An Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Spectrum Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract

The seriousness of the spectrum scarcity has increased dramatically due to the rapid increase of wireless services. The key enabling technology that can be viewed as a novel approach for utilizing the spectrum more efficiently is known as Cognitive Radio. Therefore, assigning the spectrum opportunistically to the unlicensed users without interfering with the licensed users, concurrently with maximizing the spectrum utilization is addressed as a major challenge problem in cognitive radio networks. In this paper, an improved metaheuristic optimization algorithm has been proposed to solve this problem that contingent on a graph coloring model. The proposed approach is a hybrid algorithm composed of a Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm with Random Neighborhood Search. The key objective function is maximizing the spectrum utilization in the cognitive radio networks with the subjected constraints. MATLAB R2021a was used for conducting the simulation. The proposed hybrid algorithm improved the system utilization by 1.23% compared to Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, 5.57% compared to Random Neighborhood Search, 7.9% compared to Color Sensitive Graph Coloring algorithm, and 27.33% compared to Greedy algorithm. Moreover, the system performance was evaluated with various deployment scenarios of the primary users, secondary users, and channels for investigating the impact of varying these parameters on the system performance.