Cooperative transmissions for secondary spectrum access in cognitive radios

In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), the primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) will interfere with each other, which may severely degrade the performances of both primary and secondary transmissions. In this paper, we propose a two‐phase cognitive transmission (TCT) protocol for secondary spectrum access in CRNs, aiming at improving the secondary transmission performance while guaranteeing the quality‐of‐service (QoS) of primary transmissions. In TCT protocol, SUs gain the opportunities to access the licensed spectrum through assisting primary transmissions using superposition coding (SC), where SUs limit their transmit power to satisfy a given primary QoS requirement and also employ interference cancelation technique to mitigate the interference from PUs. Under the constraint of satisfying a required primary outage probability, we derive the closed‐form expressions of secondary outage probabilities over Rayleigh fading channels for proposed TCT protocol. Numerical and simulation results reveal that, with a guaranteed primary outage probability, TCT achieves better secondary transmission performance than traditional case. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

认知中继协同无线通信系统功率分配和混合频谱接入方案

文章首先对Underlay 认知-中继协作（cognitive radio relay cooperation, CR-RC）系统信源和中继的功率分配问题进行了研究,获得了Underlay CR-RC系统信源、中继独立功率分配(independent power allocation, IPA）和联合功率分配（joint power allocation, JPA）方案,并给出了基于IPA和JPA的CR-RC系统的中断概率和各态历经容量的封闭解析解;其次通过对Underlay CR-RC系统中断性能的比较分析,提出了高频谱效率、高能量效率的混合Interweave-Underlay CR-RC方案。在该方案中,定义了主、从用户中断概率约束,充分考虑了主、从系统的服务质量(quality of service, QoS),当即使从用户的发射功率为零,主系统的QoS仍不能满足时,从用户以最大功率发送信号,无需考虑其对主用户的影响;当由于很强的主用户干扰,使得从用户的QoS不能得到满足时,从用户不再发射信号,发信功率为零;当主、从系统的QoS能够同时满足时,以Underlay模式工作。      

Joint power allocation and beamforming with users selection for cognitive radio networks via discrete stochastic optimization

Cognitive radio is a promising technique to dynamic utilize the spectrum resource and improve spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we study the problem of mutual interference cancellation among secondary users (SUs) and interference control to primary users (PUs) in spectrum sharing underlay cognitive radio networks. Multiple antennas are used at the secondary base station to form multiple beams towards individual SUs, and a set of SUs are selected to adapt to the beams. For the interference control to PUs, we study power allocation among SUs to guarantee the interference to PUs below a tolerable level while maximizing SUs?? QoS. Based on these conditions, the problem of joint power allocation and beamforming with SUs selection is studied. Specifically, we emphasize on the condition of imperfect channel sensing due to hardware limitation, short sensing time and network connectivity issues, which means that only the noisy estimate of channel information for SUs can be obtained. We formulate the optimization problem to maximize the sum rate as a discrete stochastic optimization problem, then an efficient algorithm based on a discrete stochastic optimization method is proposed to solve the joint power allocation and beamforming with SUs selection problem. We verify that the proposed algorithm has fast convergence rate, low computation complexity and good tracking capability in time-varying radio environment. Finally, extensive simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme.     

Mutual interference considered power allocation in OFDM-based cognitive networks: the multiple SUs case

Power allocation for secondary users (SUs) in cognitive networks is an important issue to ensure the SUs’ quality of service. When the mutual interference between the primary users (PUs) and the SUs is taken into consideration, it is wanted to achieve the conflict-free power allocation while synchronously maximizing the capacity of the secondary network. In this paper, the optimal power allocation problem is considered in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing cognitive networks. The single SU case is primarily formulated as a constrained optimization problem. On this basis, the multiple SUs case is then studied and simulated in detail. During the analysis, the mutual interference among the PUs and the SUs is comprehensively formulated as the restrictions on the SU’s transmission power and the optimization problems are finally resolved by iterative water-filling algorithms. Consequently, the proposed power allocation scheme restrains the interference to the primary network, as well as maximizing the capacity of the secondary network. Specifying the multiple-SUs case, simulation results are exhibited in a simplified scenario to confirm the efficiency of the proposed water-filling algorithm, and the influence of the mutual interference on the power allocation and the system capacity is further illustrated.     

