A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for Spectrum Management in Dynamic Spectrum Access

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) has the great potential to alleviate spectrum shortage and promote network capacity. However, two fundamental technical issues have to be addressed, namely, interference coordination between DSA users and interference suppression for primary users (PUs). These two issues are very challenging since generally there is no powerful infrastructures in DSA networks to support centralized control. As a result, DSA users have to perform spectrum management individually, including spectrum access and power allocation, without accurate channel state information and centralized control. In this article, a novel spectrum management framework is proposed, in which Q-learning, a type of reinforcement learning, is utilized to enable DSA users to carry out effective spectrum management individually and intelligently. For more efficient process, neural networks (NNs) are employed to implement Q-learning processes, so-called deep Q-network (DQN). Furthermore, we also investigate the optimal way to construct DQN considering both the performance of wireless communications and the difficulty of NN training. Finally, extensive simulation studies are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed spectrum management framework.