arXiv subjects

Houbing Song

Publications and source records attributed to Houbing Song.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

LiQSS: Post-Transformer Linear Quantum-Inspired State-Space Tensor Networks for Real-Time 6G

Proactive and agentic control in Sixth-Generation (6G) Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) requires control-grade prediction under stringent Near-Real-Time (Near-RT) latency and computational constraints. While Transformer-based models are effective for sequence modeling, their quadratic complexity limits scalability in Near-RT RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) analytics. This paper investigates a post-Transformer design paradigm for efficient radio telemetry forecasting. We propose a quantum-inspired many-body state-space tensor network that replaces self-attention with stable structured state-space dynamics kernels, enabling linear-time sequence modeling. Tensor-network factorizations in the form of Tensor Train (TT) / Matrix Product State (MPS) representations are employed to reduce parameterization and data movement in both input projections and prediction heads, while lightweight channel gating and mixing layers capture non-stationary cross-Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dependencies. The proposed model is instantiated as an agentic perceive-predict xApp and evaluated on a bespoke O-RAN KPI time-series dataset comprising 59,441 sliding windows across 13 KPIs, using Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) forecasting as a representative use case. Our proposed Linear Quantum-Inspired State-Space (LiQSS) model is 10.8x-15.8x smaller and approximately 1.4x faster than prior structured state-space baselines. Relative to Transformer-based models, LiQSS achieves up to a 155x reduction in parameter count and up to 2.74x faster inference, without sacrificing forecasting accuracy.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2025

Agentic World Modeling for 6G: Near-Real-Time Generative State-Space Reasoning

We argue that sixth-generation (6G) intelligence is not fluent token prediction but the capacity to imagine and choose -- to simulate future scenarios, weigh trade-offs, and act with calibrated uncertainty. We reframe open radio access network (O-RAN) near-real-time (Near-RT) control via counterfactual dynamics and a world modeling (WM) paradigm that learns an action-conditioned generative state space. This enables quantitative "what-if" forecasting beyond large language models (LLMs) as the primary modeling primitive. Actions such as physical resource blocks (PRBs) are treated as first-class control inputs in a causal world model, and both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty are modeled for prediction and what-if analysis. An agentic, model predictive control (MPC)-based cross-entropy method (CEM) planner operates over short horizons, using prior-mean rollouts within data-driven PRB bounds to maximize a deterministic reward. The model couples multi-scale structured state-space mixtures (MS3M) with a compact stochastic latent to form WM-MS3M, summarizing key performance indicators (KPIs) histories and predicting next-step KPIs under hypothetical PRB sequences. On realistic O-RAN traces, WM-MS3M cuts mean absolute error (MAE) by 1.69% versus MS3M with 32% fewer parameters and similar latency, and achieves 35-80% lower root mean squared error (RMSE) than attention/hybrid baselines with 2.3-4.1x faster inference, enabling rare-event simulation and offline policy screening.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2025

Rivaling Transformers: Multi-Scale Structured State-Space Mixtures for Agentic 6G O-RAN

In sixth-generation (6G) Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN), proactive control is preferable. A key open challenge is delivering control-grade predictions within Near-Real-Time (Near-RT) latency and computational constraints under multi-timescale dynamics. We therefore cast RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) analytics as an agentic perceive-predict xApp that turns noisy, multivariate RAN telemetry into short-horizon per-User Equipment (UE) key performance indicator (KPI) forecasts to drive anticipatory control. In this regard, Transformers are powerful for sequence learning and time-series forecasting, but they are memory-intensive, which limits Near-RT RIC use. Therefore, we need models that maintain accuracy while reducing latency and data movement. To this end, we propose a lightweight Multi-Scale Structured State-Space Mixtures (MS3M) forecaster that mixes HiPPO-LegS kernels to capture multi-timescale radio dynamics. We develop stable discrete state-space models (SSMs) via bilinear (Tustin) discretization and apply their causal impulse responses as per-feature depthwise convolutions. Squeeze-and-Excitation gating dynamically reweights KPI channels as conditions change, and a compact gated channel-mixing layer models cross-feature nonlinearities without Transformer-level cost. The model is KPI-agnostic -- Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) serves as a canonical use case -- and is trained on sliding windows to predict the immediate next step. Empirical evaluations conducted using our bespoke O-RAN testbed KPI time-series dataset (59,441 windows across 13 KPIs). Crucially for O-RAN constraints, MS3M achieves a 0.057 s per-inference latency with 0.70M parameters, yielding 3-10x lower latency than the Transformer baselines evaluated on the same hardware, while maintaining competitive accuracy.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2025

