Channel Assignment Problem: A Fuzzy-Based Hybrid Approach

The increased usage of mobile devices and the scarce, regulated radio resources in wireless networks present a challenge to efficiently allocate channels to users. Existing algorithms designed to assign channels in a network range from dynamic channel allocation (DCA) algorithms to fixed channel allocation (FCA) algorithms - each with their own advantages and drawbacks. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy-based hybrid channel assignment algorithm that is adaptive to the traffic conditions of the network by employing the frequency and time division multiple access (FDMA/TDMA) FCA algorithm in low traffic conditions and the Geometric DCA algorithm in high traffic conditions. The switching mechanism employs fuzzy logic and known traffic patterns. This approach is aimed at reducing the overall signaling cost of solely utilizing the DCA strategy while maintaining a comparable failure rate. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm reduces the signaling cost of DCA algorithm by about 20-30% while achieving similar failure rates to the Geometric DCA.