Channel assignment mechanism for cognitive radio network with rate adaptation and guard band awareness: batching perspective

Abstract

Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising technology that allows devices to effectively utilize the underutilized or unutilized portions of the licensed spectrum. In literature, several channel assignment and spectrum sharing algorithms for CR Networks (CRNs) have been developed to improve spectrum efficiency without considering the problem of Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI). Guard-Band (GB)-aware mechanisms have been proposed in CRNs to prevent ACI and improve spectrum efficiency. However, most of the existing GB-aware algorithms assume having channels with fixed-rate and employ a sequential channel assignment paradigm. Unfortunately, this assumption is not realistic, because channel’s conditions may vary over time. In this work, we propose a GB-aware channel assignment that considers the channel-dependent achieved transmission rates (due to Rayleigh fading time-varying conditions) at different time slots while simultaneously assigning channels to several CR transmissions. This batch based proposal aims at increasing network capacity and minimizing the number of assigned channels per user subject to rate demand and interference constraints. Simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme, which show a significant improvement in network performance in terms of the number of served CR users.