Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

S ELF -H EALING 6G N ETWORKS - IN -N ETWORK FOR R ESILIENT W IRELESS C OMMUNICATION

arXiv:2608.06423v1 [cs.NI] 5 Aug 2026

A P REPRINT Daniel Lindenschmitt Institute for Wireless Communication and Navigation RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau daniel.lindenschmitt@rptu.de

Anton Schösser Vodafone Chair Mobile Communications Systems Technische Universität Dresden anton.schoesser@tu-dresden.de

Afnan Aghai Institute for Wireless Communication and Navigation RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau aghai@rptu.de

Philipp Schulz Vodafone Chair Mobile Communications Systems Technische Universität Dresden philipp.schulz2@tu-dresden.de

Gerhard Fettweis Vodafone Chair Mobile Communications Systems Technische Universität Dresden gerhard.fettweis@tu-dresden.de

Hans D. Schotten Institute for Wireless Communication and Navigation RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau schotten@rptu.de

August 10, 2026

A BSTRACT Future 6G networks must manage increasingly dynamic radio environments in which multiple autonomous sub-networks (SNs) share frequency resources and adapt to changing operating conditions. In such scenarios, interference from faulty devices or intentional jamming can disrupt ongoing communications, making rapid and autonomous network adaptation essential. This demonstration presents a self-healing networks-in-network (NiN) architecture that closely integrates the detection of spectrum anomalies with dynamic spectrum management. A spectrum scanner continuously monitors the frequency spectrum and forwards detected anomalies to the DSM, which automatically identifies suitable frequency resources and reconfigures the affected SN. During the live demonstration, participants can initiate controlled disruptions and observe the entire adaptation process in real time, from anomaly detection to autonomous frequency reallocation and network recovery. The demonstrator illustrates how integrating spectrum monitoring and resource management into a single control loop can improve the resilience of future NiN implementations and demonstrates a practical approach to autonomous, spectrum-aware networking. Keywords 6G, Networks-in-Network, Anomaly Detection, Self-Healing, Spectrum Management, Resilience

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Introduction

Wireless networks are becoming increasingly dynamic as more systems, applications, and services compete for limited spectrum resources. In future 6G deployments, this challenge could further be amplified by networks-innetwork (NiN), where several independent sub-networks (SNs) share the same radio environment while operating independently. Under these conditions, maintaining reliable communication requires more than efficient spectrum allocation alone. The network must also be able to respond quickly to unexpected interference. In today’s systems,

Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

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spectrum monitoring and network management are often treated as separate tasks. An interference event may be detected within milliseconds, but network reconfiguration typically involves manual actions. This separation slows down the overall response and limits the network’s ability to recover on its own. In contrast to existing approaches that typically consider spectrum monitoring and spectrum management as separate functions, the proposed demonstrator directly couples anomaly detection with autonomous spectrum reconfiguration, allowing detection results to trigger reconfiguration of the affected SN. Instead of only reporting that an interference has occurred, the system immediately starts the recovery process and migrates communication to an alternative channel whenever suitable spectrum is available before the radio link is fully blocked. Participants can observe the complete control loop during the live demonstration. An interfering noise signal is introduced into the radio environment, considered as an anomaly, which is detected by the monitoring system. The resulting spectrum decision is visualized and the affected SN is automatically reconfigured. The demonstration therefore provides a practical example of how tightly coupled monitoring and spectrum management can support self-healing operation in wireless communication.

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Background

Future 6G networks are expected to operate in highly dynamic environments where multiple independent networks coexist and share communication resources [1]. The NiN concept addresses this challenge by allowing several autonomous SNs to operate within an overlayer wireless network while preserving their individual control functions [2, 3]. Such architectures are particularly relevant for 5G or future 6G non-public networks (NPNs), where communication requirements may differ considerably across applications and evolve over time. Therefore, efficient coordination of available spectrum becomes an essential requirement for a reliable network operation. Dynamic spectrum management (DSM) has emerged as a key mechanism for coordinating spectrum access in these NiN environments. Depending on the deployment scenario, DSM can assign spectrum resources to individual SNs, resolve conflicts between competing SNs, and adapt to changing radio conditions, such as those induced by spectrum anomalies. Previous work has explored centralized, distributed, and AI-assisted DSM approaches for future 6G systems, demonstrating their potential to improve spectrum utilization while limiting mutual interference [4]. However, most existing solutions assume relatively stable operating conditions and treat spectrum management independently from anomaly detection or potential jamming. At the same time, wireless anomaly detection is gaining increasing attention as a method for identifying interference, malfunctioning devices, or intentional jamming. Recent approaches range from classical signal-processing techniques to advanced machine-learning-based approaches, capable of monitoring complex radio environments [5, 6]. However, these methods are not fully exploited, often serving only as passive observers of the wireless spectrum. Integrating anomaly detection into network management could transform spectrum monitoring into a more active and integral part of wireless networks. This integration would not only enable automated responses to issues such as interference but also improve detection accuracy by incorporating meaningful context from the network management system. Such advancements are has the potential to significantly enhance the adaptability and resilience of wireless communication systems, unlocking new opportunities for DSM.

