Abstract—Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA), through the use of cognitive radio, is currently being embraced as a solution to address spectrum scarcity and spectrum underutilization. DSA allows the use of an unutilized spectrum as long the Secondary Users (SUs) do not cause harmful interference to the Primary Users (PUs). TV White Spaces (TVWS) are spectrum bands that have attracted a lot of research and development interest because of the good propagation characteristics attainable within such bands. The aim of resource allocation in cognitive access to TVWS is to efficiently assign the available spectrum and power to SUs such that the interference constraints to PUs and SUs are met. Radio resource allocation is a subset of the DSA that significantly addresses the spectrum scarcity and interference in TVWS networks. However, the existing literature does not adequately provide a comprehensive survey on the resource allocation in TVWS networks. Hence it is difficult to identify the specific focus and direction of the future research, development and application on this subject matter. In this paper, we provide a comparison of TVWS resource allocation proposals and also highlight open research issues on the same. This paper is useful to TVWS and cognitive radio researchers who are designing TVWS resource allocation algorithms and also those who want to know future research directions in this area.
 

Index Terms—Dymamic spectrum access; cognitive radio; geo-location database; spectrum sesning; TV white spaces; geo-location database congestion, primary user, secondary user, white space device

Cite: Kennedy K. Ronoh, George Kamucha, Thomas Olwal, and Tonny Omwansa, “A Survey of Resource Allocation in TV White Space Networks,”Journal of Communications vol. 14, no. 12, pp. 1180-1190, 2019. Doi: 10.12720/jcm.14.12.1180-1190