WIND: A Wireless Intelligent Network Digital Twin for federated learning and multi-layer optimization

The forthcoming wireless network is expected to support a wide range of applications, from supporting autonomous vehicles to massive Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. However, the coexistence of diverse applications under a unified framework presents several challenges, including seamless resource allocation, latency management, and systemwide optimization. Considering these requirements, this paper introduces WIND (Wireless Intelligent Network Digital Twin), a self-adaptive, self-regulating, and self-monitoring framework that integrates Federated Learning (FL) and multi-layer digital twins to optimize wireless networks. Unlike traditional Digital Twin (DT) models, the proposed framework extends beyond network modeling, incorporating both communication infrastructure and application-layer DTs to create a unified, intelligent, and context-aware wireless ecosystem. Besides, WIND utilizes local Machine Learning (ML) models at the edge node to handle low-latency resource allocation. At the same time, a global FL framework ensures long-term network optimization without centralized data collection. This hierarchical approach enables dynamic adaptation to traffic conditions, providing improved efficiency, security, and scalability. Moreover, the proposed framework is validated through a case study on federated reinforcement learning for radio resource management. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes the essential aspects, including the associated challenges, standardization efforts, and future directions opening the research in this domain.

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