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9, SEPTEMBER 2009

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Cognitive Radio Spectrum Allocation using Evolutionary Algorithms

Zhijin Zhao, Zhen Peng, Shilian Zheng, and Junna Shang

AbstractCognitive radio has been regarded as a promising technology to improve spectrum utilization significantly. In
this letter, spectrum allocation model is presented firstly, and
then spectrum allocation methods based on genetic algorithm
(GA), quantum genetic algorithm (QGA), and particle swarm
optimization (PSO), are proposed. To decrease the search space
we propose a mapping process between the channel assignment
matrix and the chromosome of GA, QGA, and the position of
the particle of PSO, respectively, based on the characteristics of
the channel availability matrix and the interference constraints.
Results show that our proposed methods greatly outperform the
commonly used color sensitive graph coloring algorithm.
Index TermsCognitive radio, spectrum allocation, genetic
algorithms, quantum genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization.

I. I NTRODUCTION

HE spectrum of the wireless networks is generally regulated by governments via a fixed spectrum assignment
policy. However, in recent years, the demand for wireless
spectrum use has been growing dramatically with the rapid
development of the telecommunication industry, which has
caused scarcity in the available spectrum bands. Furthermore,
the underutilization of the licensed spectrum bands makes
the situation even worse [1]. In order to fully utilize the
scarce spectrum resources, dynamic spectrum access becomes
a promising approach to improve the efficiency of spectrum
usage. This new networking paradigm is also referred to as
NeXt Generation networks as well as cognitive radio networks
[2].
Cognitive radios have the ability to sense, to learn, and
to adapt to the outside world [3]. Based on their interaction with the environment, cognitive radios enable the users
to communicate over the most appropriate spectrum bands
through four main functionalities: spectrum sensing, spectrum
management, spectrum mobility, and spectrum sharing [2].
This paper focuses on how to share the available spectrum
bands which are detected unoccupied by primary users among
the coexisting cognitive radios (secondary users).
There exist a lot of research efforts on the problem of
spectrum sharing in cognitive radios. Based on centralized
or distributed architecture, cooperative or non-cooperative
spectrum allocation behavior, overlay or underlay spectrum
access technique [2], lots of methods have been proposed

Manuscript received July 17, 2008; revised December 1, 2008; accepted

December 21, 2008. The associate editor coordinating the review of this letter
and approving it for publication was T. Hou.
Z. Zhao, Z. Peng, and J. Shang are with Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, China (e-mail: zhaozj03@hdu.edu.cn, {ipengzhen,
shangjn}@163.com).
S. Zheng is with JiangNan Electronic Communication Research Institute,
Jiaxing, China (e-mail: lianshizheng@126.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2009.080939

for dynamic spectrum access, including game theory [4],

pricing and auction mechanisms [5]-[6], local bargaining [7],
and graph coloring [8]-[9]. Assuming that the environmental
conditions are static during the time it takes to perform
spectrum assignment, an allocation model is proposed in
[9], and color sensitive graph coloring (CSGC) is used to
solve the allocation problem. As the allocation model can
be inherently seen as an optimization problem, we propose
to use evolutionary algorithms for cognitive radio spectrum
allocation in this paper.
Evolutionary algorithms are stochastic search methods that
mimic natural evolution and/or the social behavior of species.
The first evolutionary-based technique introduced in the literature was genetic algorithms (GAs) [10]. Quantum genetic
algorithm (QGA) [11] combines quantum computation and
genetic algorithm, while particle swarm optimization (PSO)
[12] is inspired by the social behavior of a flock of birds trying
to find their destination during migration. Although other
evolutionary algorithms have been proposed in the literature,
we focus on these three typical algorithms in our study.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section
II, cognitive radio spectrum allocation algorithms based on
evolutionary algorithms are presented in detail. Simulation
results and discussions are provided in Section III, and finally,
Section IV concludes this paper.
II. S PECTRUM A LLOCATION BASED ON E VOLUTIONARY
A LGORITHMS
A. Spectrum allocation model
The general spectrum allocation model presented in [9]
consists of channel availability matrix, channel reward matrix,
interference constraint matrix and conflict free channel assignment matrix. Assume a network of secondary users indexed
from 1 to competing for spectrum channels indexed from
1 to which are non-overlapping orthogonal.
The channel availability matrix = {, ,
{0, 1}} is an by binary matrix representing the
channel availability, where , = 1 if and only if channel
is available to user , and , = 0 otherwise. The channel
reward matrix = {, } is an by matrix
representing the channel reward, where , represents the
reward that can be obtained by user using channel . As two
or more secondary users may use the same channel at the same
time, they may interfere with one another. The interference
constraint matrix = {,, ,, {0, 1}} is an
by by matrix representing the interference constraint
among secondary users, where ,, = 1 if users and
would interfere with each other if they use channel
simultaneously and ,, = 0 otherwise. In particular,
,, = 1 , if = .

