Joint rate, channel and route selection for cognitive radio ad hoc networks

It is a difficult but fundamental goal to fully utilize various resources to deliver data as efficiently as possible in wireless networks. In CRAHNs, it becomes more challenging due to uncertain primary users' activities, time- and location-varying channels, and arbitrary traffic arrivals with unpredictable rate demand. In this paper, we propose a Joint Rate, Channel and Route Selection (JRCRS) approach to optimize the network resource utility in multi-hop, multi-channel CRAHNs, with the objective of maximizing social welfare. Our JRCRS jointly optimizes the data transmission rate adaptive to network condition, assigns interference-free channels and selects a route when a new flow arrives or a primary user activates. The routing metric in our JRCRS considers the relay workload, the distance between the relay and the destination node, and co-channel interference to primary and secondary users. Simulation results demonstrate that our JRCRS outperforms the most related solutions in terms of social welfare, average throughput, network stability and end-to-end delay.