1
Non-Preemptive Queueing-Based Performance
Analysis Of Dynamic Spectrum Access For Vehicular
Communication System Over TV White Space
Mst. Najnin Sultana
Graduate School of IT & Telecommunications,
Inha University,
Incheon, South Korea
Naj250@gmail.com
Abstract--- Recently Television White Spaces are used without
license according to FCC rule. It is based on dynamically
selection of available TV spectrum (white spaces). It gives a
possibility of new sets of applications. In vehicular wireless
communication system, these white spaces can easily be used on
an opportunistic base. To model a multi-access multiuser
architecture and analyze network performances in both wired
and wireless system queueing theory has been massively used. In
this paper we modeled a vehicular dynamic spectrum access
(VDSA) system by using queueing theory which uses vacant TV
channels for communication. Dynamically assigned allowed
available channels are modeled as servers. To efficient use of
these limited number of channels we defined some non-
preemptive priority classes among users. The availability of
servers is occurred in a time-location phenomenon. This paper
examined the feasibility analysis of vehicular dynamic spectrum
access performance through TV white spaces via multi server
multi priority non-preemptive queueing theory. Both M/M/m and
M/G/m models are employed to evaluate the probability of all
channels are busy, the amount of channel utilizations by different
priority class users and also to calculate the transmission
latencies.
Keywords--- VDSA, Non-Preemptive Queueing, M/M/m, M/G/m,
UHF TV Channels.
I. INTRODUCTION
Intelligent transportation promises the convergence of
modern information technology (IT), communication
infrastructure, and sensing technology with standard
transportation systems to improve safety, reduce transportation
times, minimize vehicle wear, and optimize fuel consumption.
Applications of ITS range from vehicle-based collision
avoidance to general traffic monitoring and toll collection.
Dedicated short range communication (DSRC) is a robust
communication system to encompass all such vehicle-to-
vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication [1]. In 1999,
FCC allocated 75 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9GHz band for
DSRC. The standard for this system is IEEE802.11p. 5.9
DSRC provides data rate up to 27 Mbps and covers the range
from 100 to 1000 meters [2]. In addition, DSRC has a new
interest in vehicular-based communication in the 700 MHz
band. The 700MHz frequency band offers a significant
coverage advantage over current 5.9 GHz DSRC
implementations. At an identical transmitter power, a low-
frequency signal will have greater range than a high-frequency
signal due to 2 Journal of Electrical and Computer
Engineering decreased free space attenuation and lower
absorption by various building materials and obstructions [3].
978-1-4577-1177-0/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
Kyung Sup Kwak
Graduate School of IT & Telecommunications,
Inha University,
Incheon, South Korea
kskwak@inha.ac.kr
Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) was first demonstrated in
2006 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) and Shared Spectrum Company (SSC) of Vienna,
VA, which enables users of virtually any modern radio device
to utilize dynamic spectrum access techniques and thereby
dramatically improve spectrum efficiency, communications
reliability, and deployment time. A quantitative assessment of
DSA was made in [5].
Several licensed frequency bands could facilitate DSA-
based vehicular communication networks. But the UHF
television frequency range has been identified as a primary
candidate frequently due to its relatively static frequency
channel usage by incumbent TV broadcasters. The band
ranges from 470 to 698 MHz (Channel 14 through Channel
51) [6].
The FCC has recently explored the use of unused 700MHz
spectrum for white space applications. These are unlicensed
applications that actively avoid interference with licensed
applications in the same band. On February 17, 2009, the FCC
released the final rules for “Unlicensed Operation in the TV
Broadcast Bands” [7]. TV Band Devices (TVBDs) are divided
into two categories: fixed and personal/portable.
Personal/portable devices are restricted to channels 21 – 51
(except Channel 37) and are allowed a maximum EIRP of 100
mW on non-adjacent channels and 40 mW on adjacent
channels. Channel 37 is used for vehicular communication.
For portable device, a Cognitive Radio Standard has declared
in these channels [8].
In order to utilize vacant UHF TV channels for vehicular
communications, all vehicles must follow the rules defining
TV band devices (TVBDs) published by FCC on November
14, 2008. The vacant channels in this frequency range are
shared among wireless microphones and TVBDs [9].
To model multiple access schemes or transmission delay in
a communication system, queueing theory has been
extensively used [10, 11]. In Cognitive Radio system, some
works have been made based on queueing theory to calculate
throughput and delay and dynamic channel allocation [12, 13].
The study of queueing models with service interruptions is
very old fashion. Nowadays, different kinds of traffic models
have been employed in queueing system to model the primary
users who have the license the spectrum and the secondary
users who are unlicensed but authorized users use the vacant
channels opportunistically. In [14], an M/G/1 queue is used to
model a system containing one primary user and multiple
secondary users, where the secondary users function as
cooperative forwarder for primary users. A multiserver-
multipriority preemptive model is employed in [15] where
43 ICUFN 2011
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when among secondary users there are also some priorities.