Integrating Neurosymbolic AI in Advanced Air Mobility: A Comprehensive Survey

Neurosymbolic AI combines neural network adaptability with symbolic reasoning, promising an approach to address the complex regulatory, operational, and safety challenges in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). This survey reviews its applications across key AAM domains such as demand forecasting, aircraft design, and real-time air traffic management. Our analysis reveals a fragmented research landscape where methodologies, including Neurosymbolic Reinforcement Learning, have shown potential for dynamic optimization but still face hurdles in scalability, robustness, and compliance with aviation standards. We classify current advancements, present relevant case studies, and outline future research directions aimed at integrating these approaches into reliable, transparent AAM systems. By linking advanced AI techniques with AAM's operational demands, this work provides a concise roadmap for researchers and practitioners developing next-generation air mobility solutions.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2025

DEM-NeRF: A Neuro-Symbolic Method for Scientific Discovery through Physics-Informed Simulation

Neural networks have emerged as a powerful tool for modeling physical systems, offering the ability to learn complex representations from limited data while integrating foundational scientific knowledge. In particular, neuro-symbolic approaches that combine data-driven learning, the neuro, with symbolic equations and rules, the symbolic, address the tension between methods that are purely empirical, which risk straying from established physical principles, and traditional numerical solvers that demand complete geometric knowledge and can be prohibitively expensive for high-fidelity simulations. In this work, we present a novel neuro-symbolic framework for reconstructing and simulating elastic objects directly from sparse multi-view image sequences, without requiring explicit geometric information. Specifically, we integrate a neural radiance field (NeRF) for object reconstruction with physics-informed neural networks (PINN) that incorporate the governing partial differential equations of elasticity. In doing so, our method learns a spatiotemporal representation of deforming objects that leverages both image supervision and symbolic physical constraints. To handle complex boundary and initial conditions, which are traditionally confronted using finite element methods, boundary element methods, or sensor-based measurements, we employ an energy-constrained Physics-Informed Neural Network architecture. This design enhances both simulation accuracy and the explainability of results.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

A Data-Driven Approach to Enhancing Gravity Models for Trip Demand Prediction

Accurate prediction of trips between zones is critical for transportation planning, as it supports resource allocation and infrastructure development across various modes of transport. Although the gravity model has been widely used due to its simplicity, it often inadequately represents the complex factors influencing modern travel behavior. This study introduces a data-driven approach to enhance the gravity model by integrating geographical, economic, social, and travel data from the counties in Tennessee and New York state. Using machine learning techniques, we extend the capabilities of the traditional model to handle more complex interactions between variables. Our experiments demonstrate that machine learning-enhanced models significantly outperform the traditional model. Our results show a 51.48% improvement in R-squared, indicating a substantial enhancement in the model's explanatory power. Also, a 63.59% reduction in Mean Absolute Error (MAE) reflects a significant increase in prediction accuracy. Furthermore, a 44.32% increase in Common Part of Commuters (CPC) demonstrates improved prediction reliability. These findings highlight the substantial benefits of integrating diverse datasets and advanced algorithms into transportation models. They provide urban planners and policymakers with more reliable forecasting and decision-making tools.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2025

A Blockchain-based Quantum Binary Voting for Decentralized IoT Towards Industry 5.0

Industry 5.0 depends on intelligence, automation, and hyperconnectivity operations for effective and sustainable human-machine collaboration. Pivotal technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) enable this by facilitating connectivity and data-driven decision-making between cyber-physical devices. As IoT devices are prone to cyberattacks, they can use blockchain to improve transparency in the network and prevent data tampering. However, in some cases, even blockchain networks are vulnerable to Sybil and 51% attacks. This has motivated the development of quantum blockchains that are more resilient to such attacks as they leverage post-quantum cryptographic protocols and secure quantum communication channels. In this work, we develop a quantum binary voting algorithm for the IoT-quantum blockchain frameworks that enables inter-connected devices to reach a consensus on the validity of transactions, even in the presence of potential faults or malicious actors. The correctness of the voting protocol is provided in detail, and the results show that it guarantees the achievement of a consensus securely against all kinds of significant external and internal attacks concerning quantum bit commitment, quantum blockchain, and quantum Byzantine agreement. We also provide an implementation of the voting algorithm with the quantum circuits simulated on the IBM Quantum platform and Simulaqron library.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Toward Generative 6G Simulation: An Experimental Multi-Agent LLM and ns-3 Integration

