A Survey of Cooperative Games for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cooperative cognitive radio networks are new cognitive radio paradigm. Cooperative communication approaches, such as cooperative spectrum sensing and cooperative spectrum sharing, are playing key roles in the development of cognitive radio networks. To achieve the high performance, a cooperative cognitive communication framework is often used to model various cooperative spectrum sensing or sharing scenarios. However, its implementation faces numerous challenges due to the complexity of mobility and traffic models, the needs of dynamic spectrum access, the heterogeneous requirements from different users, and the distributed structure of the network. Fortunately, cooperative game theory can be used to formulate and model the interactions among licensed and unlicensed users for spectrum sensing and spectrum sharing to efficiently allocate spectrum resource in the highly dynamic and distributed radio environment. In this paper, we first present the cooperative communication technologies and describe their existing challenges, then introduce different game solutions, after that, we discuss several cooperative game strategies, and analyze the associated their applications in cognitive radio networks, at final, some open directions for future research on economic strategies in cooperative communication in cognitive radio networks are proposed.     

Replacement of Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio

Two major challenges exist in the development and deployment of cognitive radio networks: spectrum sensing and hidden terminal problem. In this research, we consider a network structure where the spectrum sensing task is separated from the unlicensed users (secondary users). The service provider for the secondary users needs to place sensing devices within the networks of licensed users (primary users). These sensing devices sense the primary users? activity. The sensing devices also decide whether to admit a secondary user?s transmission. A new cognitive cycle is proposed accordingly. The proposed protocol is analyzed using the theory of Lamé curve. The problem of optimally locating sensing devices and the properties of the proposed system are studied for single-user case and multi-user case. For the case without a separate control channel, a lowtemperature handshake technique is proposed for handshakes between the secondary users and the sensing devices. The other advantage of the proposed scheme is from the business model point of view: the expensive sensing devices will be implemented by the cognitive radio service provider, instead of being built in the secondary user devices which are usually consumer products demanding low cost.     

DCR‐MAC: distributed cognitive radio MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks

The MAC protocol for a cognitive radio network should allow access to unused spectrum holes without (or with minimal) interference to incumbent system devices. To achieve this main goal, in this paper a distributed cognitive radio MAC (DCR‐MAC) protocol is proposed for wireless ad hoc networks that provides for the detection and protection of incumbent systems around the communication pair. DCR‐MAC operates over a separate common control channel and multiple data channels; hence, it is able to deal with dynamics of resource availability effectively in cognitive networks. A new type of hidden node problem is introduced that focuses on possible signal collisions between incumbent devices and cognitive radio ad hoc devices. To this end, a simple and efficient sensing information exchange mechanism between neighbor nodes with little overhead is proposed. In DCR‐MAC, each ad hoc node maintains a channel status table with explicit and implicit channel sensing methods. Before a data transmission, to select an optimal data channel, a reactive neighbor information exchange is carried out. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed cognitive radio MAC protocol can greatly reduce interference to the neighbor incumbent devices. A higher number of neighbor nodes leads to better protection of incumbent devices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Utility driven cooperative spectrum sensing scheduling for heterogeneous multi-channel cognitive radio networks

Owing to the spectrum scarcity and energy constrained devices in wireless networks arises the demand for an efficient spectrum sensing technique which improves both sensing performance and energy efficiency for cognitive radio networks. This paper proposes a cooperative spectrum sensing scheduling (CSSS) scheme for heterogeneous multi-channel cognitive radio networks with the objective of finding an efficient sensing schedule to enhance network utility while keeping the energy depletion at a lower level. We start with formulating the CSSS problem as an optimization problem, which captures both the energy-performance and performance opportunity trade-offs. We prove that the formulated CSSS problem is non-deterministic polynomial hard (NP-hard). To tackle the higher computational complexity of the formulated problem, we propose a greedy-based heuristic solution, which produces a sub-optimal result in polynomial time. To reduce energy consumption during spectrum sensing, we make secondary users to adaptively decide on the sensing duration based on the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), where higher SNR leads to lower sensing duration and vice-versa. For enhancing network throughput, SUs sense multiple channels in the order of their suitability for data transmission to explore as many numbers of channels as possible within the permitted maximum sensing time. We consider erroneous nature of reporting channel to make the cooperative decision robust against errors during reporting. Simulation based results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in terms of utility, energy overhead, and the number of channels explored compared to similar schemes from literature.

