Standard compliant channel selection scheme for TV white space networks

Abstract

In television white space networks, secondary users are required to query an authorised geo-location spectrum database (GSDB) in order to determine the vacant channels or white spaces. While recent development of the Protocol to Access White Spaces (PAWS) by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is intended to standardize communication between the GSDB and white space devices for sharing spectrum white spaces (WSDs) and their related parameters, the mechanism for channel selection remains an open issue. In this paper, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based scheme is proposed for optimal channel decision. The best channel is selected from a pool of available channels provided by the GSDB. Each channel is ranked based on the current class of service offered (either best effort or real time) offered as well as multiple attributes sourced from GSDB. The numerical results show that the proposed scheme is capable of selecting the best channels to satisfy the users’ preferences with lower decision latency than the compared existing solution.