Joint Bandwidth and Power Allocations for Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect Spectrum Sensing

In this paper we study the joint bandwidth and power allocations for Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), which opportunistically operate on a set of channels unused by multiple Primary User (PU) Networks. Our objective is to minimize the total power allocation of all coexisting Secondary Users (SUs) and guarantee their Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. We consider the imperfect spectrum sensing of CRNs and adopt the interference constraint (in terms of the uplink interference constraint to PU Base Stations) to address PUs’ protection when miss-detection happens. We propose an efficient joint allocation algorithm to solve our problem and demonstrate its performance through sufficient numerical experiments.     

QoS-Driven Power Allocation Under Peak and Average Interference Constraints in Cognitive Radio Networks

Efficient radio spectrum utilization can be improved using cognitive radio technology. In this work, we consider a spectrum underlay cognitive radio system operating in a fading environment. We propose an efficient power control scheme that maximizes the effective capacity of the secondary user, provisioning quality of service while on the same time the communication of the primary user is guaranteed through interference constraints. The specific power allocation scheme uses a policy in which the outage events of the primary user are exploited leading to a significant increase of the secondary user’s effective capacity. Moreover, the interference of the primary link to the secondary is taken into account so as to study a more realistic scenario. In order to safeguard primary user’s communication, two types of restrictions are considered: the traditional interference power constraint and the proposed inverse signal to interference plus noise ratio constraint. Different scenarios depending on the nature of the constraints (peak/average) are studied and their impact on the performance of the primary and secondary users is investigated. The superiority of the proposed schemes is demonstrated through their comparison with two reference power control schemes. Finally, numerical calculations, validated with simulation results, confirm the theoretical analysis and evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme for all the different scenarios.     

A preload cooperative sensing scheme with low overhead in cognitive radio networks

In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), users can collaborate to improve the accuracy of spectrum sensing, but a large number of secondary users reporting their local sensing results may create significant overhead. In this paper, we propose a new pre‐sensing scheme, called preload cooperative sensing (PCS), which not only attains the given sensing accuracy for CRNs but also reduces the whole sensing time T. In order to reduce the sensing overhead in CRNs, the proposed scheme adopts two key technologies: selective reporting technology and pre‐sensing sequential detection technology. Selective reporting technology implies that only those users, which detect the presence of primary users, need to report the results, while pre‐sensing sequential detection technology is an asynchronous parallel scheme, which sets a threshold to determine the presence of primary users. Considering the preload sensing slots, we derive a formula to express the overall miss detection probability, and at a given Quality of Service (QoS) value, the sensing overheads of PCS are analyzed over Rayleigh fading channel. Also, we consider the overhead minimization problems in PCS. Simulation results show the superiority and efficiency of the PCS scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Elastic bandwidth allocation scheme with softened peak interference power constraint for the dynamic cognitive radio systems

The popularity of diverse wireless communication systems has led to increased strains on the unlicensed spectrum. However, investigations have shown that vast portions of the licensed spectrum remain underutilized across frequency, space and time. To improve the utilization of the existing radio spectrum, cognitive radio (CR) allows a secondary system to access the licensed spectrum as long as the primary system’s operation is not compromised. Two main CR transmission modes, spectrum overlay and underlay have been proposed. In the spectrum overlay mode, challenges in quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning arise due to the necessity for secondary users to vacate the channels when a primary user appears. In the underlay model, interference caused to the primary system has to be carefully managed resulting in a constraint of the secondary system’s transmit power, which causes difficulty in QoS provisioning. In this paper, we propose an elastic bandwidth allocation scheme to make concurrent use of both spectrum overlay and underlay transmission modes. Different from existing hybrid transmission strategy, our scheme employ a novel softened peak interference power constraint to improve the performance of the secondary system while still granting the superior protection to the primary system transmissions. This allows the proposed scheme to achieve a superior transmission capacity in the CR network while avoiding the weaknesses of the both spectrum overlay and spectrum underlay transmission modes.     

