Goto

Collaborating Authors

 base arm


Multi-User mmWave Beam and Rate Adaptation via Combinatorial Satisficing Bandits

Özyıldırım, Emre, Yaycı, Barış, Akturk, Umut Eren, Tekin, Cem

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We study downlink beam and rate adaptation in a multi-user mmWave MISO system where multiple base stations (BSs), each using analog beamforming from finite codebooks, serve multiple single-antenna user equipments (UEs) with a unique beam per UE and discrete data transmission rates. BSs learn about transmission success based on ACK/NACK feedback. To encode service goals, we introduce a satisficing throughput threshold $τ_r$ and cast joint beam and rate adaptation as a combinatorial semi-bandit over beam-rate tuples. Within this framework, we propose SAT-CTS, a lightweight, threshold-aware policy that blends conservative confidence estimates with posterior sampling, steering learning toward meeting $τ_r$ rather than merely maximizing. Our main theoretical contribution provides the first finite-time regret bounds for combinatorial semi-bandits with satisficing objective: when $τ_r$ is realizable, we upper bound the cumulative satisficing regret to the target with a time-independent constant, and when $τ_r$ is non-realizable, we show that SAT-CTS incurs only a finite expected transient outside committed CTS rounds, after which its regret is governed by the sum of the regret contributions of restarted CTS rounds, yielding an $O((\log T)^2)$ standard regret bound. On the practical side, we evaluate the performance via cumulative satisficing regret to $τ_r$ alongside standard regret and fairness. Experiments with time-varying sparse multipath channels show that SAT-CTS consistently reduces satisficing regret and maintains competitive standard regret, while achieving favorable average throughput and fairness across users, indicating that feedback-efficient learning can equitably allocate beams and rates to meet QoS targets without channel state knowledge.





Combinatorial Pure Exploration with Bottleneck Reward Function

Neural Information Processing Systems

In this paper, we study the Combinatorial Pure Exploration problem with the Bottleneck reward function (CPE-B) under the fixed-confidence (FC) and fixed-budget (FB) settings.



Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit with General Reward Functions

Wei Chen, Wei Hu, Fu Li, Jian Li, Yu Liu, Pinyan Lu

Neural Information Processing Systems

In this paper, unless otherwise specified, we use MAB to refer to stochastic MAB. MAB problem demonstrates the key tradeoff between exploration and exploitation: whether the player should stick to the choice that performs the best so far, or should try some less explored alternatives that may provide better rewards.


Oracle-Efficient Combinatorial Semi-Bandits

Kim, Jung-hun, Vojnović, Milan, Oh, Min-hwan

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We study the combinatorial semi-bandit problem where an agent selects a subset of base arms and receives individual feedback. While this generalizes the classical multi-armed bandit and has broad applicability, its scalability is limited by the high cost of combinatorial optimization, requiring oracle queries at every round. To tackle this, we propose oracle-efficient frameworks that significantly reduce oracle calls while maintaining tight regret guarantees. For the worst-case linear reward setting, our algorithms achieve $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret using only $O(\log\log T)$ oracle queries. We also propose covariance-adaptive algorithms that leverage noise structure for improved regret, and extend our approach to general (non-linear) rewards. Overall, our methods reduce oracle usage from linear to (doubly) logarithmic in time, with strong theoretical guarantees.



Continuous Mean-Covariance Bandits

Neural Information Processing Systems

Specifically, in CMCB, there is a learner who sequentially chooses weight vectors on given options and observes random feedback according to the decisions. The agent's objective is to achieve the best trade-off between reward and risk, measured with option covariance.