From Denoising to Decision Making: A Survey on Diffusion Model-Enabled Deep Reinforcement Learning for Wireless Networks

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has long been a promising solution for sequential resource management in wireless networks. However, conventional DRL methods are fundamentally limited by their reliance on unimodal policy distributions, inefficient exploration in high-dimensional action spaces, and poor adaptability to dynamic and heterogeneous environments. Meanwhile, diffusion models (DMs) as one of the most powerful families of generative AI have demonstrted remarkable capabilities in modeling complex, multi-modal data distributions across diverse domains. The integration of DMs and DRL has opened a new and rapidly growing research direction, in which DM-enabled policies substantially enhance decision quality by capturing the complex, discontinuous, and multimodal action structures inherent in wireless resource management. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of DM-enabled DRL algorithms and their applications for various issues in wireless networks. Particularly, we first provide the theoretical background of DM and present different DM-enabled DRL algorithms. We then systematically review applications of DM-enabled DRL for across computation offloading in mobile edge computing, UAV-assisted, vehicular, and AIGC-driven systems, as well as wireless resource allocation, physical-layer security, and robotics and UAV planning. We conclude the paper by higlight future research directions.

Sense Smarter, Think Better: Edge Perception for Next-Generation Networks

Edge perception has emerged as a foundational capability for future wireless networks, enabling the network edge to proactively sense, interpret, and interact with the physical environment in a task-oriented and resource-aware manner. This survey provides a comprehensive and structured overview of edge perception. We first review representative sensing modalities and edge artificial intelligence (AI) techniques as the fundamental building blocks. We then examine their synergistic interactions. We systematically analyze how edge AI enhances sensing capabilities, encompassing both in-band and out-of-band modalities, as well as multi-modal sensor data fusion. Moreover, we discuss the role of task-driven sensing in facilitating edge AI, including integrated sensing-communication-computation designs, and active perception frameworks that dynamically adapt sensing strategies for downstream applications. Finally, we identify key challenges and open issues. By consolidating fragmented research across sensing, communication, and edge AI, this survey provides forward-looking insights for the design and implementation of edge perception systems for sixth-generation (6G) networks.

Model Forensics in AI-Native Wireless Networks: Taxonomy, Applications, and Case Study

As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in wireless networks, models are becoming core components that influence signal processing, resource scheduling and network control. However, model anomalies, tampering and malicious functions also introduce new security risks. In this article, we focus on model forensics in AI-native wireless networks. Specifically, we first discuss key problems including model authenticity verification, malicious function identification and accountability tracing, and summarize the main categories of model forensics. We then explain the role of model forensics in AI-native wireless networks and review representative application scenarios. In the case study, we use RF fingerprinting as an example and present two concrete workflows based on watermark authentication and backdoor detection, illustrating how provenance authentication and malicious behavior identification can be implemented in practice. The results show that model forensics can provide important support for anomaly assessment, provenance tracing and trustworthy operation in AI-native wireless networks. Finally, we outline several promising directions for future research in this emerging area.

Deep Mixture of Experts Network for Resource Optimization in Aerial-Terrestrial CF-mMIMO Systems under URLLC

As a critical component of sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) is expected to support real-time and reliable information exchange in low-altitude environments. However, achieving URLLC often incurs significant resource overhead, including increased bandwidth consumption, higher transmit power, and denser access point (AP) deployment, which pose significant challenges to both spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). Besides, existing iterative optimization algorithms are computationally intensive and struggle to meet the latency requirements of URLLC. To address these challenges, we propose a hybrid aerial-terrestrial cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) network to support diverse services, along with a channel prediction network and a deep mixture of experts (MoE) network for uplink optimization. First, we design a channel prediction network (CP-Net) to mitigate channel aging caused by high-mobility user equipment (UE). CP-Net employs three Transformer-based sub-networks for aged channel state information (CSI) prediction, while a channel quality-aware loss function is introduced to improve the prediction accuracy of weak links. Based on the predicted CSI, we develop a deep MoE network (MoE-Net) for power allocation comprising three expert models targeting different objectives. Then, we introduce a weighted gating network (WT-Net) to learn an efficient adaptive combination of expert outputs. The proposed framework better captures heterogeneous UE requirements and improves communication performance under URLLC constraints. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

An Agentic AI Framework with Large Language Models and Chain-of-Thought for UAV-Assisted Logistics Scheduling with Mobile Edge Computing

In cloud manufacturing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can support both product collection and mobile edge computing (MEC). This joint operation forms a hybrid scheduling problem, where physical logistics decisions are coupled with computational task scheduling. In this paper, UAVs collect finished products from manufacturing stations and transport them back to a central depot. Meanwhile, computational tasks generated by industrial sensor devices at these stations are processed locally, at UAVs, or offloaded via UAVs to the cloud. This coupling makes the problem challenging. A UAV can provide MEC services only during its service window at a station, so routing decisions directly determine when UAV-assisted offloading is available. Routing decisions also affect the UAV energy budget and the availability of onboard computing and communication resources for computational task execution under task deadline constraints. To address this, we propose an agentic-AI-assisted optimization framework with two components. First, we develop an agentic AI that combines large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, and chain-of-thought reasoning to translate user input into an interpretable mathematical formulation for the hybrid scheduling problem. Second, we design a hierarchical deep reinforcement learning approach based on proximal policy optimization (PPO), where the upper layer learns UAV routing and the lower layer optimizes per-slot task execution and resource allocation. Simulation results show that the proposed framework yields more consistent formulations, while the hierarchical PPO achieves full product collection in 99.6% of the last 500 episodes and maintains a 100% deadline satisfaction rate, with more stable performance than the advantage actor-critic approach.