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Anomaly Detection for Self-Healing Networks-in-Network

Reliable operation in future NiN depends not only on detecting anomalies in the radio environment but also on responding to them before communication is significantly affected. For this reason, the demonstrated system combines spectrum monitoring with DSM in a control loop. Rather than treating anomaly detection as a standalone monitoring task, the detection results are directly used to trigger network reconfiguration of the attached SNs whenever necessary. Spectrum measurements are collected by a software-defined radio (SDR) and processed in short observation intervals. For each interval, statistical features describing the received signal power are extracted and compared with values that have been collected earlier in a training phase under normal (i.e., in the absence of interfering signals) conditions. To separate normal channel behavior from anomalous observations, the training data (sequences of received power values) from normal operations are clustered using the k-means algorithm. If a sequence of observations significantly falls out of the known clusters, it is classified as an anomaly, and an alarm is raised to the DSM entity. Because no anomaly data are used for training, the detector can identify a wide range of anomalies rather than being limited to specific patterns. K-Means was selected because it provides a lightweight unsupervised clustering method that can be executed efficiently on the edge hardware used in the demonstrator without requiring labeled training data. Accordingly, the detector is designed to distinguish normal spectrum behavior from localized interference events rather than to classify the origin of the interference. The DSM evaluates each reported anomaly together with the current spectrum allocation of the affected SN. For the presented demonstrator, the decision process primarily considers the measured received signal strength (RSS), since 2

Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

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Sub-Network Self-healing by avoiding the jammed channel

DSM Entity

Master Node with SNC

Sub-Network Node

Jammer Channel selection via dashboard

Spectrum Scanner

Central Detection Unit

Figure 1: System architecture of the demonstration this metric is continuously available from the spectrum scanner and can be evaluated without introducing additional signaling overhead. The modular architecture allows additional Quality of Service (QoS) indicators, such as latency or throughput, to be incorporated into future spectrum selection strategies. If the RSS is expected to degrade, the DSM selects a suitable alternative channel and initiates an autonomous spectrum reconfiguration. In this way, anomaly detection becomes an integral part of the resource management process rather than an isolated monitoring function. The developed architecture further separates sensing, anomaly detection, and spectrum management, making it possible to replace the current detection algorithm or integrate distributed sensing nodes in future implementations [7, 8].

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Demo Setup

The setup consists of the components illustrated in Figure 1: • Spectrum scanner for radio environment monitoring, • central detection unit (CDU) for analyzing monitored values and anomaly detection, • DSM entity for processing feedback sent by CDU, • SN to adapt to changed radio conditions based on recommendations by the DSM, and • Jammer to cause artificial anomalies to the setup. The radio environment is continuously observed by a spectrum scanner which is realized by an SDR (USRP B210). It provides sweeping spectrum information with 20 MHz bandwidth within the frequency range from 3.7 to 3.8 GHz to the anomaly detection algorithm operating in the CDU on a LattePanda Sigma. Instead of searching for predefined interference patterns, the detector identifies deviations from the expected spectrum behavior and reports them to the DSM. This keeps the detection process lightweight while remaining flexible enough to react to different types of interference without requiring prior knowledge of the signal source. Reporting and data exchange is realized via a Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) broker, where all attached components can publish their values and subscribe to the respective ones. The advantage of implementing via MQTT is a fast and continuous data exchange, which still supports the modular approach of this demonstration. Only compact status information and control commands 3

Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

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are exchanged between the functional components. As a result, the communication overhead introduced by MQTT remains low compared to the application traffic carried by the SN. The DSM is also executed on a LattePanda Sigma and subscribed to regular updates from the CDU. Based on the reported anomaly, the DSM determines whether the current spectrum allocation is still suitable for the affected SN. The SN itself consists of two network nodes, where one is acting as a master and the other as a slave node. The master node is triggering the network parameter adaptation based on recommendations by DSM. If continued operation on the active channel is no longer feasible, an alternative spectrum resource is selected, and the SN is reconfigured accordingly. If available, remaining SNs continue to operate without modification, limiting the impact of the interference to the affected communication domain. The system also features a jammer that is able to generate interference in the system’s frequency range as needed. This interference is then detected ad hoc by the CDU, which initiates further actions via the DSM as necessary. Based on the DSM’s recommendations, the SN can switch to one of several available center frequencies, before communication quality degrades significantly. The demonstrator considers localized narrowband interference affecting the operating channel of a single SN. Such interference may originate from unintentional spectrum usage or intentional jamming. Wideband interference covering the complete available spectrum, simultaneous interference affecting multiple SNs, or failures of the DSM itself are outside the scope of the current demonstration. To illustrate more clearly how the self-healing process works, only two center frequencies at 3.71 GHz (channel 1) and 3.75 GHz (channel 5) were used for this demo. The overall architecture separates sensing, decision-making, and spectrum management into independent functional blocks connected via clearly defined interfaces. This modular structure simplifies future extensions, such as integrating distributed sensing nodes or replacing the current detection method with more advanced approaches, while leaving the overall control process unchanged.

