Energy-Efficient Frequency and Power Allocation for Cognitive Radios in Television Systems

Energy-efficient resource allocation for cognitive radios operating in television systems (TV white spaces) presents a unique challenge compared with other cognitive radios because the interference constraint is for the whole frequency band rather than per carrier. This paper presents a subchannel and power allocation protocol that maximizes the energy efficiency (EE) of transmissions from a cognitive base station operating in the TV white spaces. The system model conforms to the IEEE 802.22 standard, and the proposed two-step solution to the EE maximization problem satisfies users' minimum rate requirements and keeps the interference to the primary users in the neighboring areas below a specified threshold. The first step of the protocol is a near-optimal but low-complexity subchannel assignment. This is followed by an optimal power allocation procedure that is obtained by analyzing the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. The computational complexity of the resulting resource allocation protocol is the same as that of the least complex resource allocation protocol for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) downlinks in the literature. Simulation results show that our protocol achieves higher EE compared with a modified and improved version of the OFDMA protocol from the literature.