Rethinking Wireless Communications through Formal Mathematical AI Reasoning

Mathematical analysis has long underpinned wireless communication theory, yet the growing complexity of next-generation systems demands increasingly sophisticated reasoning from domain experts. Recent advances in AI mathematical reasoning, from formal theorem proving to large language model (LLM)-based derivation, offer a promising but largely unexplored path forward. Here we argue that wireless communications is a uniquely structured domain for formal AI reasoning, and propose a three-layer framework of verification, derivation, and discovery to rethink how wireless mathematical knowledge is established.

Bistatic Integrated Sensing and Communication in the Presence of a Disco Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface: Disruption, Enhancement, or Both?

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is widely regarded as one of the key enabling technologies for future sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication systems. In this work, we investigate a bistatic ISAC system in the presence of a disco reconfigurable intelligent surface (DRIS), whose random and time-varying reflection coefficients emulate a "disco ball." The introduction of the DRIS breaks the underlying assumption in existing ISAC systems that the sensing and communication channels remain static or quasi-static within the channel coherence time. We first develop a bistatic system model incorporating the DRIS and characterize all involved wireless channels. Then, an ISAC waveform design that balances sensing and communication performance is proposed by formulating a Pareto optimization problem, where the trade-off is controlled through a tunable factor. Communication and sensing performance in the bistatic ISAC system are quantified by the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB), respectively. To quantify the impact of the DRIS on the bistatic ISAC system, we derive the statistical characteristics of DRIS-induced active channel aging (ACA) channels for communications and the cascaded DRIS-based sensing channel. Then, we establish a theoretical lower bound on the SINR and closed-form CRLB expressions in the presence of a DRIS. The analysis reveals several distinctive properties of the DRIS in bistatic ISAC systems. In particular, the DRIS degrades communication performance significantly due to the introduction of ACA interference. In contrast, with respect to sensing performance, the DRIS decreases the estimation accuracy of the angle of departure (AoD) while concurrently enhancing that of the angle of arrival (AoA). Numerical results validate the derived theoretical analysis and confirm these DRIS-induced behaviors.

Energy-Efficient Hybrid Data Computation via Coordinated AirComp and Edge Offloading

The development of 6G networks brings an increasing variety of data services, which motivates the hybrid computation paradigm that coordinates the over-the-air computation (AirComp) and edge computing for diverse and effective data processing. In this paper, we address this emerging issue of hybrid data computation from an energy-efficiency perspective, where the coexistence of both types induces resource competition and interference, and thus complicates the network management. Accordingly, we formulate the problem to minimize the overall energy consumption including the data transmission and computation, subject to the offloading capacity and aggregation accuracy. We then propose a block coordinate descent framework that decomposes and solves the subproblems including the user scheduling, power control, and transceiver scaling, which are then iterated towards a coordinated hybrid computation solution. Simulation results confirm that our coordinated approach achieves significant energy savings compared to baseline strategies, demonstrating its effectiveness in creating a well-coordinated and sustainable hybrid computing environment.

Networking-Aware Energy Efficiency in Agentic AI Inference: A Survey

The rapid emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has catalyzed Agentic artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems integrating perception, reasoning, and action into closed-loop pipelines for continuous adaptation. While unlocking transformative applications in mobile edge computing, autonomous systems, and next-generation wireless networks, this paradigm creates fundamental energy challenges through iterative inference and persistent data exchange. Unlike traditional AI where bottlenecks are computational Floating Point Operations (FLOPs), Agentic AI faces compounding computational and communication energy costs. In this survey, we propose an energy accounting framework identifying computational and communication costs across the Perception-Reasoning-Action cycle. We establish a unified taxonomy spanning model simplification, computation control, input and attention optimization, and hardware-aware inference. We explore cross-layer co-design strategies jointly optimizing model parameters, wireless transmissions, and edge resources. Finally, we identify open challenges of federated green learning, carbon-aware agency, 6th generation mobile communication (6G)-native Agentic AI, and self-sustaining systems, providing a roadmap for scalable autonomous intelligence.

Rotatable Antenna Enabled Multi-Cell Mixed Near-Field and Far-Field Communications

Prior studies on mixed near-field and far-field communications have focused exclusively on single-cell scenarios, where both near-field and far-field users are served by the same base station (BS), leading to intra-cell mixed-field interference. In this paper, we consider a more general and practical multi-cell mixed-field scenario consisting of multiple cells, each serving multiple users, thus resulting in more complex inter-cell mixed-field interference. To address this new challenge, we propose leveraging rotatable antenna (RA) technology to enhance multi-cell mixed-field communication performance by exploiting the additional spatial degree-of-freedom introduced by RA rotation to mitigate interference in an efficient way. Specifically, we study an RA-enabled multi-cell mixed-field communication system in which each BS is equipped with an RA array to serve its associated users. We formulate a network-wide sum-rate maximization problem that jointly optimizes the transmit beamforming and the rotation angles of the RA arrays, subject to per-BS power constraints and admissible array rotation limits. To gain useful insights into the role of RAs in multi-cell mixed-field communications, we first analyze a special case with a single user per cell. For this case, we obtain a closed-form expression for the rotation-aware inter-cell mixed-field interference using the Fresnel integrals and analytically show that RA rotation can effectively mitigate such interference, thereby substantially improving system performance. For the general case with multiple users per cell, we develop an efficient double-layer algorithm: the inner layer optimizes the transmit beamforming at each BS via semidefinite relaxation and successive convex approximation; while the outer layer determines the rotation angles of the RA arrays using particle swarm optimization.