c 2009 IEEE
1536-1276/09$25.00

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1 0
0 0
L= 0 1
0 0
1 0

Fig. 1.

1
0
0
0
0

0
1
0
1
0

0
1
0
0
0

1
0
1
0
0

, , = 0, , = 1, 1 , , 1 .
(1)
Given a conflict free channel assignment, the reward user

, , . We use = { =
gets is defined as =
=1

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
1
0
0

0
1
0
0

0
0
1
0

The structure of an example chromosome.

In real applications, the spectrum environment varies slowly

while users quickly perform network-wide spectrum allocation. We assume that the location, available spectrum, etc. are
static during the spectrum allocation, thus , , and are
constant in an allocation period.
The conflict free channel assignment matrix =
{, , {0, 1}} represents the channel assignment, where , = 1 if channel is allocated to secondary
user , and , = 0 otherwise. must satisfy the interference constraints defined by :

1
0
A= 0
0

=1

, , } 1 to represent the reward vector that each

user gets for a given channel assignment. Let , be the set

of conflict free channel assignment for a given and . The
spectrum allocation is to maximize network utilization ().
Given the model above, the spectrum allocation problem can
be defined as the following optimization problem [9]:
= argmax (),

(2)

where is the optimal conflict free channel assignment

matrix. In this paper, we consider three objective functions

, (2)
as in [9]: (1) Max-Sum-Reward (MSR): () =
=1

Max-Min-Reward (MMR): () = min , and (3) Max1

Proportional-Fair (MPF): () = (

( + 106 )) .

=1

B. Spectrum allocation based on genetic algorithm

GAs are rooted in the mechanisms of evolution and natural
genetics. A solution to a given problem is represented in the
form of a string called chromosome, consisting of genes
which hold a set of values for the optimization variables [13].
In the proposed GA-based spectrum allocation, a chromosome
specifies a possible conflict free channel assignment. As
, = 0 when , = 0, if we use one bit to encode
every element in , there will be a lot of redundancy in the
chromosome. So we propose to encode only those elements
which may take the value 1, i.e., , where (, ) satisfies
, = 1. As a consequence, the length of the binary string is
equal to the number of elements equal to 1 in , and the search

space is greatly decreased. Fig. 1 illustrates the structure of

an example chromosome, where = 5, and = 6. Note
that encoding all the elements needs 30 bits, while encoding
only the elements with underline only needs 9 bits. In order
to evaluate the fitness of the chromosome, we need to map the
chromosome to the channel assignment matrix, as the arrows
show in Fig. 1.
The value of every bit in the chromosome is randomly
generated at the initial population and determined by crossover
and mutation in the evolution process, thus it may not satisfy
the interference constraints defined by . We propose the
following process to ensure that the chromosome satisfies the
interference constraints: (1) for all (1 ), search
all (, ) that satisfies ,, = 1, and (2) check whether both
of the two bits corresponding to the element in the th line
and th column of and the element in the th line and th
column of are equal to 1; if so, randomly set one of them
to 0.
The direction of GA search is determined by the fitness
of the individuals in the population. The objective function
provides the mechanism for evaluating each chromosome. We
directly use the objective function as the fitness function: =
().
The proposed GA-based spectrum allocation algorithm
(GA-SAA) proceeds as follows:
Step 1: given = {, , {0, 1}} , =
{, } , and = {,, ,, {0, 1}} ,

