Abstract
In Beyond Fifth Generation (B5G) networks, Internet of Things (IoT) and massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC) traffic are anticipated to be offloaded by multi-hop, Device-to-Device (D2D)-enabled relay networks. The relays offer an energy and spectral-efficient solution to the rising problem of spectrum scarcity and overloading of cellular base stations. Moving beyond the conventional paradigm of the relay nodes employing channels on a specific band at a time, in this article, we aim to investigate how to simultaneously leverage multiple bands at a relay node to improve spectral efficiency. We address the challenge associated with dynamic channel conditions in the multi-band relay networks, and envision a deep learning-based predictive channel selection method to solve the problem. A 1-D (one-dimensional) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model is employed to predict the suitable channels across multiple bands with the best Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR). The packets received from the source or previous relay node are scheduled to be transmitted to subsequent relay node/destination based on the best modulation and coding rates to transmit over the predicted band. Our envisioned approach, based on shallow and deep-CNN models, proposes two proactive channel assignment strategies, namely controlled and smart prediction. Our proposal is evaluated with several, comparable machine/deep learning methods. Experimental results, based on datasets, demonstrate encouraging performance of our proposed lightweight deep learning-based proactive channel selection in multi-band relay systems.