Event-Based Framework for Agile Resilience in Criticality-Aware Wireless Networks

As mission- and safety-critical wireless applications grow in complexity and diversity, next-generation wireless systems must meet increasingly stringent and multifaceted requirements. These systems demand resilience along with enhanced intelligence and adaptability to ensure reliable communication under diverse conditions. This paper proposes an event-based multi-stage resilience framework for systematically integrating complementary error mitigation techniques in wireless networks. The framework is applied to uplink transmission of mixedcriticality data under random link blockages. A key component is a novel mixed-criticality rate-splitting multiple access (MC-RSMA) scheme that combines multi- and single-connectivity to balance rate and blockage robustness. MC-RSMA is complemented by one-sided access point cooperation and central decoding, which are integrated into an event-driven algorithm. Here, increasingly effective but more complex mechanisms are activated sequentially to systematically counteract blockages while balancing resilience with cost. From a cross-layer perspective, two transmit power allocation problems are formulated: One for separate decoding and one for central decoding, to ensure fair queue utilization under heterogeneous quality-of-service requirements. Extensive simulations are used to evaluate the delay performance under varying blockage durations and examine the cost tradeoffs among resilience mechanisms within the proposed framework. Results show that the proposed framework achieves resilience across disruption regimes: MC-RSMA balances efficiency and robustness as a criticality-aware core scheme, active robustness strategies handle frequent short-term fluctuations, and adaptive recovery ensures performance during rare, prolonged blockages.