Abstract—Future generations of wireless systems require opportunisticspectrum access techniques to effectively detectand access temporarily unused spectrum bands. Cognitiveradios, with their ability to learn and adapt to theirenvironment, promise to possess such powerful capabilities.As a consequence, the spectrum allocation of a wirelesssystem could quickly and appropriately auto-adapt to reactto a sudden traffic variation.In this article, we propose an innovative and efficientdistributed spectrum allocation algorithm, whose objectiveis to maximize the system UL capacity by exploiting multiuserdiversity. The algorithm is capable of learning overtime and of adapting the spectrum allocation when changesoccur in the radio environment. Such an algorithm findsits application in the scope of future WLAN systems (e.g.:802.11x).

Index Terms—swarm intelligence, distributed optimization,OFDMA, multi-user diversity, multi-channel opportunisticscheduling, cognitive radio

Cite: J.C. Dunat, D. Grandblaise, and C. Bonnet, "Collaborative Allocation of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex Sub-Carriers using the Swarm Intelligence," Journal of Communications, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 68-76, 2006.