Ship Network Traffic Engineering Based on Reinforcement Learning

Abstract

This research addresses multiple challenges faced by ship networks, including limited bandwidth, unstable network connections, high latency, and command priority. To solve these problems, we used reinforcement learning-based methods to simulate traffic engineering in ship networks. We focused on three aspects—traffic balance, instruction priority, and complex network structure—to evaluate reinforcement learning performance in these scenarios. Performance: We developed a reinforcement learning framework for ship network traffic engineering that treats the routing policy as the state and the network state as the environment. The agent generates routing changes and uses actions to optimize traffic services. The experimental results show that reinforcement learning optimizes network traffic balance, reasonably arranges instruction priorities, and copes with complex network structures, greatly improving the network’s quality of service (QoS). Through an in-depth analysis of the experimental data, we noticed that network consumption was reduced by 9.1% under reinforcement learning. Reinforcement learning effectively implemented priority routing of high-priority instructions while reducing the occupancy rate of the edge with the highest occupancy rate in the network by 18.53%.