Interference Alignment with Frequency-Clustering for Efficient Resource Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we investigate the resource management problem in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cognitive radio (CR) systems. We propose performing resource allocation based on interference alignment (IA) in order to improve the spectral efficiency of CR systems without affecting the quality of service of the primary system. IA plays a role in the proposed algorithm to enable the secondary users (SUs) to cooperate and share the available spectrum, which leads to a considerable increase in the spectral efficiency of CR systems. However, IA based spectrum sharing is restricted to a certain number of SUs per subcarrier in order to satisfy the IA feasibility conditions. Accordingly, the resource allocation problem is formulated as a mixed-integer optimization problem, which is considered an NP-hard problem. To reduce the computational complexity of the problem, a two-phases efficient sub-optimal algorithm is proposed. In the first phase, frequency-clustering is performed in order to satisfy the IA feasibility conditions, where each subcarrier is assigned to a feasible number of SUs. Whenever possible, frequency-clustering stage considers the fairness among the SUs. In the second stage, the available power is allocated among the subcarriers and SUs without violating the constraints that limit the maximum interference induced to the primary system. Simulation results show that IA with frequency-clustering achieves a significant sum rate increase compared to CR systems with orthogonal multiple access transmission techniques.