Date of Presentation

4-28-2026 9:30 AM

College

College of Science & Mathematics

Faculty Sponsor(s)

Dr. André Gomes

Poster Abstract

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) can influence beam selection in next-generation wireless systems by shaping the channel conditions observed during beam sweeping. Prior work assumes deterministic beam sweeping, enabling Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandits (CMAB) to learn beam-specific policies for geofencing. In this work, we evaluate the robustness of this approach under randomized beam sweeping, where the mapping between bandits and beam directions is disrupted episode by episode. Under these conditions, the learning algorithm no longer converges to a structured solution, instead behaving closely to a random policy, with higher variability and lower mean reward. These results indicate that the CMAB relies on a stable bandit-direction association to operate effectively, and motivate future work on tracking beam directions based on electromagnetic behavior rather than beam identity.

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Document Type

Poster

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Apr 28th, 9:30 AM

Assessing the Robustness of Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit for Geofencing with Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces.

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) can influence beam selection in next-generation wireless systems by shaping the channel conditions observed during beam sweeping. Prior work assumes deterministic beam sweeping, enabling Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandits (CMAB) to learn beam-specific policies for geofencing. In this work, we evaluate the robustness of this approach under randomized beam sweeping, where the mapping between bandits and beam directions is disrupted episode by episode. Under these conditions, the learning algorithm no longer converges to a structured solution, instead behaving closely to a random policy, with higher variability and lower mean reward. These results indicate that the CMAB relies on a stable bandit-direction association to operate effectively, and motivate future work on tracking beam directions based on electromagnetic behavior rather than beam identity.