Parallel and Gaussian frequency hopping for dynamic coexistence in the unlicensed band

Abstract

With the surge of short-range wireless applications, more networks are being deployed in the unlicensed radio band. The challenge that emerges is to accommodate these networks without breaching current rules and regulations on frequency usage. This paper studies the coexistence of several independent and dynamic wireless networks using the frequency hopping technique. We propose a novel hopping scheme that minimizes mutual interference and allows more networks to collocate effectively, but does not violate restrictions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding frequency constraint (related to the minimum number of frequencies in a hopping set) and time constraint (related to the maximum duration of using a particular frequency). The coexisting networks follow the Gaussian distribution in choosing transmission frequencies from parallel hopping spaces without the overhead of extra message exchange among networks. Simulation results on key metrics such as channel collision rate, goodput, and fairness in channel usage are presented to establish the viability of the proposed scheme in comparison with other contemporary approaches. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.