Subcarrier Assignment Schemes Based on Q-Learning in Wideband Cognitive Radio Networks

Subcarrier assignment is of crucial importance in wideband cognitive radio (CR) networks. In order to tackle the challenge that the traditional optimization-based methods are inappropriate in the dynamic spectrum access environment, an independent Q-learning-based scheme is proposed for the case that the secondary users (SUs) cannot exchange information while a collaborative Q-learning-based scheme is proposed for the case that information can be exchange among SUs. Simulation results show that the performance achieved with the proposed collaborative Q-learning-based assignment is better than that obtained with the proposed independent Q-learning-based assignment at the cost of the computation cost.