Multi-Agent Spectrum Sharing

Job Elliott, Graduate Student Member, IEEE, Justin G. Metcalf, Golnaz Habibi

This project explores how multiple cognitive radars can learn to share limited wireless spectrum with other radio users without interfering with one another. Using machine learning (ML), each device independently decides where and how widely to transmit within a fixed 100 MHz band. The system analyzes real or simulated signal activity to detect which parts of the spectrum are currently in use and which are open. Based on this information, the devices adapt their transmission choices to avoid crowded frequencies while making efficient use of available space. The goal is to develop a flexible, scalable approach to spectrum sharing that could support future wireless communication systems. Experimental results using both over-the-air software-defined radio (SDR) recordings and simulated environments demonstrate that the proposed meta-learning approach consistently balances competing objectives better than conventional reinforcement learning (RL) methods in multi-agent spectrum-sharing scenarios. Across five multi-agent benchmark environments, our proposed method achieved the highest average reward among the primary baseline algorithms while simultaneously maintaining low collision…