Opportunistic power allocation strategies and fair subcarrier allocation in OFDM-based cognitive radio networks

In this paper we have studied the subcarrier and optimal power allocation strategy for OFDM-based cognitive radio (CR) networks. Firstly, in order to protect the primary user communication from the interference of the cognitive user transmissions in fading wireless channels, we design an opportunistic power control scheme to maximize the cognitive user capacity without degrading primary user’s QoS. The mathematical optimization problem is formulated as maximizing the capacity of the secondary users under the interference constraint at the primary receiver and the Lagrange method is applied to obtain the optimal solution. Secondly, in order to limit the outage probability within primary user’s tolerable range we analyze the outage probability of the primary user with respect to the interference power of the secondary user for imperfect CSI. Finally, in order to get the better tradeoff between fairness and system capacity in cognitive radio networks, we proposed an optimal algorithm of jointing subcarrier and power allocation scheme among multiple secondary users in OFDM-based cognitive radio networks. Simulation results demonstrate that our scheme can improve the capacity performance and efficiently guarantee the fairness of secondary users.     

Distributed power control for multiuser cognitive radio networks with quality of service and interference temperature constraints

One of the most challenging problems in dynamic resource allocation for cognitive radio networks is to adjust transmission power of secondary users (SUs) while quality of service needs of both SUs and primary users (PUs) are guaranteed. Most power control algorithms only consider interference temperature constraint in single user scenario while ignoring the interference from PUs to SUs and minimum signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) requirement of SUs. In this paper, a distributed power control algorithm without user cooperation is proposed for multiuser underlay CNRs. Specifically, we focus on maximizing total throughput of SUs subject to both maximum allowable transmission power constraint and SINR constraint, as well as interference temperature constraint. To reduce the burden of information exchange and computational complexity, an average interference constraint is proposed. Parameter range and convergence analysis are given for feasible solutions. The resource allocation is transformed into a convex optimization problem, which is solved by using Lagrange dual method. In computer simulations, the effectiveness of our proposed scheme is shown by comparing with distributed constrained power control algorithm and Nash bargaining power control game algorithm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving Voice‐Service Support in Cognitive Radio Networks

Voice service is very demanding in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The available spectrum in a CRN for CR users varies owing to the presence of licensed users. On the other hand, voice packets are delay sensitive and can tolerate a limited amount of delay. This makes the support of voice traffic in a CRN a complicated task that can be achieved by devising necessary considerations regarding the various network functionalities. In this paper, the support of secondary voice users in a CRN is investigated. First, a novel packet scheduling scheme that can provide the required quality of service (QoS) to voice users is proposed. The proposed scheme utilizes the maximum packet transmission rate for secondary voice users by assigning each secondary user the channel with the best level of quality. Furthermore, an analytical framework developed for a performance analysis of the system, is described in which the effect of erroneous spectrum sensing on the performance of secondary voice users is also taken into account. The QoS parameters of secondary voice users, which were obtained analytically, are also detailed. The analytical results were verified through the simulation, and will provide helpful insight in supporting voice services in a CRN.     

Joint routing and channel assignment using online learning in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) are the solution for the problem of underutilizing the licensed spectrum for which there are more requests in the last couple of decades. In CRNs, Secondary users (SUs) are permitted to access opportunistically the licensed spectrum owned by primary users (PUs). In this paper, we address the problem of joint routing and channel assignment for several flows generated by source SUs to a given destination. We consider a more realistic model based on Markov modulated Poisson process for modeling the PUs traffic at each channel and the SUs try to exploit short lived spectrum holes between the PUs packets at the selected channel. The SUs want to cooperatively minimize the end-to-end delay of source SUs flows meanwhile the quality of service requirements of the PUs would be met. To consider partial observation of SUs about PUs activity at all channels and quick adaptation of SUs decisions to environment changes and cooperative interaction of SUs, we use decentralized partially observable markov decision process for modeling the problem. Then, an online learning based scheme is proposed for solving the problem. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed method and the optimal method is close to each other. Also, simulation results show that the proposed method greatly outperforms related works at control of interference to the PUs while maintains the end-to-end delay of SU flows in a low level.