set the length of the chromosome as

, , and set
=1 =1

1 = {(, ), = 1} such that elements in 1 are

arranged increasingly in and .
Step 2: randomly generate an initial population based on
binary coding mechanism.
Step 3: for all chromosomes, map the th bit of the
chromosome to , , where (, ) is the th element in 1

and 1
, . For all , search all (, ) that
=1 =1

satisfies ,, = 1, and check whether both of the two bits

corresponding to the element in the th line and th column
of and the element in the th line and th column of
are equal to 1; if so, randomly set one of them to 0.
Step 4: compute the fitness of each individual of the current
population.
Step 5: carry out roulette wheel selection scheme, two-point
crossover scheme and the mutation operation.
Step 6: if it reaches the predefined maximum generation,
stop; if not, go to step 3.

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C. Spectrum allocation based on quantum genetic algorithm

QGA uses qubits to represent a chromosome. The th
chromosome with -qubit at the th generation, , can be
represented as [14]:

[  
]
1  2  . . . 

,
(3)
=


. . . 
1
2

and
must satisfy
+
= 1, =
where
1, 2, . . . , , = 1, 2, . . . , , where denotes the population
size. The population of QGA can be denoted as () =
0
are initialized to 1/ 2 on the
{1 , 2 , . . . , }. 0 and
initial population.
The observed binary string of a chromosome in QGA plays
the same role as the binary encoded chromosome in GA such
that the observed state of a chromosome specifies a possible
solution of the optimization problem. We use the same process
as in GA-SAA to ensure that the observed binary string
satisfies the interference constraints. As in GA, we directly
use () as the fitness function in QGA. The proposed QGAbased spectrum allocation algorithm (QGA-SAA) proceeds as
follows:
Step 1: given , , and , set 1 the same as that in step
1 of GA-SAA, set population size , set the number of qubits

, .
in the chromosome as =
=1 =1

Step 2: set = 0, initialize () = {1 , 2 , . . . , }, and

observe every chromosome in () to obtain a set of states
(binary strings) () = {1 , 2 , . . . , }.
Step 3: map the th ( = 1, 2, . . . , ) bit of ( =
1, 2, . . . , ) to , , where (, ) is the th element in 1 .
For all , search all (, ) that satisfies ,, = 1, and check
whether both of the two bits corresponding to the element in
the th line and th column of and the element in the th
line and th column of are equal to 1; if so, randomly set
one of them to 0.
Step 4: compute the fitness values of (), store the best
solution.
Step 5: if it reaches the maximum generation, terminate the
algorithm; else, go to step 6.
Step 6: set = + 1, observe chromosomes in ( 1)
to obtain () = {1 , 2 , . . . , }.
Step 7: repeat the processes in step 3, compute the fitness
values of (), update the best solution, update ( 1) to
obtain () as in [15], and go to step 5.

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the best particle. Mapping the preserved best position at the

last iteration to , the optimal spectrum allocation is obtained.
In conclusion, the proposed PSO-based spectrum allocation
algorithm (PSO-SAA) proceeds as follows:
Step 1: given , , , set 1 the same as that in step 1 of

GA-SAA, set =
, .
=1 =1

Step 2: set = 0, and randomly generate the position

and velocity of particle , = [1 , 2 , . . . , ] and

= [1
, 2
, . . . ,
], where {0, 1} and

[ , + ], 1 .
Step 3: map ( ) to , , where (, ) is the
th element in 1 . For all , search all (, ) that satisfies
,, = 1, and check whether both of the two dimensions of
the position corresponding to the element in the th line and
th column of and the element in the th line and th
column of are equal to 1; if so, randomly set one of them
to 0.
Step 4: compute the fitness value of each particle and set
= [1 , 2 , . . . , ] and = [1 , 2 , . . . , ], where
is the index of the particle which has the highest fitness value.

