ARIADNE: AI-RAN Informed Link Adaptation in Digital Twin Network Environments

#AI #ML #wireless #5G #RAN #RF #LinkAdaptation #DigitalTwins #ReinforcementLearning #RL #MCS #networks #communications #telecom #futurenetworks #ieee #ingr #webinar #ingrwebinar2026

Special Presentation by Maria Tsampazi (National Technical University of Athens, Greece)

Hosted by the Future Networks Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AIML) Working Group

Date/Time: Thursday, 19 November 2026 @ 12:00 UTC (7 AM EST)

Topic:

ARIADNE: AI-RAN Informed Link Adaptation in Digital Twin Network Environments 

Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered Radio Access Network (RAN) networks have attracted significant attention from both industry and academia. Meanwhile, Digital Twins offer a safe playground for experimenting with AI/Machine Learning (ML)-based solutions for advanced AI-RAN research. By enabling the testing of online algorithms before deployment on the RAN, they reduce costs and safety risks associated with physical field testing. In this talk, we propose ARIADNE, an online Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based module that seamlessly integrates with SIONNA and is tasked with performing link adaptation. We explore different design choices and demonstrate how ARIADNE can surpass industry-standard and state-of-the-art methods by achieving up to 11% and 20% improvements in Spectral Efficiency, respectively. Finally, we show that RL learns a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) selection strategy that diverges from Outer Loop Link Adaptation (OLLA), exhibiting either more conservative or more aggressive behavior depending on the configuration, a trend further corroborated by training offline on 5th generation (5G) over-the-air (OTA) measurements.

Speaker:

Dr. Maria Tsampazi received her MEng degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 2021, and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA, in 2026. She is currently a Scientific Project Manager and Researcher at the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens. Her research interests focus on NextG wireless networks and intelligent resource allocation in Open RAN. She has received student awards sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, the IEEE Communications Society, and Northeastern University, and is a 2024 recipient of the US National Spectrum Consortium Women in Spectrum Scholarship. Her experience includes collaborations with the US Department of Transportation and Dell Technologies (USA and Canada), as well as industry experience with Nokia Research and Technology in the Greater Chicago Area.

Brochure (PDF): Webinar-AIML-2026-11-19-Tsampazi-ARIADNE-Brochure.pdf