     

An urn occupancy approach for cognitive radio networks in DTVB white spaces

The paradigm of cognitive radio recently received considerable interest to address the so called ‘spectrum scarcity’ problem. In the USA, the Federal Communications Commission issued the regulatory for the use of cognitive radio in the TV white space spectrum. The primary objective is the design of cognitive devices able to combine the use of spectrum sensing and GEO-location information with the concept of the cognitive control channel to manage the cognitive devices. The recent standard ECMA-392 defines physical layer techniques and medium access control protocols to enable a cognitive network managed in a fully distributed fashion. In this work, we pursue the design of an efficient medium access control protocol for the cognitive control channel to flexibly and reliably exchange messages inside the cognitive radio network. In particular, we explore how the cognitive devices can raise their awareness of spectrum vacancies of spectrum vacancies by means of sensing when the distributed beaconing defined by ECMA-392 is used. Our main contributions are the following: (1) we propose a proprietary medium access control protocol based on the Standard ECMA-392; (2) we model the behavior of the cognitive radio network by means of an innovative urn model approach, (3) we investigate the access of the cognitive devices to the frequency channels with and without spoofing attacks and (4) we investigate the ability of the cognitive devices to identify frequency holes accounting for perfect and imperfect spectrum sensing, as well as we study the network throughput.     

认知网络中基于簇结构的拓扑形成算法

在多跳的认知无线网络中,网络的拓扑发现算法都必须极其灵活以适应于环境内频谱空洞的改变。研究了认知无线电网络的基本特点,结合Ad-hoc网络簇的概念,在得到认知设备的感知结果的基础上,提出了一种适合于认知无线电网络的有效的拓扑形成算法。在提出的算法中,将可用的频谱空洞信息和节点的能量信息综合考虑,是一个组合的优化算法。     

Maximizing the lifetime of energy‐constrained cooperative spectrum sensing sensor network

Adding the cognitive capability to wireless sensor networks allows the sensors to monitor the spectrum and identify the spectrum holes to operate in different frequencies according to the radio environment which result in better spectrum utilization. Spectrum sensing is a main component in any cognitive radio network. In this paper, we propose a new cooperative sensing scheme based on energy detection for cognitive sensor networks which is constrained by the energy limitation of the wireless sensor elements. The proposed scheme minimizes the sensing energy for individual sensor and carefully selects the suitable participant sensors in each cooperative sensing process. This results in maximizing the lifetime of energy‐constrained wireless sensor networks. The proposed scheme also takes into consideration the constraints on the detection accuracy. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme prolonged the lifetime of the cognitive network, makes efficient usage of available spectrum by secondary users, and satisfy the target detection performance.     

随机共振在认知无线电频谱感知中应用的最新研究进展

频谱感知是认知无线电网络的一项关键技术.低信噪比(SNR)环境下频谱检测的性能会大幅降低,而随机共振(SR)能有效提高信号信噪比,所以将其应用到频谱感知中,能增强认知用户对主用户(PU)的检测性能.首先介绍了随机共振在认知无线电频谱感知中应用的最新研究进展,包括随机共振在本地感知中(如能量检测、协方差矩阵频谱感知、循环平稳特征检测)及协作感知中的应用,然后指出了随机共振在认知无线电频谱感知中还有待解决的问题,并提出了下一步的研究方向.     

HC-MAC: A Hardware-Constrained Cognitive MAC for Efficient Spectrum Management

Radio spectrum resource is of fundamental importance for wireless communication. Recent reports show that most available spectrum has been allocated. While some of the spectrum bands (e.g., unlicensed band, GSM band) have seen increasingly crowded usage, most of the other spectrum resources are underutilized. This drives the emergence of open spectrum and dynamic spectrum access concepts, which allow unlicensed users equipped with cognitive radios to opportunistically access the spectrum not used by primary users. Cognitive radio has many advanced features, such as agilely sensing the existence of primary users and utilizing multiple spectrum bands simultaneously. However, in practice such capabilities are constrained by hardware cost. In this paper, we discuss how to conduct efficient spectrum management in ad hoc cognitive radio networks while taking the hardware constraints (e.g., single radio, partial spectrum sensing and spectrum aggregation limit) into consideration. A hardware-constrained cognitive MAC, HC-MAC, is proposed to conduct efficient spectrum sensing and spectrum access decision. We identify the issue of optimal spectrum sensing decision for a single secondary transmission pair, and formulate it as an optimal stopping problem. A decentralized MAC protocol is then proposed for the ad hoc cognitive radio networks. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed protocol.     