     

Resource Allocation Algorithm for Multi‐cell Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect Spectrum Sensing and Proportional Fairness

This paper addresses the resource allocation (RA) problem in multi‐cell cognitive radio networks. Besides the interference power threshold to limit the interference on primary users PUs caused by cognitive users CUs, a proportional fairness constraint is used to guarantee fairness among multiple cognitive cells and the impact of imperfect spectrum sensing is taken into account. Additional constraints in typical real communication scenarios are also considered—such as a transmission power constraint of the cognitive base stations, unique subcarrier allocation to at most one CU, and others. The resulting RA problem belongs to the class of NP‐hard problems. A computationally efficient optimal algorithm cannot therefore be found. Consequently, we propose a suboptimal RA algorithm composed of two modules: a subcarrier allocation module implemented by the immune algorithm, and a power control module using an improved sub‐gradient method. To further enhance algorithm performance, these two modules are executed successively, and the sequence is repeated twice. We conduct extensive simulation experiments, which demonstrate that our proposed algorithm outperforms existing algorithms.     

Reinforcement Learning Enhanced Iterative Power Allocation in Stochastic Cognitive Wireless Mesh Networks

As the scarce spectrum resource is becoming over-crowded, cognitive wireless mesh networks have great flexibility to improve the spectrum utilization by opportunistically accessing the licensed frequency bands. One of the critical challenges for realizing such network is how to adaptively allocate transmit powers and frequency resources among secondary users (SUs) of the licensed frequency bands while maintaining the quality-of-service (QoS) requirement of the primary users (PUs). In this paper, we consider the power control problem in the context of cognitive wireless mesh networks formed by a number of clusters under the total transmit power constraint by each SU as well as the mean-squared error (MSE) constraint by PUs. The problem is modeled as a non-cooperative game. A distributed iterative power allocation algorithm is designed to reach the Nash equilibrium (NE) between the coexisting interfered links. It offers an opportunity for SUs to negotiate the best use of power and frequency with each other. Furthermore, how to adaptively negotiate the transmission power level and spectrum usage among the SUs according to the changing networking environment is discussed. We present an intelligent policy based on reinforcement learning to acquire the stochastic behavior of PUs. Based on the learning approach, the SUs can adapt to the dynamics of the interference environment state and reach new NEs quickly through partially cooperative information sharing via a common control channel. Theoretical analysis and numerical results both show effectiveness of the intelligent policy.     

Joint Power and Time Allocation Scheme with QoS Constraints in Overlay Multi-user Cognitive Radio Networks

This paper studies the case of an overlay cognitive radio network where the primary user leases spectral resources to the secondary user in exchange for cooperation, considering that both type of users have specific quality of service requirements. We investigate the problem of joint power and time allocation for the secondary access during the cooperative phase, with a view to optimizing the effective capacity of the primary user given an average energy constraint for the secondary user. Afterwards, the optimal power allocation of the secondary user for its own transmission phase is investigated in order to maximize the effective capacity of the secondary link. The proposed joint power and time allocation mechanism is compared with an optimal time/constant power allocation scheme and a less sophisticated baseline allocation scheme, i.e. power allocation under constant time and its superiority is proven for various network parameters. The reference model of one primary–one secondary user is extended to a general multi user cognitive radio network through the proposed pairing mechanism based on matching theory. Particularly, considering the remarks of the reference scenario, we propose two different matching schemes (with/without consideration of primary users’ quality of service requirements) and we confirm their superiority compared to other matching mechanisms.     

Distributed cross‐layer optimization for wireless regional area network‐based cognitive radio networks

This paper presents a study of a cross‐layer design through joint optimization of spectrum allocation and power control for cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The spectrum of interest is divided into independent channels licensed to a set of primary users (PUs). The secondary users are activated only if the transmissions do not cause excessive interference to PUs. In particular, this paper studies the downlink channel assignment and power control in a CRN with the coexistence of PUs and secondary users. The objective was to maximize the total throughput of a CRN. A mathematical model is presented and subsequently formulated as a binary integer programming problem, which belongs to the class of non‐deterministic polynomial‐time hard problems. Subsequently, we develop a distributed algorithm to obtain sub‐optimal results with lower computational complexity. The distributed algorithm iteratively improves the network throughput, which consists of several modules including maximum power calculation, excluded channel sets recording, base station throughput estimation, base station sorting, and channel usage implementation. Through investigating the impacts of the different parameters, simulation results demonstrates that the distributed algorithm can achieve a better performance than two other schemes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimization of spectrum utilization in cognitive radio system

