Cross-layer resource allocation for video streaming over OFDMA cognitive radio networks

In this paper, a cross-layer resource allocation algorithm is proposed in the context of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-based cognitive radio (CR) video application systems. User video quality and channel awareness are incorporated in the design, towards an optimal subcarrier and power allocation scheme, subject to minimum secondary receiver (SRx) video quality and primary receiver (PRx) interference threshold constraints. First, the relationship between PRx interference margin and power limits at the secondary transmitter (STx) is analytically derived. Then, to provide PRx with satisfactory quality of service (QoS), we propose a new probabilistic approach to mitigate the total imposed interference of the STx on PRx, considering imperfect STx to PRx channel state information (CSI). The effect of PRx interference limit violation probability, interference threshold, and error variance of imperfect CSI are evaluated through mathematical analysis and computer simulations. Results indicate that significant improvement in SRx total video quality is achieved through our proposed quality-aware (QA) algorithm over other state-of-the-art non-quality-aware (NQA) designs in the literature. The enhanced performance was obtained whilst guaranteeing SRx minimum quality and PRx prescribed QoS constraints.