认知无线电网络中合作频谱感知机制的优化

为了提高检测效率和频谱利用率,该文对认知无线电中合作频谱感知的感知机制进行了优化。针对信道监测和信道搜索两个不同的感知场景,分别给出了检测周期、检测时间和搜索时间的选取和优化方法,并提出了新的信道搜索方式。研究分析和仿真结果可以看出,合作频谱感知和主动感知方式的引入可以提高检测性能和传输速率,对感知机制和策略的选取和优化有效地提高系统吞吐量,降低感知时延和开销,这样可以提高认知无线电网络的性能和灵敏性,在保证授权用户不被干扰的同时最大化空闲频谱的接入机会。     

A Framework for Cognitive WiMAX With Frequency Agility

Cognitive radios have the ability to sense the radio spectrum environment and to switch dynamically to available frequency ranges. Mobile WiMax is an emerging wireless networking standard that could potentially benefit from cognitive radio technology. We develop a framework for applying cognitive radio technology to mobile WiMax networks to increase capacity and simplify network operations. In the proposed cognitive WiMax architecture, base stations are equipped with sensitive detectors and assign channels to subscriber stations dynamically based on spectrum availability. Power control is employed to increase frequency reuse in conjunction with spectrum sensing. Using computer simulation, we evaluate the performance of ldquocognitive channel assignmentrdquo relative to conventional dynamic channel assignment. Our numerical results show that cognitive radios can substantially increase the capacity of emerging WiMax networks by exploiting inherent spectrum hole opportunities. The key performance parameters determining the achievable capacity of cognitive WiMax networks are the detection and interference range, which depend in turn on characteristics of the radio propagation environment.     

Spatiotemporal Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio networks need to continuously monitor spectrum to detect the presence of the licensed users. In this paper, we have exploited spatial diversity in multiuser networks to improve the spectrum sensing capabilities of centralized cognitive radio (CR) networks. We develop a fixed and a variable relay sensing scheme. The fixed relay scheme employs a relay that has a fixed location to help the cognitive network base station detect the presence of the primary user. The variable relay sensing scheme employs cognitive users distributed at various locations as relays to sense data and to improve the detection capabilities. This effectively reduces the average detection time by exploiting spatial diversity inherent in multiuser networks. Finally, we study the network outage probabilities to compare the performances of the fixed and variable relay schemes.     

A novel signal separation algorithm based on compressed sensing for wideband spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks

In cognitive radio networks, since cognitive terminals use a shared wideband frequency spectrum for data transmissions, they are susceptible to malicious denial‐of‐service attacks, where adversaries try to corrupt communication by actively transmitting interference signals. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a novel signal separation algorithm based on compressed sensing, which can not only recover the entire spectrum but also separate mixed occupying signals. Specifically, the proposed algorithm is executed following three steps: (i) each cognitive terminal attempts to recover all signals over an entire wideband spectrum employing the compressed sensing technique; (ii) all cognitive terminals send their recovered signals to the fusion center where a wavelet edge detection method is adopted to locate the spectrum edges of these signals and then divide the entire spectrum into several sub‐bands; (iii) the fusion center separates its received signals on each spectrum sub‐band into different categories according to their features. Both analytical and simulation results indicate that this novel compressed‐sensing‐based algorithm can effectively separate wideband signals at a low cost and combat interference of the malicious terminals in cognitive radio networks as well. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

认知无线电的合作频谱检测分析

认知用户需要持续快速地检测主用户的出现,对基于认知无线电的合作频谱检测机制进行了分析。在理想的两用户网络中,认知用户采用合作机制可以提高系统的平均侦测时间。在多认知用户网络中,参与合作的用户越多,单个认知用户对主用户的侦测概率越高。对于多用户网络,还考虑了整体的实现。     

Spectrum management in cognitive radio ad hoc networks

The problem of spectrum scarcity and inefficiency in spectrum usage will be addressed by the newly emerging cognitive radio paradigm that allows radios to opportunistically transmit in the vacant portions of the spectrum already assigned to licensed users. For this, the ability for spectrum sensing, spectrum sharing, choosing the best spectrum among the available options, and dynamically adapting transmission parameters based on the activity of the licensed spectrum owners must be integrated within cognitive radio users. Specifically in cognitive radio ad hoc networks, distributed multihop architecture, node mobility, and spatio-temporal variance in spectrum availability are some of the key distinguishing factors. In this article the important features of CRAHNs are presented, along with the design approaches and research challenges that must be addressed. Spectrum management in CRAHNs comprises spectrum sensing, sharing, decision, and mobility. In this article each of these functions are described in detail from the viewpoint of multihop infrastructureless networks requiring cooperation among users.     