When the higher priority secondary users enter the systems,
they treated as same as like primary users, the lower priorities
in service should be quit the channel. So, it increases the
transmission latencies for lower priority ones.
In [13] they used a dynamic learning algorithm (DSL) to
assign channel among users based on different utility
functions, delay deadlines, traffic priorities in Cognitive Radio
networks. A G/M/K/0 queueing model is employed in [16]
which multiplexed the arrival processes formed by primary
and secondary users. However, the total bandwidth is assumed Fig.1. Opportunistic vehicular spectrum access in vacant TV channels.
to be fixed here.
In this paper we applied multi-server, multi-class non-
preemptive queueing model to evaluate the quantitative
measure of the available resources through TV vacant
channels in the case of VDSA system. In [15], the authors
generated a spectral map of these white channels along I-90 in
the states of Massachusetts in America based on a geo-
location database approach. We use the same geo-location
database approach from [15] and set two priorities based on
arrival rate and service rate among secondary users but higher
priority users don’t preempt the lower ones.
The rest of the paper organized as follows. In section II we
model the VDSA system at the system level using queueing
theory. After that in III we give the exact and approximate
solutions for the different performance measurement
parameters. Section IV shows the corresponding results and Fig.2. TV Channel availability at different locations along I-90 in the
state of Massachusetts, USA [6].
analysis of VDSA system in TV white bands along I-90.
Finally in section V we conclude our paper. MATLAB is used After some assumption and abstractions a vehicular
as a source code and to analyze the system performance. communication system can be modeled as a virtual queueing
system. The queue is only used to approximate the process,
II. SYSTEM MODEL not representing a real entity. We don’t consider each vehicle
For traveling vehicles across location-varying vacant TV as a customer. Rather we consider a pair of communication
channels, to assign vacant spectrums dynamically is an entities as a customer. A communication set is defined as the
opportunistic multiple access scenarios shown in Fig.1. set of transmitters and receivers performing wireless
transmission regardless the transmission is one-to-one, one-to-
To use UHF TV channels, instead of the entire UHF TV many, or possibly multiple-to-multiple if cooperative
range, the authors in [6] selected 600 - 750 MHz and captured transmission is employed. The bandwidth request from each
4 sweeps per minute on average along the length of I-90 • The communication set is considered as an entity that enters the
sweep index increases from 1 on the top left corner of Fig. 2 queue for service. Fig. 3 demonstrates the virtual queueing
and indicates the traveling along 1-90 in the state of MA from system.
west to east. The western most point in their study was West
Stockbridge, MA and the eastern most point was Boston, MA. Then the available bandwidth resources within the
Fig. 2 shows the spectral temporal database of available transmission range of the vehicular communication set are
channels. modeled as server. There are 30 TV channels available in total
for access of portable TVBD. So, we consider 30 servers here.
To predict the performance measure based on this spectral- Each server is assumed to handle one communication link at a
temporal database and the estimated number of cars in the time.
proximity we consider a time-location snapshot when the
vehicles are travelling along the highways instead of the total Due to very short transmission time of a packet in compare
hours of driving. Because depending on location as well as with snapshot; we assumed a static channel here. Within one
time in each direction the number of cars per kilometer will be snapshot there is no service interruption is also considered
varied. Each time-location snapshot is about one minute in during the travelling location change with different TV
time and one kilometer in distance. Here, performance channel availability.
measures are made on a transmission of a typical packet. The transmission time of each communication link is
We consider the transmission range is as same as defined modeled as the service time of each communication set. The
in DSRC, 300 meters. And it is assumed that at each instance response time of delivering a packet includes the transmission
the bandwidth requirements for all types of communications time as well as waiting time when all channels are busy. Few
including both point-to-point and broadcast and also vehicle- times are also spent during channel sensing and searching the
to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications are channel availability list.
same.

