Optimal strategy design for enabling the coexistence of heterogeneous networks in TV white space

Very recently, regulatory bodies worldwide have approved dynamic access of unlicensed networks to the TV white space (TVWS) spectrum. Hence, in the near future, multiple heterogeneous and independently operated unlicensed networks will coexist within the same geographical area over shared TVWS. Although heterogeneity and coexistence are not unique to TVWS scenarios, their distinctive characteristics pose new and challenging issues. In this paper, the problem of the coexistence interference among multiple heterogeneous and independently operated secondary networks (SNs) in the absence of secondary cooperation is addressed. Specifically, the optimal coexistence strategy, which adaptively and autonomously selects the channel maximizing the expected throughput in the presence of coexistence interference, is designed. More in detail, at first, an analytical framework is developed to model the channel selection process for an arbitrary SN as a decision process. Then, the problem of the optimal channel selection, i.e., the channel maximizing the expected throughput, is proved to be computationally prohibitive (NP-hard). Finally, under the reasonable assumption of identically distributed interference on the available channels, the optimal channel selection problem is proved not to be NP-hard, and a computationally efficient (polynomial-time) algorithm for finding the optimal strategy is designed. Numerical simulations validate the theoretical analysis.