# Intelligent Communication Planning for Constrained Environmental IoT Sensing with Reinforcement Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.10124 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10124/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 13 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Continuous control with deep reinforcement learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.02971/) (2015)
- [QMIX: Monotonic Value Function Factorisation for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.11485/) (2018)
- [Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: A Selective Overview of Theories and Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10635/) (2019)
- [Learning Multiagent Communication with Backpropagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.07736/) (2016)
- [A Survey of Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning with Communication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08975/) (2022)
- [Learning to Schedule Communication in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.01554/) (2019)
- [Efficient Communication in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning via Variance Based Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.02682/) (2019)
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Internet of Things: Model, Applications and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09059/) (2019)
- [Applications of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Future Internet: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13484/) (2021)
- [Cooperative Internet of UAVs: Distributed Trajectory Design by Multi-agent Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14297/) (2020)
- [A Survey on LoRa Networking: Research Problems, Current Solutions and Open Issues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10195/) (2019)
- [Data Collection and Wireless Communication in Internet of Things (IoT) Using Economic Analysis and Pricing Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03475/) (2016)
- [Learn to Sense: a Meta-learning Based Sensing and Fusion Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07233/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have enabled numerous data-driven mobile applications and have the potential to significantly improve environmental monitoring and hazard warnings through the deployment of a network of IoT sensors. However, these IoT devices are often power-constrained and utilize wireless communication schemes with limited bandwidth. Such power constraints limit the amount of information each device can share across the network, while bandwidth limitations hinder sensors' coordination of their transmissions. In this work, we formulate the communication planning problem of IoT sensors that track the state of the environment. We seek to optimize sensors' decisions in collecting environmental data under stringent resource constraints. We propose a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) method to find the optimal communication policies for each sensor that maximize the tracking accuracy subject to the power and bandwidth limitations. MARL learns and exploits the spatial-temporal correlation of the environmental data at each sensor's location to reduce the redundant reports from the sensors. Experiments on wildfire spread with LoRA wireless network simulators show that our MARL method can learn to balance the need to collect enough data to predict wildfire spread with unknown bandwidth limitations.