Telecommunications
World Model-Based Learning for Long-Term Age of Information Minimization in Vehicular Networks
Wang, Lingyi, Shelim, Rashed, Saad, Walid, Ramakrishnan, Naren
Traditional reinforcement learning (RL)-based learning approaches for wireless networks rely on expensive trial-and-error mechanisms and real-time feedback based on extensive environment interactions, which leads to low data efficiency and short-sighted policies. These limitations become particularly problematic in complex, dynamic networks with high uncertainty and long-term planning requirements. To address these limitations, in this paper, a novel world model-based learning framework is proposed to minimize packet-completeness-aware age of information (CAoI) in a vehicular network. Particularly, a challenging representative scenario is considered pertaining to a millimeter-wave (mmWave) vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication network, which is characterized by high mobility, frequent signal blockages, and extremely short coherence time. Then, a world model framework is proposed to jointly learn a dynamic model of the mmWave V2X environment and use it to imagine trajectories for learning how to perform link scheduling. In particular, the long-term policy is learned in differentiable imagined trajectories instead of environment interactions. Moreover, owing to its imagination abilities, the world model can jointly predict time-varying wireless data and optimize link scheduling in real-world wireless and V2X networks. Thus, during intervals without actual observations, the world model remains capable of making efficient decisions. Extensive experiments are performed on a realistic simulator based on Sionna that integrates physics-based end-to-end channel modeling, ray-tracing, and scene geometries with material properties. Simulation results show that the proposed world model achieves a significant improvement in data efficiency, and achieves 26% improvement and 16% improvement in CAoI, respectively, compared to the model-based RL (MBRL) method and the model-free RL (MFRL) method.
Spatial-Temporal Reinforcement Learning for Network Routing with Non-Markovian Traffic
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been widely used for packet routing in communication networks, but traditional RL methods rely on the Markov assumption that the current state contains all necessary information for decision-making. In reality, internet traffic is non-Markovian, and past states do influence routing performance. Moreover, common deep RL approaches use function approximators, such as neural networks, that do not model the spatial structure in network topologies. To address these shortcomings, we design a network environment with non-Markovian traffic and introduce a spatial-temporal RL (STRL) framework for packet routing. Our approach outperforms traditional baselines by more than 19% during training and 7% for inference despite a change in network topology.
OFCnetLLM: Large Language Model for Network Monitoring and Alertness
Yoon, Hong-Jun, Kiran, Mariam, Ebling, Danial, Breen, Joe
The rapid evolution of network infrastructure is bringing new challenges and opportunities for efficient network management, optimization, and security. With very large monitoring databases becoming expensive to explore, the use of AI and Generative AI can help reduce costs of managing these datasets. This paper explores the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to revolutionize network monitoring management by addressing the limitations of query finding and pattern analysis. We leverage LLMs to enhance anomaly detection, automate root-cause analysis, and automate incident analysis to build a well-monitored network management team using AI. Through a real-world example of developing our own OFCNetLLM, based on the open-source LLM model, we demonstrate practical applications of OFCnetLLM in the OFC conference network. Our model is developed as a multi-agent approach and is still evolving, and we present early results here.
Interpretable Anomaly-Based DDoS Detection in AI-RAN with XAI and LLMs
Chatzimiltis, Sotiris, Shojafar, Mohammad, Mashhadi, Mahdi Boloursaz, Tafazolli, Rahim
Next generation Radio Access Networks (RANs) introduce programmability, intelligence, and near real-time control through intelligent controllers, enabling enhanced security within the RAN and across broader 5G/6G infrastructures. This paper presents a comprehensive survey highlighting opportunities, challenges, and research gaps for Large Language Models (LLMs)-assisted explainable (XAI) intrusion detection (IDS) for secure future RAN environments. Motivated by this, we propose an LLM interpretable anomaly-based detection system for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks using multivariate time series key performance measures (KPMs), extracted from E2 nodes, within the Near Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC). An LSTM-based model is trained to identify malicious User Equipment (UE) behavior based on these KPMs. To enhance transparency, we apply post-hoc local explainability methods such as LIME and SHAP to interpret individual predictions. Furthermore, LLMs are employed to convert technical explanations into natural-language insights accessible to non-expert users. Experimental results on real 5G network KPMs demonstrate that our framework achieves high detection accuracy (F1-score > 0.96) while delivering actionable and interpretable outputs.
FingerTip 20K: A Benchmark for Proactive and Personalized Mobile LLM Agents
Yang, Qinglong, Li, Haoming, Zhao, Haotian, Yan, Xiaokai, Ding, Jingtao, Xu, Fengli, Li, Yong
Mobile GUI agents are becoming critical tools for enhancing human-device interaction efficiency, with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) emerging as dominant paradigms in this domain. Current agents, however, are limited to following explicit human instructions, resulting in insufficient capability for proactive intent anticipation. Additionally, these agents fail to leverage the contextual information associated with users during task execution, thereby neglecting potentially vast differences in user preferences. To address these challenges, we introduce the FingerTip benchmark. It contains two new tracks: proactive task suggestions by analyzing environment observation and users' previous intents, and personalized task execution by catering to users' action preferences. We collected unique human demonstrations of multi-step Android device interactions across a variety of everyday apps. These demonstrations are not isolated but are continuously acquired from the users' long-term usage in their real lives, and encompass essential user-related contextual information. Our experiments reveal challenges of the tasks we propose. The model fine-tuned with the data we collected effectively utilized user information and achieved good results, highlighting the potential of our approach in building more user-oriented mobile GUI agents. Our code is open-source at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/FingerTip-57B8 for reproducibility.
