Optimal Dwell Time for Frequency Hopping in a Stackelberg Game with a Smart Jammer

Abstract

Frequency hopping (FH) technique is usually used to anti-jamming communication. Frequency dwell time is an important parameter for FH communication. Short dwell time will reduce the communication efficiency due to frequency switching time, while long dwell time will increase the time to be jammed after the sensing of a smart jammer. The dwell time of the cognitive user and the sensing time of the jammer are interactive. We formulate the interactions between the user and the jammer as a Stackelberg game. The jammer first senses the user’s operating frequency and then jams the user based on the sensing result. The user determines its dwell time according to the reward under the jamming. A tiered reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to solve the game. The optimal dwell time of the user is given when the Stackelberg Equilibrium is achieved.