Title :
Cooperative Multi-Agent Learning and Coordination for Cognitive Radio Networks
Author :
Zame, William ; Jie Xu ; Van der Schaar, Mihaela
Author_Institution :
Depts. of Econ. & Math., UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract :
The radio spectrum is a scarce resource. Cognitive radio stretches this resource by enabling secondary stations to operate in portions of the spectrum that are reserved for primary stations but not currently used by the primary stations. As it is whenever stations share resources, coordination is a central issue in cognitive radio networks: absent coordination, there may be collision, congestion or interference, with concomitant loss of performance. Cognitive radio networks require coordination of secondary stations with primary stations (so that secondary stations should not interfere with primary stations) and of secondary stations with each other. Coordination in this setting is especially challenging because of the various types of sensing errors. This paper proposes novel protocols that enable secondary stations to learn and teach with the goal of coordinating to achieve a round-robin Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) schedule. These protocols are completely distributed (requiring neither central control nor the exchange of any control messages), fast (with speeds exceeding those of existing protocols), efficient (in terms of throughput and delay) and scalable. The protocols proposed rely on cooperative learning, exploiting the ability of stations to learn from and condition on their own histories while simultaneously teaching other stations about these histories. Analytic results and simulations illustrate the power of these protocols.
Keywords :
cognitive radio; cooperative communication; multi-agent systems; radio networks; radio spectrum management; telecommunication control; time division multiple access; TDMA schedule; absent coordination; central control; cognitive radio networks; concomitant loss; control messages; cooperative multiagent learning; primary stations; protocols; radio spectrum; scarce resource; secondary stations; sensing errors; time division multiple access schedule; Cognitive radio; History; Media Access Protocol; Radiation detectors; Synchronization; Time division multiple access; Multi-agent learning; cognitive medium access control; cognitive radio networks; cooperative learning in networks; distributed protocols; perfect coordination;
Journal_Title :
Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on
DOI :
10.1109/JSAC.2014.140308