Memory Enabled Bumblebee-Based Dynamic Spectrum Access for Platooning Environments

In this paper, we propose a novel memory-enabled non-uniform sampling-based bumblebee foraging algorithm (MEB) designed for optimal channel selection in a distributed Vehicular Dynamic Spectrum Access (VDSA) framework employed in a platoon operating environment. Given how bumblebee behavioral models are designed to support adaptation in complex and highly time-varying environments, these models can be employed by connected vehicles to enable their operation within a dynamically changing network topology and support their selection of optimal channels possessing low levels of congestion to achieve high throughput. As a result, the proposed VDSA-based optimal channel selection employs fundamental concepts from the bumblebee foraging model. In the proposed approach, the Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) of all channels is computed and stored in memory to be accessed by the MEB algorithm to make the necessary channel switching decisions. Two averaging techniques, Sliding Window Average (SWA) and Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA), are employed to leverage past samples and are evaluated against the no-memory case. Due to the high variability of the environment (e.g., high velocities, changing density of vehicles on the road), we propose to calculate the CBR by employing non-uniform channel sampling allocations as well as evaluate it using both simplified numerical and realistic Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) computer simulations. The numerical simulation results show that gains in the probability of the best channel selection can be achieved relative to a uniform sampling allocation approach. By utilizing memory, we observe an additional increase in the channel selection performance. Similarly, we see an increase in the probability of successful reception when utilizing the bumblebee algorithm via a system-level simulator.