An Admission Control and Channel Allocation Algorithm Based on Particle Swarm Optimization for Cognitive Cellular Networks

During the last few years cellular networks have increased the use of spectrum resources due to the success of mobile broadband services. Mobile devices generate more data than ever before, facing the way cellular networks are deployed today to meet the ever increasing traffic demand. Making new exclusive spectrum available to meet traffic demand is challenging since spectrum resources are finite, therefore costly. Cognitive radio technology is proposed, for conventional cellular networks, as a solution to enlarge the pool of available spectrum resources for mobile users through femtocells (small cells), overlaid on the existing macrocell network, to share a common spectrum. However, by reusing simultaneously spectrum resources from femto networks, potentially destructive interference on macro networks is introduced. In this context, we present a femto-users admission control and channel allocation algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to maintain the interference to a required Quality of Service (QoS) level in macro-femto networks while, at the same time, data rate is maximized in the whole system. The proposed approach provides design requirements for deploying future cognitive cellular networks.