An evaluation of cognitive channel allocation strategies for coalition deployments

In this paper we consider the problem of interference management in coalition deployments, where platoons of soldiers from different nations communicate using the same frequency bands, and hence can interfere with each other. Traditional static channel allocation strategies are not effective in this scenario, due to the high degree of mobility of the platoons. We propose a distributed approach based on Cognitive Radio technology: each platoon dynamically adjusts its channel allocation based on the level of interference measured on each channel. To account for the lack of coordination among the platoons, we model this distributed resource allocation problem as a strategic game. We analyze the performance obtained by the proposed solution when different utility functions are considered, and compare this performance with that obtained using traditional approaches such as static channel allocation and random frequency hopping. The results of this study show that the proposed approach allows to achieve a better performance in coalition scenarios where all players are well-behaved, while at the same time being robust to jamming attacks.