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Fig. 4. The Basic model of priority queue (two classes-two servers).

 = 1 −   +   
 (1)
   
Fig.3. Packet-based queueing model for VDSA in vacant UHF TV bands. where, γ be the length of time from an instant when all servers
are busy, an arbitrary customer enters service and there are no
CSMA/CA with moderate traffic load is assumed to be class-a customers in queue, until the first moment there after
employed by the transceiver on each vehicle to prevent that the number of busy servers decreases to m-1 or a
collision. In the case of heavy load the performance of customer from one of the classes k, k+1,…,n enters service.
CSMA/CA is not so good so it will not be give an accurate The Laplace-Stieltjes transform (LST) [21] of γ is given by,
result for VDSA multiple access system and may give an
overly optimistic prediction of performance measure. In the
case of light traffic load of data packets, the packet collision
  =   
can be avoided in a well manner in CSMA/CA, thus VDSA 
multiple access system can be readily consider as a virtual =  +  +  −  +  +   − 4   2 
queue following a FCFS or based on different criteria priority
(2)
queue is also handled.
and PQ is the probability that all servers are busy,
In this paper, in the queueing model we consider different
priority classes of users using the vacant bands. There is no
service interruption of lower priority when higher priority 
  
customer enters the system and lower one is in service. Higher  = ∑
 +  (3)
! ! !
priority customer should wait in particular queue assigned for
higher priority until the service completion of lower priority
user. After completion the service higher one enters in service and
even though some lower priority customers are in their
assigned queue from earlier the higher one.
 = / ,  = ∑  ,  = ∑ 
The services of secondary users are only stopped when
primary users demand that channels in which the services are Wagner applied matrix-analytic methods to calculate the
going on. But we avoid this topic here. We also not consider Laplace-Stieltjes Transform of the actual waiting time.
any kind of interference, extensively long transmission delay, Leemans, Venkataramani et al. [22] considered the stationary
and channel jamming. distribution of queue lengths and waiting times. They also
used three dimensional state spaces and applied a matrix-
That means we consider a multi server multi priority non- geometric method to analyze the queue [23, 24]. Federgruen et
preemptive model whose performance measures will be done al [25] characterized the performance space of M/G/m non-
based on the average number of cars as well as the available preemptive queueing system.
vacant UHF TV channels within the transmission range.
For M/M/m system, the average waiting time for different
III. SOLUTIONS FOR THE QUEUEING MODEL priority classes customer [26],
The basic model of multi server multi priority queue is 
depicted in Fig. 4. It consists of two servers and there are only  = (4)
  
two classes of customers. The heterogeneous priority structure
is constructed by giving class A non-preemptive priority over ∑
  
class B on Si, while class B receives priority over class A on where  = .

S2. The service discipline within each class is FCFS. Both
arrival and service processes are stochastic processes with Then the response time,
class dependent parameters. We assume that the arrival
process is Poisson, with arrival rates λa and λb for class A and 
 = +  (5)
Class B respectively. Consequently, the interarrival times are 
exponentially distributed. It is also assumed that the service
times are exponentially distributed, with parameters 1/a and For M/G/1 multi priority system, the waiting time and the
1/b. response time are as follows:
There are so many approaches to calculate the queue
length and waiting time for each class. Gail, Kao, Wagner et al ∑ 

  
have studied multiserver non-preemptive model with two  = (6)
 ⋯  ⋯ 
priority classes [17, 18, 19]. Kao implemented a power–series
method for the two priority queues. Kella et al [20] calculated 
the waiting time for non-preemptive priority M/M/m queue as  = +  (7)

follows:

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For multiple servers, the calculation of the mean residual


time  = ∑   
 is not so easy. But if the service times of

all priority classes are identically and exponentially
distributed, then we calculate R in a convenient way. If all
priority classes have exponentially distributed service times
with common mean 1/µ, then (6) have a closed form solution

with  = , where PQ is the probability of all channels are
busy.
Again, if we set higher priority to customers of short
service times, the average delay per customer tends to be
reduced. Then for a non-preemptive system with two customer
classes A and B, with respective arrival and service rates λA,
A and λB, µ B, and if A > µ B, then the average delay per
customer,
   
