannot acquire any information about the quality and availability of unlicensed channels. As a result, a considered problem becomes a stochastic optimization problem that can be dealt with by deploying a learning theory (to estimate the random unlicensed channel environment). Consequently, we formulate the outband D2D access as a dynamic single-player game in which the player (eNB) estimates its possible strategy and expected utility for all of its actions based only on its own local observations using a joint utility and strategy estimation based reinforcement learning (JUSTE-RL) with regret algorithm. A proposed approach for resource allocation demonstrates near-optimal performance after a small number of RL iterations and surpasses the other comparable methods in terms of energy efficiency and throughput maximization.