Multi‐objective spectrum assignment in heterogeneous cognitive radio networks for internet of things

<jats:title>Summary</jats:title><jats:p>Internet of Things (IoT) applications have massively increased in the last few years. Future‐generation IoTs are going to be massive in number, heterogeneous in nature, and extremely demanding in terms of computation and communication requirements. Therefore, effective techniques are needed to optimize the use of scarce communication resources. This work proposes a novel multi‐objective framework to investigate the channel assignment problem in cognitive radio network (CRN)‐based IoT applications. The multi‐objective optimization framework comprises three objective functions. The first objective aims to maximize the overall system throughput fairness, the second objective aims to maximize the overall system residual energy, and the third objective aims to increase the user satisfaction level by maximizing the overall priority index. The problem of channel assignment is modeled and solved using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) and ‐constraint technique. This technique generates a set of Pareto efficient solutions, and an optimal solution among these solutions is selected using a fuzzy logic decision mechanism. Moreover, power level selection is incorporated by solving the problem multiple times for different power levels and obtaining a preferred solution for each power level. The simulations are conducted to unveil an interesting trade‐off between the conflicting system design objectives, that is, the overall throughput and the overall residual energy while incorporating the significance of primary user (PU) activity when preforming channel assignment in CRN.</jats:p>