GAPPO - A Graph Attention Reinforcement Learning based Robust Routing Algorithm
Xinyuan Li, Yang Xiao, Sixu Liu, Xucong Lu, Fang Liu, Wenli Zhou, Jun Liu · 2023
Routing algorithms, which determine how to deliver traffic from the source to the destination, are essential for next-generation networks and the internet. To make optimal routing decisions in complex network environments, researchers have leveraged Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to design next-generation routing mechanisms. However, most existing DRL-based routing algorithms are implemented using traditional Neural Networks (NN), which lack robustness against topology changes. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called GAPPO, which integrates Graph Attention Network (GAT) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) to optimize routing policies with the objective of minimizing end-to-end (E2E) latency in networks affected by link failures. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we conduct a series of experiments on dynamically changing topologies with link failures under different loads. Experimental results demonstrate that GAPPO outperforms benchmark algorithms in both simulated and real-world networks, confirming its powerful robustness against link failures.