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Demo Walkthrough

During the demonstration, interference is intentionally introduced on the operating channel of one SN. The resulting anomaly is detected automatically, after which the DSM initiates the spectrum reconfiguration and migrates the affected communication to an alternative available channel. The demonstrated recovery represents the complete control loop from anomaly detection to successful network reconfiguration, including the exchange of control information between the anomaly detector and the DSM. The complete workflow can be observed in real time and illustrates how anomaly detection and DSM complement each other to provide autonomous self-healing capabilities for NiN deployments. The presentation is divided into: • Jammer Interaction: Participants can interact with the jammer via the system’s dashboard. They can choose to have no active jammer, or whether the jammer should interfere with channel 1 or channel 5. To ensure that no wireless networks are actually disrupted, the jammer is designed as a virtual jammer for the demonstration. • System Behavior Visualization: Participants can monitor the jammer’s impact as well as the current status of the frequency spectrum and the SN being monitored directly through the dashboard. If the jammer is activated, the devices are reconfigured via the CDU and the DSM, a process that is also visualized on the dashboard.

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Conclusion and Future Work

The presented demonstrator illustrates how spectrum anomaly detection and DSM can be combined to realize autonomous self-healing behavior in future NiN deployments. The focus of the demonstration is on validating the functionality of the complete control loop under controlled laboratory conditions rather than on evaluating largescale deployments or optimizing individual processing stages. Future work will extend the current demonstrator by incorporating distributed sensing, QoS-aware decision metrics, more sophisticated anomaly detection methods, and evaluations in larger NiN deployments with multiple interacting SNs and concurrent interference events.

Acknowledgment The authors acknowledge the financial support by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) within the projects Open6GHub+ {16KIS2406} and 6G-CampuSens {16KISK207 and 16KISK208}. 4

Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

Jammer

Sub-Network Below the setup:

CDU and DSM Figure 2: Overview of demonstration setup

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Spectrum Scanner

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Self-Healing 6G Networks-in-Network for Resilient Wireless Communication

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References [1] M.-I. Corici, F. Eichhorn, R. Bless, M. Gundall, D. Lindenschmitt, B. Bloessl, M. Petrova, L. Wimmer, R. Kreuch, T. Magedanz, and H. D. Schotten, “Organic 6G networks: Vision, requirements, and research approaches,” IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 70 698–70 715, 2023. [2] C.-X. Wang, X. You, X. Gao, X. Zhu, Z. Li, C. Zhang, H. Wang, Y. Huang, Y. Chen, H. Haas, J. S. Thompson, E. G. Larsson, M. D. Renzo, W. Tong, P. Zhu, X. Shen, H. V. Poor, and L. Hanzo, “On the road to 6G: Visions, requirements, key technologies, and testbeds,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 905–974, 2023. [3] D. Lindenschmitt, J. Mertes et al., “6G Underlayer Network Concepts for Ultra Reliable and Low Latency Communication in Manufacturing,” in 28th European Wireless Conference, 2023. [4] V. Frascolla, “Dynamic spectrum management in multi-access systems moving towards 6G,” in 2025 31st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT), 2025, pp. 1–6. [5] S. Rajendran, W. Meert, V. Lenders, and S. Pollin, “Unsupervised wireless spectrum anomaly detection with interpretable features,” IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 637– 647, 2019. [6] K.-I. Sabanovic, C. Arendt, S. Fricke, M. Geis, S. Böcker, and C. Wietfeld, “AI-based anomaly detection for industrial 5G networks by distributed SDR measurements,” in 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Measurements & Networking (M&N), 2024, pp. 1–5. [7] D. Lindenschmitt, P. Seehofer et al., “Dynamic spectrum management for 6G network-in-network concepts,” in 2024 15th International Conference on Network of the Future (NoF), 2024, pp. 151–153. [8] D. Lindenschmitt, P. Seehofer, M. Schmitz, J. Mertes, R. Bless, M. Zitterbart, J. C. Aurich, and H. D. Schotten, “Adaptive 6G networks-in-network management for industrial applications,” in 2025 16th International Conference on Network of the Future (NoF). IEEE, 2025, pp. 114–116.

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