The move toward open Sixth-Generation (6G) networks necessitates a novel approach to full-stack simulation environments for evaluating complex technology developments before prototyping and real-world implementation. This paper introduces an innovative approach\footnote{A lightweight, mock version of the code is available on GitHub at that combines a multi-agent framework with the Network Simulator 3 (ns-3) to automate and optimize the generation, debugging, execution, and analysis of complex 5G network scenarios. Our framework orchestrates a suite of specialized agents -- namely, the Simulation Generation Agent, Test Designer Agent, Test Executor Agent, and Result Interpretation Agent -- using advanced LangChain coordination. The Simulation Generation Agent employs a structured chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning process, leveraging LLMs and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to translate natural language simulation specifications into precise ns-3 scripts. Concurrently, the Test Designer Agent generates comprehensive automated test suites by integrating knowledge retrieval techniques with dynamic test case synthesis. The Test Executor Agent dynamically deploys and runs simulations, managing dependencies and parsing detailed performance metrics. At the same time, the Result Interpretation Agent utilizes LLM-driven analysis to extract actionable insights from the simulation outputs. By integrating external resources such as library documentation and ns-3 testing frameworks, our experimental approach can enhance simulation accuracy and adaptability, reducing reliance on extensive programming expertise. A detailed case study using the ns-3 5G-LENA module validates the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The code generation process converges in an average of 1.8 iterations, has a syntax error rate of 17.0%, a mean response time of 7.3 seconds, and receives a human evaluation score of 7.5.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2025

Neurosymbolic AI for Travel Demand Prediction: Integrating Decision Tree Rules into Neural Networks

Travel demand prediction is crucial for optimizing transportation planning, resource allocation, and infrastructure development, ensuring efficient mobility and economic sustainability. This study introduces a Neurosymbolic Artificial Intelligence (Neurosymbolic AI) framework that integrates decision tree (DT)-based symbolic rules with neural networks (NNs) to predict travel demand, leveraging the interpretability of symbolic reasoning and the predictive power of neural learning. The framework utilizes data from diverse sources, including geospatial, economic, and mobility datasets, to build a comprehensive feature set. DTs are employed to extract interpretable if-then rules that capture key patterns, which are then incorporated as additional features into a NN to enhance its predictive capabilities. Experimental results show that the combined dataset, enriched with symbolic rules, consistently outperforms standalone datasets across multiple evaluation metrics, including Mean Absolute Error (MAE), \(R^2\), and Common Part of Commuters (CPC). Rules selected at finer variance thresholds (e.g., 0.0001) demonstrate superior effectiveness in capturing nuanced relationships, reducing prediction errors, and aligning with observed commuter patterns. By merging symbolic and neural learning paradigms, this Neurosymbolic approach achieves both interpretability and accuracy.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

Regional Air Mobility Flight Demand Modeling in Tennessee State

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), encompassing Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Regional Air Mobility (RAM), offers innovative solutions to mitigate the issues related to ground transportation like traffic congestion, environmental pollution etc. RAM addresses transportation inefficiencies over medium-distance trips (50-500 miles), which are often underserved by both traditional air and ground transportation systems. This study focuses on RAM in Tennessee, addressing the complexities of demand modeling as a critical aspect of effective RAM implementation. Leveraging datasets from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and other sources, we assess trip data across Tennessee's Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) to develop a predictive framework for RAM demand. Through cost, time, and risk regression, we calculate a Generalized Travel Cost (GTC) that allows for comparative analysis between ground transportation and RAM, identifying factors that influence mode choice. When focusing on only five major airports (BNA, CHA, MEM, TRI, and TYS) as RAM hubs, the results reveal a mixed demand pattern due to varying travel distances to these central locations, which increases back-and-forth travel for some routes. However, by expanding the RAM network to include more regional airports, the GTC for RAM aligns more closely with traditional air travel, providing a smoother and more competitive option against ground transportation, particularly for trips exceeding 300 miles. The analysis shows that RAM demand is likely to be selected when air transportation accounts for more than 80\% of the total GTC, air travel time is more than 1 hour and when the ground GTC exceeds 300 for specific origin-destination pairs. The data and code can be accessed on GitHub. {https://github.com/lotussavy/AIAAScitecth-2025.git}

