Hybrid Deep Reinforcement Learning for Joint Resource Allocation in Multi-Active RIS-Aided Uplink Communications

Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS)s are a promising technology for 6G wireless networks. This paper investigates a novel hybrid deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework for resource allocation in a multi-user uplink system assisted by multiple active RISs. The objective is to maximize the minimum user rate by jointly optimizing user transmit powers, active RIS configurations, and base station (BS) beamforming. We derive a closed-form solution for optimal beamforming and employ DRL algorithms—soft actor-critic (SAC), deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG), and twin delayed DDPG (TD3)–to solve this high-dimensional, non-convex optimization problem. Simulation results demonstrate that SAC achieves superior performance with a high learning rate leading to faster convergence and lower computational cost compared to DDPG and TD3. Furthermore, the closed-form of optimal beamforming enhances the minimum rate effectively.