Joint rate, channel and route selection for cognitive radio ad hoc networks

It is a difficult but fundamental goal to fully utilize various resources to deliver data as efficiently as possible in wireless networks. In CRAHNs, it becomes more challenging due to uncertain primary users´ activities, time- and location-varying channels, and arbitrary traffic arrivals with unpredictable rate demand. In this paper, we propose a Joint Rate, Channel and Route Selection (JRCRS) approach to optimize the network resource utility in multi-hop, multi-channel CRAHNs, with the objective of maximizing social welfare. Our JRCRS jointly optimizes the data transmission rate adaptive to network condition, assigns interference-free channels and selects a route when a new flow arrives or a primary user activates. The routing metric in our JRCRS considers the relay workload, the distance between the relay and the destination node, and co-channel interference to primary and secondary users. Simulation results demonstrate that our JRCRS outperforms the most related solutions in terms of social welfare, average throughput, network stability and end-to-end delay.