=
 
is smaller when A is given priority over B than when B is
given priority over A.
IV. ANALYSIS OF VDSA IN VACANT UHF TV
CHANNELS
In this work, we use the data collected from Interstate I-90
in the state of Massachusetts shown in Fig.3 of [15]. The
information about the available bandwidth in vacant UHF TV
channels are extracted from Fig.5 of [6]. We reproduce the
average number of cars per kilometer along I-90 using Fig.
3(b) of [15] and again interpolate the samples which shown in
Fig. 5.
From Fig. 1 we can understand that most white channels
are adjacent to TV channels being used for broadcast. So, the
output power of portable devices in vacant channels adjacent
to TV broadcasting channels should keep under 40 mW.
It is assumed that the transmitting vehicle and the
receiving vehicle of a communication pair are separated by the
transmission range, 300 meters. So, any car within the 500
meters sensing the communication pair cannot use the same
channel. So, in a snapshot the number of cars increases to 1.3
times of the average number of cars per kilometer. As a
consequence the number of customers that is number of
communication set considered is about 65% of the total
number of cars per kilometer on I-90 in a snapshot.
Considering data rate for each higher priority customer is
800 kbps and for each lower priority customer is 400 kbps.
Average packet length is assumed of 500 bytes. We consider
moderate traffic load that means sub-urban area. So,
Okumura-Hata path loss model is used. Here, we use two
types of arrival rates of 20 messages/second and 60
messages/second for two priority classes with meaninterarrival
Fig. 5. Average number of cars per kilometer along I-90.
4
time of 100 ms. In this analysis, both M/M/m and M/G/m
models are used.
We considering about 20% customers have higher priority.
For the arrival rate of 20 message/second for priority 1
customers experience comparatively less blocking probability.
With arrival rate of 60 message/second priority 2 customers
experience higher probability to get the channels are busy. In
the area of Boston both classes have higher probability.
Fig.7 shows the maximum mean response time of 12 ms
for priority 2 customers at Boston in both M/M/m and M/G/m
FCFS models where both priority classes have same data rate
of 800 kbps. The maximum response time of 11 ms is again
obtained for the priority 2 customers where lower data rate of
400 kbps are assigned to priority 2 customers and higher data
rate of 800 kbps are assigned to priority 1 customers. For
priority 1 customers we also have higher mean response time
at Boston of about 10 ms but still lower than that of priority 2
(8)
customers. The second largest values for mean response time
are obtained at Auburn.
It is noticeable that for the same priority class of customer
we have equal mean response time for both M/M/m and
M/G/m model. It has been happened due to different waiting
times in both model are less comparable with transmission
time in non-preemptive queueing model as there is no service
interruption due to priority. We also see that when we use two
different service rates for two classes and given highest
priority to higher service rate reduces the average amount of
mean response time. In addition, if we compare these results
with [15] where preemptive queueing model is used, we see
that in our model we have too much reasonable mean response
time which meets the requirement of DSRC very well for all
cases and for all kinds of customers.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we analyze the feasibility of VDSA in vacant
UHF TV white space. We use multi-server multi-priority non-
preemptive queueing model to evaluate the system
performance. The models are applied to the vehicles traveling
along I-90 in the state of Massachusetts. The results show that
in suburban area, vacant TV band is a feasible resource for
vehicle communication which meets the requirements of
DSRC. Because we have much lower mean response time for
each class of customers in the suburban area, in a consequence
we can say that in area of much lower traffic load such as rural
area, this resource also be useful.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was supported by the MKE (The Ministry of
Knowledge Economy), Korea, under the ITRC (Information
Technology Research Center) support program supervised by
the NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) (NIPA-
2011-C1090-1121-0001).
46
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Fig. 6. The Probability of all channel being busy observed by different classes customers.

Fig.7. The predicted response times for customers of two priority classes, for both
M/M/m, M/G/m (FCFS, with two different service rates for two priority classes) model.
[12] H. Li, “Socially optimal queuing control in cognitive radio systems:
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