Multi-edge cooperative computing that combines constrained resources of multiple edges into a powerful resource pool has the potential to deliver great benefits, such as a tremendous computing power, improved response time, more diversified services. However, the mass heterogeneous resources composition and lack of scheduling strategies make the modeling and cooperating of multi-edge computing system particularly complicated. This paper first proposes a system-level state evaluation model to shield the complex hardware configurations and redefine the different service capabilities at heterogeneous edges. Secondly, an integer linear programming model is designed to cater for optimally dispatching the distributed arriving requests. Finally, a learning-based lightweight real-time scheduler, CoRaiS, is proposed. CoRaiS embeds the real-time states of multi-edge system and requests information, and combines the embeddings with a policy network to schedule the requests, so that the response time of all requests can be minimized. Evaluation results verify that CoRaiS can make a high-quality scheduling decision in real time, and can be generalized to other multi-edge computing system, regardless of system scales. Characteristic validation also demonstrates that CoRaiS successfully learns to balance loads, perceive real-time state and recognize heterogeneity while scheduling.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are nowadays mature technologies considered essential for driving the evolution of future communications systems. Simultaneously, Wi-Fi technology has constantly evolved over the past three decades and incorporated new features generation after generation, thus gaining in complexity. As such, researchers have observed that AI/ML functionalities may be required to address the upcoming Wi-Fi challenges that will be otherwise difficult to solve with traditional approaches. This paper discusses the role of AI/ML in current and future Wi-Fi networks and depicts the ways forward. A roadmap towards AI/ML-native Wi-Fi, key challenges, standardization efforts, and major enablers are also discussed. An exemplary use case is provided to showcase the potential of AI/ML in Wi-Fi at different adoption stages.

Next-generation mobile networks are expected to facilitate fast AI model downloading to end users. By caching models on edge servers, mobile networks can deliver models to end users with low latency, resulting in a paradigm called edge model caching. In this paper, we develop a novel model placement scheme, called parameter-sharing model caching (TrimCaching). TrimCaching exploits the key observation that a wide range of AI models, such as convolutional neural networks or large language models, can share a significant proportion of parameter blocks containing reusable knowledge, thereby improving storage efficiency. To this end, we formulate a parameter-sharing model placement problem to maximize the cache hit ratio in multi-edge wireless networks by balancing the fundamental tradeoff between storage efficiency and service latency. We show that the formulated problem is a submodular maximization problem with submodular constraints, for which no polynomial-time approximation algorithm exists. To overcome this challenge, we study an important special case, where a small fixed number of parameter blocks are shared across models, which often holds in practice. In such a case, a polynomial-time algorithm with $\left(1-\epsilon\right)/2$-approximation guarantee is developed. Subsequently, we address the original problem for the general case by developing a greedy algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed TrimCaching framework significantly improves the cache hit ratio compared with state-of-the-art content caching without exploiting shared parameters in AI models.

Large language models (LLMs) have received considerable attention recently due to their outstanding comprehension and reasoning capabilities, leading to great progress in many fields. The advancement of LLM techniques also offers promising opportunities to automate many tasks in the telecommunication (telecom) field. After pre-training and fine-tuning, LLMs can perform diverse downstream tasks based on human instructions, paving the way to artificial general intelligence (AGI)-enabled 6G. Given the great potential of LLM technologies, this work aims to provide a comprehensive overview of LLM-enabled telecom networks. In particular, we first present LLM fundamentals, including model architecture, pre-training, fine-tuning, inference and utilization, model evaluation, and telecom deployment. Then, we introduce LLM-enabled key techniques and telecom applications in terms of generation, classification, optimization, and prediction problems. Specifically, the LLM-enabled generation applications include telecom domain knowledge, code, and network configuration generation. After that, the LLM-based classification applications involve network security, text, image, and traffic classification problems. Moreover, multiple LLM-enabled optimization techniques are introduced, such as automated reward function design for reinforcement learning and verbal reinforcement learning. Furthermore, for LLM-aided prediction problems, we discussed time-series prediction models and multi-modality prediction problems for telecom. Finally, we highlight the challenges and identify the future directions of LLM-enabled telecom networks.

Dealing with irate customers can be extremely stressful for call center workers but SoftBank thinks it has a solution: artificial intelligence-enabled software that softens the tone of customers' voices. The country's third-largest telecoms provider aims to begin testing the technology internally and externally over the next year and commercialize it by the end of March 2026. "We are working on the development of a solution that can convert the customer's voice into a calm conversational tone and deliver it to our workers using AI-enabled emotion recognition and voice processing technology," SoftBank said in a news release on Wednesday. "With this solution, we aim to maintain good relationships with customers through sound communication while ensuring the psychological welfare of our workers." Japan prides itself on its high standard of customer service but the issue of harassment of staff working in the service industry has gained more awareness in recent years.