认知无线电网络中基于合作的频谱检测研究

在认知无线电技术的实际应用场景中,针对单认知用户本地检测的局限性,以提高认知无线电网络的检测性能和缩短检测时间为目标,分别从分布式多用户和协作分集两种合作检测方式出发,对认知无线电网络中的合作检测算法和机制进行了分析及讨论,并在此基础上进一步提出了认知无线电合作检测的未来研究方向及难点问题.     

A New Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme for Cognitive Ad-Hoc Networks

As the radio spectrum is becoming more and more crowded, cognitive radio has recently become a hot research topic to improve the spectrum utilization efficiency. It is well known that the success of cognitive radio depends heavily on fast and efficient spectrum sensing that is very difficult in practice. Toward this end, this paper introduces a new guard-resident cooperative spectrum sensing scheme for a cognitive ad-hoc network. In particular, we classify cognitive nodes as either resident or guard based on the spectrum neighbor decision and distributed boundary search. The guard nodes sense the spectrum and then inform the resident nodes that are greatly relieved from spectrum sensing about the radio environmental changes. The analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the total spectrum sensing load without sacrificing the sensing accuracy.     

多天线认知无线电网络多信道联合频谱感知策略

当前,以单天线认知用户组成的认知无线电网络同时协作检测多个信道的分配策略得到了广泛研究,而在认知用户可以灵活选取自身天线进行空间分集接收的条件下,当联合感知多信道时,多天线认知无线电网络如何获取最优的天线分配策略仍有待进一步研究。为解决这一问题,在限制各信道最大虚警概率的前提下,以最小化所有信道漏检概率之和为目标,建立了优化模型,并提出了基于分支定界的算法和基于贪婪思想的启发式算法。前者可以获得最优策略,但复杂度较高,后者以牺牲较小检测性能为代价,明显降低了复杂度,有效实现了检测性能与复杂度的平衡,并且在保护各个信道上主用户免受认知用户干扰层面,一定程度上兼顾了公平性。      

Building accurate radio environment maps from multi-fidelity spectrum sensing data

In cognitive wireless networks, active monitoring of the wireless environment is often performed through advanced spectrum sensing and network sniffing. This leads to a set of spatially distributed measurements which are collected from different sensing devices. Nowadays, several interpolation methods (e.g., Kriging) are available and can be used to combine these measurements into a single globally accurate radio environment map that covers a certain geographical area. However, the calibration of multi-fidelity measurements from heterogeneous sensing devices, and the integration into a map is a challenging problem. In this paper, the auto-regressive co-Kriging model is proposed as a novel solution. The algorithm is applied to model measurements which are collected in a heterogeneous wireless testbed environment, and the effectiveness of the new methodology is validated.     

Cognitive Wireless Communication Networks (Hossian, E. and Bhargava, V.; 2007) [Book Review]

?Cognitive radio? is emerging as a promising technology to cope with the spectrum scarcity as well as the spectrum underutilization problem in the next generation wireless communications systems. This book, Cognitive Wireless Communication Networks, edited by Ekram Hossain and Vijay Bhargava, puts together a rich set of research articles featuring recent advances in theory, design, and analysis of cognitive wireless communication networks. The book consists of 15 invited articles from distinguished researchers in this area, which cover a wide range of topics related to the cognitive radio technology. In particular, the topics covered in this book include fundamental challenges and issues in designing cognitive radio systems, information-theoretic analysis of cognitive radio systems, spectrum sensing and co-existence issues, adaptive physical layer protocols and link adaptation techniques for cognitive radio, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM) and ultra wide band (UWB)- based cognitive radio, different techniques for spectrum access by distributed cognitive radio, cognitive medium access control (MAC) protocols, decentralized learning-based dynamic spectrum access methods, and microeconomic models for spectrum management in cognitive radio.