On the Optimality of Myopic Sensing in Multi-channel Opportunistic Access: the Case of Sensing Multiple Channels

Abstract: Recent works have developed a simple and robust myopic sensing policy for multi-channel opportunistic communication systems where a secondary user (SU) can access one of N i.i.d. Markovian channels. The optimality of the myopic sensing policy in maximizing the SU's cumulated reward is established under certain conditions on channel parameters. This paper studies the generic case where the SU can sense more than one channel each time. By characterizing the myopic sensing policy in this context, we establish analytically its optimality for certain system setting when the SU is allowed to sense two channels. In the more generic case, we construct counterexamples to show that the myopic sensing policy, despite its simple structure, is non-optimal.