As telecommunication systems evolve to meet increasing demands, integrating deep neural networks (DNNs) has shown promise in enhancing performance. However, the trade-off between accuracy and flexibility remains challenging when replacing traditional receivers with DNNs. This paper introduces a novel probabilistic framework that allows a single DNN demapper to demap multiple QAM and APSK constellations simultaneously. We also demonstrate that our framework allows exploiting hierarchical relationships in families of constellations. The consequence is that we need fewer neural network outputs to encode the same function without an increase in Bit Error Rate (BER). Our simulation results confirm that our approach approaches the optimal demodulation error bound under an Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel for multiple constellations. Thereby, we address multiple important issues in making DNNs flexible enough for practical use as receivers.

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Search and rescue operations (SAR) to navigate challenging terrain while maintaining reliable communication with the cellular network is a promising approach. This paper suggests a novel technique employing a reinforcement learning multi Q-learning algorithm to optimize UAV connectivity in such scenarios. We introduce a Strategic Planning Agent for efficient path planning and collision awareness and a Real-time Adaptive Agent to maintain optimal connection with the cellular base station. The agents trained in a simulated environment using multi Q-learning, encouraging them to learn from experience and adjust their decision-making to diverse terrain complexities and communication scenarios. Evaluation results reveal the significance of the approach, highlighting successful navigation in environments with varying obstacle densities and the ability to perform optimal connectivity using different frequency bands. This work paves the way for enhanced UAV autonomy and enhanced communication reliability in search and rescue operations.

In dynamic and resource-constrained environments, such as multi-hop wireless mesh networks, traditional routing protocols often falter by relying on predetermined paths that prove ineffective in unpredictable link conditions. Shortest Anypath routing offers a solution by adapting routing decisions based on real-time link conditions. However, the effectiveness of such routing is fundamentally dependent on the quality and reliability of the available links, and predicting these variables with certainty is challenging. This paper introduces a novel approach that leverages the Deterministic Sequencing of Exploration and Exploitation (DSEE), a multi-armed bandit algorithm, to address the need for accurate and real-time estimation of link delivery probabilities. This approach augments the reliability and resilience of the Shortest Anypath routing in the face of fluctuating link conditions. By coupling DSEE with Anypath routing, this algorithm continuously learns and ensures accurate delivery probability estimation and selects the most suitable way to efficiently route packets while maintaining a provable near-logarithmic regret bound. We also theoretically prove that our proposed scheme offers better regret scaling with respect to the network size than the previously proposed Thompson Sampling-based Opportunistic Routing (TSOR).

Identifying IoT devices is crucial for network monitoring, security enforcement, and inventory tracking. However, most existing identification methods rely on deep packet inspection, which raises privacy concerns and adds computational complexity. More importantly, existing works overlook the impact of wireless channel dynamics on the accuracy of layer-2 features, thereby limiting their effectiveness in real-world scenarios. In this work, we define and use the latency of specific probe-response packet exchanges, referred to as "device latency," as the main feature for device identification. Additionally, we reveal the critical impact of wireless channel dynamics on the accuracy of device identification based on device latency. Specifically, this work introduces "accumulation score" as a novel approach to capturing fine-grained channel dynamics and their impact on device latency when training machine learning models. We implement the proposed methods and measure the accuracy and overhead of device identification in real-world scenarios. The results confirm that by incorporating the accumulation score for balanced data collection and training machine learning algorithms, we achieve an F1 score of over 97% for device identification, even amidst wireless channel dynamics, a significant improvement over the 75% F1 score achieved by disregarding the impact of channel dynamics on data collection and device latency.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) networks, integral to 5G communication, offer a vast spectrum that addresses the issue of spectrum scarcity and enhances peak rate and capacity. However, their dense deployment, necessary to counteract propagation losses, leads to high power consumption. An effective strategy to reduce this energy consumption in mobile networks is the sleep mode optimization (SMO) of base stations (BSs). In this paper, we propose a novel SMO approach for mmWave BSs in a 3D urban environment. This approach, which incorporates a neural network (NN) based contextual multi-armed bandit (C-MAB) with an epsilon decay algorithm, accommodates the dynamic and diverse traffic of user equipment (UE) by clustering the UEs in their respective tracking areas (TAs). Our strategy includes beamforming, which helps reduce energy consumption from the UE side, while SMO minimizes energy use from the BS perspective. We extended our investigation to include Random, Epsilon Greedy, Upper Confidence Bound (UCB), and Load Based sleep mode (SM) strategies. We compared the performance of our proposed C-MAB based SM algorithm with those of All On and other alternative approaches. Simulation results show that our proposed method outperforms all other SM strategies in terms of the $10^{th}$ percentile of user rate and average throughput while demonstrating comparable average throughput to the All On approach. Importantly, it outperforms all approaches in terms of energy efficiency (EE).