Federated and Online Dynamic Spectrum Access for Mobile Secondary Users

Users in dynamic spectrum access (DSA) with federated reinforcement learning (FRL) autonomously access channels, avoiding centralized coordination and protecting users’ privacy. However, existing FRL-based DSA mechanisms are limited to ideal network states, i.e., assuming that channel states and users’ interference relationships are unchanged. Besides, users should upload intermediate results simultaneously for federated aggregation. The above conditions are impractical for mobile users since their network states and locations are unstable. Meanwhile, newly connected users have to train their models through local data with numerous computing resources since global models are unsuitable for them. We propose FRDSA, an FRL-based secure and lightweight channel selection mechanism in DSA for mobile users under dynamic network states. An independent channel selection environment with a virtual group strategy is presented to avoid interference between users under unstable channel states. Furthermore, an asynchronous parameter aggregation method in FRDSA dynamically adjusts the aggregation factors without users simultaneously uploading intermediate results. Simulations based on real trajectory data show that FRDSA significantly reduces approximately 60% interference between mobile users under unstable network states. Newly connected users can directly apply the well-trained global model to access channels autonomously instead of retraining a model, effectively reducing mobile users’ computing resource requirements.