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Demand Modeling for Advanced Air Mobility

In recent years, the rapid pace of urbanization has posed profound challenges globally, exacerbating environmental concerns and escalating traffic congestion in metropolitan areas. To mitigate these issues, Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) has emerged as a promising transportation alternative. However, the effective implementation of AAM requires robust demand modeling. This study delves into the demand dynamics of AAM by analyzing employment based trip data across Tennessee's census tracts, employing statistical techniques and machine learning models to enhance accuracy in demand forecasting. Drawing on datasets from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and additional sources, we perform cost, time, and risk assessments to compute the Generalized Cost of Trip (GCT). Our findings indicate that trips are more likely to be viable for AAM if air transportation accounts for over 70\% of the GCT and the journey spans more than 250 miles. The study not only refines the understanding of AAM demand but also guides strategic planning and policy formulation for sustainable urban mobility solutions. The data and code can be accessed on GitHub.{https://github.com/lotussavy/IEEEBigData-2024.git }

stat.AP↗

arXiv2024

BA-Net: Bridge Attention in Deep Neural Networks

Attention mechanisms, particularly channel attention, have become highly influential in numerous computer vision tasks. Despite their effectiveness, many existing methods primarily focus on optimizing performance through complex attention modules applied at individual convolutional layers, often overlooking the synergistic interactions that can occur across multiple layers. In response to this gap, we introduce bridge attention, a novel approach designed to facilitate more effective integration and information flow between different convolutional layers. Our work extends the original bridge attention model (BAv1) by introducing an adaptive selection operator, which reduces information redundancy and optimizes the overall information exchange. This enhancement results in the development of BAv2, which achieves substantial performance improvements in the ImageNet classification task, obtaining Top-1 accuracies of 80.49% and 81.75% when using ResNet50 and ResNet101 as backbone networks, respectively. These results surpass the retrained baselines by 1.61% and 0.77%, respectively. Furthermore, BAv2 outperforms other existing channel attention techniques, such as the classical SENet101, exceeding its retrained performance by 0.52% Additionally, integrating BAv2 into advanced convolutional networks and vision transformers has led to significant gains in performance across a wide range of computer vision tasks, underscoring its broad applicability.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2024

Improving Air Mobility for Pre-Disaster Planning with Neural Network Accelerated Genetic Algorithm

Weather disaster related emergency operations pose a great challenge to air mobility in both aircraft and airport operations, especially when the impact is gradually approaching. We propose an optimized framework for adjusting airport operational schedules for such pre-disaster scenarios. We first, aggregate operational data from multiple airports and then determine the optimal count of evacuation flights to maximize the impacted airport's outgoing capacity without impeding regular air traffic. We then propose a novel Neural Network (NN) accelerated Genetic Algorithm(GA) for evacuation planning. Our experiments show that integration yielded comparable results but with smaller computational overhead. We find that the utilization of a NN enhances the efficiency of a GA, facilitating more rapid convergence even when operating with a reduced population size. This effectiveness persists even when the model is trained on data from airports different from those under test.

cs.NE↗

arXiv2024

Toward Explainable Reasoning in 6G: A Proof of Concept Study on Radio Resource Allocation

The move toward artificial intelligence (AI)-native sixth-generation (6G) networks has put more emphasis on the importance of explainability and trustworthiness in network management operations, especially for mission-critical use-cases. Such desired trust transcends traditional post-hoc explainable AI (XAI) methods to using contextual explanations for guiding the learning process in an in-hoc way. This paper proposes a novel graph reinforcement learning (GRL) framework named TANGO which relies on a symbolic subsystem. It consists of a Bayesian-graph neural network (GNN) Explainer, whose outputs, in terms of edge/node importance and uncertainty, are periodically translated to a logical GRL reward function. This adjustment is accomplished through defined symbolic reasoning rules within a Reasoner. Considering a real-world testbed proof-of-concept (PoC), a gNodeB (gNB) radio resource allocation problem is formulated, which aims to minimize under- and over-provisioning of physical resource blocks (PRBs) while penalizing decisions emanating from the uncertain and less important edge-nodes relations. Our findings reveal that the proposed in-hoc explainability solution significantly expedites convergence compared to standard GRL baseline and other benchmarks in the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) domain. The experiment evaluates performance in AI, complexity, energy consumption, robustness, network, scalability, and explainability metrics. Specifically, the results show that TANGO achieves a noteworthy accuracy of 96.39% in terms of optimal PRB allocation in inference phase, outperforming the baseline by 1.22x.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

