Link Rate Selection using Constrained Thompson Sampling

We consider the optimal link rate selection problem in time-varying wireless channels with unknown channel statistics. The aim of optimal link rate selection is to transmit at the optimal rate at each time slot in order to maximize the expected throughput of the wireless channel/link or equivalently minimize the expected regret. Lack of information about channel state or channel statistics necessitates the use of online/sequential learning algorithms to determine the optimal rate. We present an algorithm called CoTS - Constrained Thompson sampling algorithm which improves upon the current state-of-the-art, is fast and is also general in the sense that it can handle several different constraints in the problem with the same algorithm. We also prove an asymptotic lower bound on the expected regret and a high probability large-horizon upper bound on the regret, which show that the regret grows logarithmically with time in an order sense. We also provide numerical results which establish that CoTS significantly outperforms the current state-of-the-art algorithms.