and as in [17].
Step 5: set = + 1, and update
Step 6: repeat the processes in step 3, and compute the
fitness value of each particle. For particle , if its fitness
, then set =
value is greater than the fitness value of 1

[1 , 2 , . . . , ]. If particle s fitness value is greater than

the fitness value of 1

, then set = [1 , 2 , . . . , ].
Step 7: if equals to the predefined value, terminate the
algorithm; otherwise, go to step 5.
III. S IMULATION R ESULTS
A. Parameter settings for evolutionary algorithms
In this paper, we choose the parameters of the evolutionary
algorithms such that the total times of fitness evaluation is
the same in the three algorithms. For GA, the population size
is set to 20, and the crossover probability and the mutation
probability are set to 0.8 and 0.01, respectively. The GA is
configured to replace 85% of its population each generation,
17 of every 20 population members. As for QGA, the population size is 20 and the increment of rotation angle of quantum
gates is decreased linearly from 0.1 at the first generation to
0.005 at the last generation. In PSO, the number of particles
in a swarm is set to 20, the two acceleration coefficients [17]
are equal to 2, and = 4. All the three algorithms will
be terminated after 300 iterations (generations).

D. Spectrum allocation based on particle swarm optimization

In PSO, each solution is a bird in the flock and is
referred to as a particle. In the proposed PSO-based spectrum
allocation, a particle specifies a possible conflict free channel
assignment. Note that the position of the particle is analogous
to the chromosome using binary encoding mechanism in GA
[16], so the structure of the position of the particle in the
proposed PSO is analogous to the structure of the chromosome
proposed in GA-SAA.
We use the same process as in GA to ensure that the
position of the particle satisfies the interference constraints.
For fitness evaluation, we directly use () as the fitness
function. As iteration increases, so does the fitness value of

B. Results and discussions

The commonly used algorithm to solve the spectrum allocation problem presented in Section II is color sensitive
graph coloring algorithm (CSGC). For more information of
CSGC, please refer to [9]. The labeling rules used are collaborative labeling rules proposed in [9]. In order to evaluate the
performance of the proposed evolutionary algorithms-based
spectrum allocation methods, we compare them with CSGC
in our simulations.
Table I shows the average rewards over 50 experiments
where = 5, = 5 and = 20, = 22. , , , , and
are kept the same under all experiments under a particular

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TABLE I
AVERAGE REWARD .

Generation
or iteration
10
50
300

Algorithm
GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
CSGC

Average reward ( = 5, = 5)
MSR
150.6038
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
151.0952
138.3981

MMR
25.0771
27.8634
27.8634
25.6343
27.8634
27.8634
27.3061
27.8634
27.8634
21.1016

MPF
53.8800
65.1482
64.8348
64.0926
66.1267
67.8842
64.5525
66.1267
67.9928
56.0257

Average reward ( = 20, = 20)

MSR
1170.9525
1206.1508
1204.7035
1229.1568
1237.3000
1238.1758
1238.9552
1238.9561
1240.1890
1206.0437

MMR
2.3642
9.5613
8.3244
7.2553
39.5744
28.0520
12.3750
56.2500
50.9594
2.7769

MPF
62.4950
37.0068
13.7659
96.2020
87.5857
82.4346
116.7429
118.0215
120.5298
60.1252

TABLE II
C OMPARISON TO OPTIMAL VALUES .

60
50

Generation
or iteration

N=20,M=22
Min Reward

40
N=5,M=5
30

10

20

50

GASAA
QGASAA
PSOSAA

10
0

50

100

150
200
Generation

250

(a) Max-min-reward
N=20,M=22
120

Fair Reward

100
N=5,M=5

60
40

GASAA
QGASAA
PSOSAA

20
0

50

100

150
200
Generation

250

300

(b) Max-proportional-fair
Fig. 2.

GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
GA-SAA
QGA-SAA
PSO-SAA
CSGC

Relative difference (%)

MSR
0.2982
0
0
0.0073
0
0
0
0
0
0.2348

MMR
3.4818
0
0
2.8639
0
0
2.3400
0
0
6.5438

MPF
1.6599
0.1017
0
0.9161
0.1017
0
0.9161
0.1017
0
7.8348

300

140

80

300

Algorithm

Average rewards: GA-SAA vs. QGA-SAA vs. PSO-SAA.

objective. In addition, the average rewards attained in each

generation by GA-SAA, QGA-SAA and PSO-SAA are plotted
in Fig. 2. We can see that the average rewards obtained by GASAA, QGA-SAA and PSO-SAA after 50 generations are better
than CSGC, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed
evolutionary algorithms-based spectrum allocation methods.
PSO-SAA performs the best under objectives MSR and MPF
in terms of converged value, while QGA-SAA performs the
best under objective MMR. Even though GA-SAA performs
better than QGA-SAA and PSO-SAA in the early stage under

objective MPF, the converged values after 300 generations by

GA-SAA are still lower than those obtained by PSO-SAA and
QGA-SAA. For all three objectives, PSO-SAA and QGA-SAA
perform better than GA-SAA in terms of convergence rate and
converged value.
We also compare the rewards derived from the algorithms
to the optimal values. The optimal values are obtained by
exhaustive search. Given the complexity of the exhaustive
search scales exponentially with the number of nodes and
channels, we use limited number of nodes and channels in
our simulation as in [9]. We deploy 200 topologies assuming
= 3 and = 5. The performance metric, relative
difference, is used to denote the difference between the reward
to the optimal value. If the reward obtained through GASAA, QGA-SAA, PSO-SAA, or CSGC is in a particular
experiment, and the optimal reward is , then the relative
difference is 1 / [9]. Table II summarizes the relative
difference for different algorithms averaged over 200 topologies. We see that PSO-SAA can find the optimal solution after
10 iterations in all experiments under the three objectives.
QGA-SAA performs much the same as PSO-SAA under
objectives MSR and MMR. However, the solutions obtained
by QGA-SAA under MPF have slight difference to the optimal
solutions. GA-SAA performs the worst compared to QGASAA and PSO-SAA as it can only obtain the optimal solution
after 300 iterations under objective MSR. However, all three
evolutionary algorithms perform far better than CSGC, which
further validates the performance of our proposed evolutionary
algorithms-based spectrum allocation methods.

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Evolutionary algorithms have been used to solve a lot of

optimization problems in real applications. However, there still
lacks general theoretical analysis of the convergence properties
of the general evolutionary algorithms, especially QGA and
PSO, in the literatures. In order to evaluate the convergence
time of the proposed algorithms, weve done experiments
when = = 5. The experiments were run on a 1.66GHz
double processor laptop PC with 1GB of memory. MATLAB
7.0 was used for simulation evaluation. Results show that
the average computation time of GA-SAA, QGA-SAA, PSOSAA after 10 iterations and CSGC is 0.093s (second), 0.123s,
0.092s, 0.018s respectively. Even though the computation time
of the evolutionary algorithms is larger than that of CSGC,
it is obvious that the evolutionary algorithms are fairly easy
for real-time implementation for such a small number of
iterations, say, 10.
IV. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, three spectrum allocation methods, GA-SAA,
QGA-SAA and PSO-SAA, are proposed, and CSGC is used
for performance comparison. Results show that our proposed
methods greatly outperform CSGC under all experiments.
Furthermore, PSO-SAA is generally found to perform better
than GA-SAA and QGA-SAA under objectives MSR and
MPF in terms of converged solution quality, while QGA-SAA
performs the best under objective MMR.
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