A Versatile Coexistence Decision-Making System for Efficient TV Whitespace Sharing among Whitespace Objects

Abstract

A coexistence decision-making (CDM) system for efficient TV whitespace (TVWS) sharing among whitespace objects (WSOs) is introduced in this paper. The proposed system is considered versatile in functionality as it jointly takes care of three distinct channel allocation features: (a) optimizing system quality of service (QoS) performance metrics, (b) improving TVWS utility, and (c) satisfying WSO channel demands. Regarding system QoS performance metrics, the TVWS sharing problem is defined as an optimization problem with an aim to maximize the system throughput and minimize unfairness in allocation. Supporting the WSOs channel demands in a TVWS sharing problem is a multifold task which requires elaborate consideration in different aspects of the system performance. To this end, the variations of the SNR of wireless frequency channels which result in variable throughput gain of the WSOs are also taken care of in the proposed CDM system. A fast channel allocation algorithm is then designed that implements the TVWS sharing mechanism in a reasonable amount of time. Additionally, the proposed algorithm improves the TVWS utility by promoting a novel frequency reuse method by exploiting the inter-WSO interference information. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed algorithm over existing TVWS sharing algorithms.