Reasoning Language Models for Root Cause Analysis in 5G Wireless Networks
Sana, Mohamed, Piovesan, Nicola, De Domenico, Antonio, Kang, Yibin, Zhang, Haozhe, Debbah, Merouane, Ayed, Fadhel
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in mobile networks remains a challenging task due to the need for interpretability, domain expertise, and causal reasoning. In this work, we propose a lightweight framework that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) for RCA. To do so, we introduce TeleLogs, a curated dataset of annotated troubleshooting problems designed to benchmark RCA capabilities. Our evaluation reveals that existing open-source reasoning LLMs struggle with these problems, underscoring the need for domain-specific adaptation. To address this issue, we propose a two-stage training methodology that combines supervised fine-tuning with reinforcement learning to improve the accuracy and reasoning quality of LLMs. The proposed approach fine-tunes a series of RCA models to integrate domain knowledge and generate structured, multi-step diagnostic explanations, improving both interpretability and effectiveness. Extensive experiments across multiple LLM sizes show significant performance gains over state-of-the-art reasoning and non-reasoning models, including strong generalization to randomized test variants. These results demonstrate the promise of domain-adapted, reasoning-enhanced LLMs for practical and explainable RCA in network operation and management.
Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Cell DTX/DRX Configuration for Network Energy Saving
Mao, Wei, Wei, Lili, Semiari, Omid, Yeh, Shu-ping, Nikopour, Hosein
3GPP Release 18 cell discontinuous transmission and reception (cell DTX/DRX) is an important new network energy saving feature for 5G. As a time-domain technique, it periodically aggregates the user data transmissions in a given duration of time when the traffic load is not heavy, so that the remaining time can be kept silent and advanced sleep modes (ASM) can be enabled to shut down more radio components and save more energy for the cell. However, inevitably the packet delay is increased, as during the silent period no transmission is allowed. In this paper we study how to configure cell DTX/DRX to optimally balance energy saving and packet delay, so that for delay-sensitive traffic maximum energy saving can be achieved while the degradation of quality of service (QoS) is minimized. As the optimal configuration can be different for different network and traffic conditions, the problem is complex and we resort to deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework to train an AI agent to solve it. Through careful design of 1) the learning algorithm, which implements a deep Q-network (DQN) on a contextual bandit (CB) model, and 2) the reward function, which utilizes a smooth approximation of a theoretically optimal but discontinuous reward function, we are able to train an AI agent that always tries to select the best possible Cell DTX/DRX configuration under any network and traffic conditions. Simulation results show that compared to the case when cell DTX/DRX is not used, our agent can achieve up to ~45% energy saving depending on the traffic load scenario, while always maintaining no more than ~1% QoS degradation.
Testbed and Software Architecture for Enhancing Security in Industrial Private 5G Networks
Ha, Song Son, Foerster, Florian, Doebbert, Thomas Robert, Kittel, Tim, Merli, Dominik, Scholl, Gerd
In the era of Industry 4.0, the growing need for secure and efficient communication systems has driven the development of fifth-generation (5G) networks characterized by extremely low latency, massive device connectivity and high data transfer speeds. However, the deployment of 5G networks presents significant security challenges, requiring advanced and robust solutions to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. This paper proposes a testbed and software architecture to strengthen the security of Private 5G Networks, particularly in industrial communication environments.
TN-AutoRCA: Benchmark Construction and Agentic Framework for Self-Improving Alarm-Based Root Cause Analysis in Telecommunication Networks
Wu, Keyu, Yu, Qianjin, Mei, Manlin, Liu, Ruiting, Wang, Jun, Zhang, Kailai, Bao, Yelun
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in telecommunication networks is a critical task, yet it presents a formidable challenge for Artificial Intelligence (AI) due to its complex, graph-based reasoning requirements and the scarcity of realistic benchmarks. To catalyze research in this domain, We herein present TN-RCA530, the inaugural real-world, publicly accessible benchmark for root cause analysis (RCA) of telecommunication network alarms, comprising 530 fault scenarios constructed from expert-validated Knowledge Graphs(KGs). Our evaluation reveals that even state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLMs) perform poorly on this task, with the best models achieving an F1-score below 70%, highlighting its significant difficulty.To address this challenge, we then propose Auto-RCA, a novel agentic system that automates the iterative refinement of a code-based solution. The core innovation of Auto-RCA lies beyond simple self-correction; it employs an iterative "evaluate-analyze-repair" loop that systematically identifies common patterns across all failure cases to generate contrastive feedback. This feedback guides the LLM to fix systemic logical flaws rather than isolated errors. Experiments show that this agentic framework dramatically boosts problem-solving performance, elevating the final solution's F1-score on TN-RCA530 from a baseline of 58.99% (achieved by Gemini-2.5-Pro