Applying intelligent software agents in a distributed channel allocation scheme for cellular networks

As the demand for mobile services has increased, the need for an efficient allocation of channels is essential to ensure good performance, given the limited spectrum available. Techniques for increasing flexibility in radio resource acquisition are needed to handle the heterogeneity of services and bit rates to be supported in the forthcoming generations of mobile communications. To improve the performance and efficiency of the channel allocation, we propose the use of a particular agent architecture that allows base stations to be more flexible and intelligent, including planning to attempt to balance the load in advance of reactive requests. The simulation results prove that the use of intelligent agents controlling the allocation of channels is feasible and the agent negotiation is an important feature of the system in order to improve perceived quality of service and to improve the load balancing of the traffic.