Explainable AI for Comparative Analysis of Intrusion Detection Models

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has become a widely discussed topic, the related technologies facilitate better understanding of conventional black-box models like Random Forest, Neural Networks and etc. However, domain-specific applications of XAI are still insufficient. To fill this gap, this research analyzes various machine learning models to the tasks of binary and multi-class classification for intrusion detection from network traffic on the same dataset using occlusion sensitivity. The models evaluated include Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Linear Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Random Forest, Decision Trees, and Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP). We trained all models to the accuracy of 90\% on the UNSW-NB15 Dataset. We found that most classifiers leverage only less than three critical features to achieve such accuracies, indicating that effective feature engineering could actually be far more important for intrusion detection than applying complicated models. We also discover that Random Forest provides the best performance in terms of accuracy, time efficiency and robustness. Data and code available at https://github.com/pcwhy/XML-IntrusionDetection.git

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

Intelligible Protocol Learning for Resource Allocation in 6G O-RAN Slicing

An adaptive standardized protocol is essential for addressing inter-slice resource contention and conflict in network slicing. Traditional protocol standardization is a cumbersome task that yields hardcoded predefined protocols, resulting in increased costs and delayed rollout. Going beyond these limitations, this paper proposes a novel multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) communication framework called standalone explainable protocol (STEP) for future sixth-generation (6G) open radio access network (O-RAN) slicing. As new conditions arise and affect network operation, resource orchestration agents adapt their communication messages to promote the emergence of a protocol on-the-fly, which enables the mitigation of conflict and resource contention between network slices. STEP weaves together the notion of information bottleneck (IB) theory with deep Q-network (DQN) learning concepts. By incorporating a stochastic bottleneck layer -- inspired by variational autoencoders (VAEs) -- STEP imposes an information-theoretic constraint for emergent inter-agent communication. This ensures that agents exchange concise and meaningful information, preventing resource waste and enhancing the overall system performance. The learned protocols enhance interpretability, laying a robust foundation for standardizing next-generation 6G networks. By considering an O-RAN compliant network slicing resource allocation problem, a conflict resolution protocol is developed. In particular, the results demonstrate that, on average, STEP reduces inter-slice conflicts by up to 6.06x compared to a predefined protocol method. Furthermore, in comparison with an MADRL baseline, STEP achieves 1.4x and 3.5x lower resource underutilization and latency, respectively.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2023

X-GRL: An Empirical Assessment of Explainable GNN-DRL in B5G/6G Networks

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has triggered a revolution in beyond fifth-generation (B5G) and upcoming sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks. Despite these advances, efficient resource allocation in dynamic and complex networks remains a major challenge. This paper presents an experimental implementation of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) enhanced with graph neural networks (GNNs) on a real 5G testbed. The method addresses the explainability of GNNs by evaluating the importance of each edge in determining the model's output. The custom sampling functions feed the data into the proposed GNN-driven Monte Carlo policy gradient (REINFORCE) agent to optimize the gNodeB (gNB) radio resources according to the specific traffic demands. The demo demonstrates real-time visualization of network parameters and superior performance compared to benchmarks.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2023

GraphDAC: A Graph-Analytic Approach to Dynamic Airspace Configuration

The current National Airspace System (NAS) is reaching capacity due to increased air traffic, and is based on outdated pre-tactical planning. This study proposes a more dynamic airspace configuration (DAC) approach that could increase throughput and accommodate fluctuating traffic, ideal for emergencies. The proposed approach constructs the airspace as a constraints-embedded graph, compresses its dimensions, and applies a spectral clustering-enabled adaptive algorithm to generate collaborative airport groups and evenly distribute workloads among them. Under various traffic conditions, our experiments demonstrate a 50\% reduction in workload imbalances. This research could ultimately form the basis for a recommendation system for optimized airspace configuration. Code available at https://github.com/KeFenge2022/GraphDAC.git

math.OC↗