On centralized and distributed frequency assignment in cognitive radio based frequency hopping cellular networks

Frequency Assignment is an important approach to mitigate multi-cell interference in cellular systems. In this paper, we consider frequency hopping as one possible frequency assignment approach. In particular we focus our attention on cognitive radio cellular systems as one of the very promising future access technologies, taking IEEE 802.22 as an example. While the optimal frequency assignment for such a system is conceptually straightforward as well as computationally complex, we demonstrate that usage of distributed methods leads to a significant loss of assignment efficiency. In addition, we suggest means of mitigating this adverse effect.