A reinforcement learning-based algorithm for deflection routing in optical burst-switched networks

In this paper, we propose a Q-learning based deflection routing algorithm that may be employed to resolve contention in optical burst-switched networks. The main goal of deflection routing is to successfully deflect a burst based only on a limited knowledge that network nodes possess about their environment. Q-learning, one of the reinforcement learning algorithms, has been proposed in the past to help generate deflection decisions. The complexity of existing reinforcement learning-based deflection routing algorithms depends on the number of nodes in the network. The proposed algorithm scales well for larger networks because its complexity depends on the node degree rather than the network size. The algorithm is implemented using the ns-3 network simulator. Simulation results show that it has comparable performance to an existing reinforcement learning deflection routing scheme while having lower memory requirements.