In Cognitive Radio (CR) networks, CR user has to detect the spectrum channel periodically to make sure that the channel is idle during data transmission frame in order to avoid the collisions to the primary users. Hence recent research has been focused on the interference avoidance problem. Quality of Service (QoS) requirement of CR user will affect the time of data transmission in each frame. In this paper, in order to solve the interference avoidance and spectrum utilization problems without cooperation among CR users, a new scheme to obtain the optimal duration of data transmission frame is proposed to maximize the spectrum utilization and guarantee the protection to the primary users. The main advantages of our proposed scheme include the followings: (1) QoS requirement of CR user is concerned; (2) p-persistent Media Access Control (MAC) random access is used to avoid the collisions among CR users; (3) CR network system capacity is considered. We develop a Markov chain of the primary spectrum channel states and an exponential distribution of the CR user??s traffic model to analyze the performance of our proposed scheme. Computer simulation shows that there is an optimal data transmission time to maximize the spectrum utilization. However, the regulatory constraint of the collision rate to the primary users has to be satisfied at the expense of spectrum utilization. And also the tradeoff between the spectrum utilization and the capacity of the CR system is taken into account.     

A low‐complexity resource allocation algorithm in OFDMA‐based cooperative cognitive radio networks

In this paper, we propose a low‐complexity resource allocation algorithm for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing cooperative cognitive radio networks, where multiple primary users (PUs) and multiple secondary users (SUs) coexist. Firstly, we introduce a new concept of ‘efficiency capacity’ to represent the channel conditions of SUs by considering both of the interference caused by the PUs and the channel gains of the SUs with the assist of the relays. Secondly, we allocate the relay, subcarrier and transmission power jointly under the constraint of limiting interference caused to the PUs. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve a high data rate with a relative low power level. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance analysis of an opportunistic multi‐user cognitive network with multiple primary users

Consider a multi‐user underlay cognitive network where multiple cognitive users concurrently share the spectrum with a primary network with multiple users. The channel between the secondary network is assumed to have independent but not identical Nakagami‐m fading. The interference channel between the secondary users (SUs) and the primary users is assumed to have Rayleigh fading. A power allocation based on the instantaneous channel state information is derived when a peak interference power constraint is imposed on the secondary network in addition to the limited peak transmit power of each SU. The uplink scenario is considered where a single SU is selected for transmission. This opportunistic selection depends on the transmission channel power gain and the interference channel power gain as well as the power allocation policy adopted at the users. Exact closed form expressions for the moment‐generating function, outage performance, symbol error rate performance, and the ergodic capacity are derived. Numerical results corroborate the derived analytical results. The performance is also studied in the asymptotic regimes, and the generalized diversity gain of this scheduling scheme is derived. It is shown that when the interference channel is deeply faded and the peak transmit power constraint is relaxed, the scheduling scheme achieves full diversity and that increasing the number of primary users does not impact the diversity order. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Master-Slave Stochastic Knapsack Modeling for Fully Dynamic Spectrum Allocation

Scarcity problem of radio spectrum resource stimulates the research on cognitive radio technology, in which dynamic spectrum allocation attracts lots of attention. For higher access efficiency in cognitive radio context, we suggest a fully dynamic access scheme for primary and secondary users, which is modeled by a master-slave stochastic knapsack process. Equilibrium behavior of this knapsack model is analyzed: expressions of blocking probability of both master and slave classes are derived as performance criterion, as well as forced termination probability for the slave class. All the theoretic results are verified by numeric simulations. Compared to traditional opportunistic spectrum access (OSA), which can be regarded as half dynamic due to primary users?? rough preemption, our scheme leads to less termination events for the secondary users while keeping the same performance for the primary class, thus promotes the system access performance. Nonideal spectrum sensing algorithm with detection error is also taken into consideration to evaluate its impact on system access performance, which is a practical issue for implementation.