Machine Learning-Based Bandwidth Prediction for Low-Latency H2M Applications

Human-to-machine (H2M) communications in emerging tactile-haptic applications are characterized by stringent low-latency transmission. To achieve low-latency transmissions over existing optical and wireless access networks, this paper proposes a machine learning-based predictive dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm, termed MLP-DBA, to address the uplink bandwidth contention and latency bottleneck of such networks. The proposed algorithm utilizes an artificial neural network (ANN) at the central office (CO) to predict H2M packet bursts arriving at each optical network unit wireless access point (ONU-AP), thereby enabling the uplink bandwidth demand of each ONU-AP to be estimated. As such, arriving packet bursts at the ONU-APs can be allocated bandwidth for tranmission by the CO without having to wait to transmit in the following transmission cycles. Extensive simulations show that the ANN-based prediction of H2M packet bursts achieves >90% accuracy, significantly improving bandwidth demand estimation over existing prediction algorithms. MLP-DBA also makes adaptive bandwidth allocation decisions by classifying each ONU-AP according to its estimated bandwidth, with results showing reduced uplink latency and packet drop ratio as compared to conventional predictive DBA algorithms.