Power Control and Frequency Band Selection Policies for Underlay MIMO Cognitive Radio

Abstract: We study power control and frequency band selection policies for multi-band underlay MIMO cognitive radio with the objective of maximizing the rate of a secondary user (SU) link while limiting the interference leakage towards primary users (PUs) below a threshold. The goal of the SU in each policy is to select one frequency band in each time slot and determine the transmit power. To limit the interference towards PU in time-varying channels, we propose fixed and dynamic transmit power control schemes which depend on PU traffic and the temporal correlation of channels between the SU and the PU. We study the performance of frequency band selection policies that use fixed or dynamic power control. We show that dynamic frequency band selection policies, e.g., policies based on multi-armed bandit framework, wherein SU selects a different frequency band in each slot, result in higher interference towards PU as compared to the fixed band policy wherein SU stays on one band. We also provide an expression for the gap between the rate achieved by SU under a clairvoyant policy and the fixed band policy. It is observed that this gap reduces with increased temporal correlation and with increased number of SU antennas.