Resource Allocation Strategies in Cognitive Radio Networks Under QoS Constraints

The rapid growth of spectral resources’ demands, as well as the increasing Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of wireless users have led to the necessity for new resource allocation schemes which will take into account the differentiated QoS needs of each wireless user. Towards this direction, the researchers have introduced the concept of effective capacity, which is defined as the maximum rate that the channel can support in order to guarantee a specified QoS requirement. This concept has been considered as a “bridge” among the physical layer characteristics and the upper-layer metrics of QoS. During the last years, it has been widely employed for resource allocation problems in various wireless networks leading to efficient mechanisms. This chapter focuses on the employment of the effective capacity theory in Cognitive Radio (CR) systems, presenting an extensive survey on QoS-driven resource allocation schemes proposed in the literature. Some useful conclusions are presented and future research directions on this subject are highlighted and discussed.