AI-Driven Green Cognitive Radio Networks for Sustainable 6G Communication
This work addresses sustainable and efficient spectrum management for 6G networks, particularly benefiting IoT and vehicular applications, though it appears incremental as it combines existing techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of energy-intensive spectrum sensing and allocation in cognitive radio networks for 6G communication by proposing an AI-driven framework that integrates deep reinforcement learning, transfer learning, energy harvesting, and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, resulting in 25-30% less energy use, sensing AUC >0.90, and 6-13 percentage points higher packet delivery ratio compared to baselines.
The 6G wireless aims at the Tb/s peak data rates are expected, a sub-millisecond latency, massive Internet of Things/vehicle connectivity, which requires sustainable access to audio over the air and energy-saving functionality. Cognitive Radio Networks CCNs help in alleviating the problem of spectrum scarcity, but classical sensing and allocation are still energy-consumption intensive, and sensitive to rapid spectrum variations. Our framework which centers on AI driven green CRN aims at integrating deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with transfer learning, energy harvesting (EH), reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) with other light-weight genetic refinement operations that optimally combine sensing timelines, transmit power, bandwidth distribution and RIS phase selection. Compared to two baselines, the utilization of MATLAB + NS-3 under dense loads, a traditional CRN with energy sensing under fixed policies, and a hybrid CRN with cooperative sensing under heuristic distribution of resource, there are (25-30%) fewer energy reserves used, sensing AUC greater than 0.90 and +6-13 p.p. higher PDR. The integrated framework is easily scalable to large IoT and vehicular applications, and it provides a feasible and sustainable roadmap to 6G CRNs. Index Terms--Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), 6G, Green Communication, Energy Efficiency, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), Spectrum Sensing, RIS, Energy Harvesting, QoS, IoT.