Performance Evaluation of Secondary Users Operating on a Heterogeneous Spectrum Environment

Radio spectrum is a limited natural resource and with the increasing number of wireless devices, an efficient spectrum management concept to make a better utilization of this resource is essential. Opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) concept is a solution to increase the spectrum capacity and thus reducing the data collision for wireless ad hoc networks. Cognitive radio (CR) technology is developed to realize OSA. Based on CR, the secondary users access opportunistically the spectrum owned by primary users. However, the consequence appearance of primary users affects greatly the performance of secondary users within OSA. Thus, a new spectrum management scheme is a must to reduce such effect. In this paper, a new spectrum management scheme over a heterogeneous spectrum environment is proposed. The proposed scheme is based on using channels from both licensed and unlicensed bands as spectrum environment for ad hoc networks. An analytical model based on Markov chains is developed to evaluate the proposed scheme.     

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.     

Effects of Location Awareness on Concurrent Transmissions for Cognitive Ad Hoc Networks Overlaying Infrastructure-Based Systems

Through wide-band spectrum sensing, cognitive radio (CR) can identify the opportunity of reusing the frequency spectrum of other wireless systems. However, wide-band spectrum sensing requires energy consumption processes. In this paper, we aim to relieve the burden of spectrum scanning in a CR system by means of location awareness. We investigate to what extent a CR system with location awareness capability can establish a scanning-free region where a peer-to-peer connection of the secondary CR users can coexist with an infrastructure-based connection of the primary user. We compute the concurrent transmission probability of a peer-to-peer connection and an infrastructure-based connection in a system based on the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) medium access control (MAC) protocol. It has been shown that the frequency band of the legacy system can be reused up to 45% by the overlaying cognitive ad hoc network if certain location techniques help CR users locate primary and other secondary users. In summary, a CR system equipped with location awareness techniques can dramatically reduce the need of spectrum sensing thanks to the capability of identifying the concurrent transmission region in a hybrid infrastructure-based and ad hoc overlaying systems. Hence, from another aspect, the issue of wide-band spectrum sensing in CR systems is resolved fundamentally.     

OS-MAC: An Efficient MAC Protocol for Spectrum-Agile Wireless Networks

Wireless networks and devices have been rapidly gaining popularity over their wired counterparts. This popularity, in turn, has been generating an explosive and ever-increasing demand for, and hence creating a shortage of, the radio spectrum. Existing studies indicate that this foreseen spectrum shortage is not so much due to the scarcity of the radio spectrum, but due to the inefficiency of current spectrum access methods, thus leaving spectrum opportunities along both the time and the frequency dimensions that wireless devices can exploit. Fortunately, recent technological advances have made it possible to build software-defined radios (SDRs) which, unlike traditional radios, can switch from one frequency band to another at little or no cost. We propose a MAC protocol, called Opportunistic Spectrum MAC (OS-MAC), for wireless networks equipped with cognitive radios like SDRs. OS-MAC (1) adaptively and dynamically seeks and exploits opportunities in both licensed and unlicensed spectra and along both the time and the frequency dimensions; (2) accesses and shares spectrum among different unlicensed and licensed users; and (3) coordinates with other unlicensed users for better spectrum utilization. Using extensive simulation, OS-MAC is shown to be far more effective than current access protocols from both the network's and the user's perspectives. By comparing its performance with an Ideal-MAC protocol, OS-MAC is also shown to not only outperform current access protocols, but also achieve performance very close to that obtainable under the Ideal-MAC protocol.     

A MAC protocol by applying staggered channel model for cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is a novel and promising spectrum management technique, which aims to cope with the spectrum scarcity problem occurring in unlicensed bands and alleviate the inefficient spectrum utilization of licensed bands. To ensure that the operation of licensed users will not be adversely affected and that the licensed bands can be efficiently utilized by unlicensed users, this paper proposes a cognitive radio MAC protocol called SMC-CR-MAC. When any primary user is detected, the proposed SMC-CR-MAC protocol applies Contiguous Channel Switching and Sender-Receiver Channel Swap rules to cope with the rendezvous, packet collision, and channel congestion problems. Simulation results show that the proposed SMC-CR-MAC protocol can significantly improve the network performance in terms of utilization of licensed bands, standard deviation of traffic load on each channel, and probability of successful rendezvous.     

Enhancing cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio ad hoc networks using priority-based two-stage detection model

Cooperation among unlicensed secondary users was more significant in cognitive radio ad hoc networks (CRAHNs). The main challenges of CRAHNs now a day address the main issues of spectrum scarcity and underutilization. Due to the lack of channel sensing, cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) is the main challenge in CRAHNs. Efficient CSS is more essential to enhance the detection of performance by utilizing the theoretical studies of spatially distributed secondary users (SUs). This paper uses the priority-based two-stage detection model (PBTSDM) to analyze the cooperation strategy among secondary users (SUs) and primary users (PUs). SUs in distributed CSS sense continuously amongst themselves and take unified decision on the presence or absence of PUs by using entropy-based energy detection mechanism. The simulation results reveal that the sensing accuracy in terms of sensing time and energy efficiency (in terms of minimum energy consumption) increased significantly by using the proposed scheme.

     

Cross-Layer Based Opportunistic MAC Protocols for QoS Provisionings Over Cognitive Radio Wireless Networks

We propose the cross-layer based opportunistic multi-channel medium access control (MAC) protocols, which integrate the spectrum sensing at physical (PHY) layer with the packet scheduling at MAC layer, for the wireless ad hoc networks. Specifically, the MAC protocols enable the secondary users to identify and utilize the leftover frequency spectrum in a way that constrains the level of interference to the primary users. In our proposed protocols, each secondary user is equipped with two transceivers. One transceiver is tuned to the dedicated control channel, while the other is designed specifically as a cognitive radio that can periodically sense and dynamically use the identified un-used channels. To obtain the channel state accurately, we propose two collaborative channel spectrum-sensing policies, namely, the random sensing policy and the negotiation-based sensing policy, to help the MAC protocols detect the availability of leftover channels. Under the random sensing policy, each secondary user just randomly selects one of the channels for sensing. On the other hand, under the negotiation-based sensing policy, different secondary users attempt to select the distinct channels to sense by overhearing the control packets over the control channel. We develop the Markov chain model and the M/G^Y/1-based queueing model to characterize the performance of our proposed multi-channel MAC protocols under the two types of channel-sensing policies for the saturation network and the non-saturation network scenarios, respectively. In the non-saturation network case, we quantitatively identify the tradeoff between the aggregate traffic throughput and the packet transmission delay, which can provide the insightful guidelines to improve the delay-QoS provisionings over cognitive radio wireless networks.     

Spectrum inpainting: a new framework for spectrum status determination in large cognitive radio networks

In this paper, the problem of spectrum status determination is considered for large cognitive radio (CR) ad hoc networks. Spectrum sensing and spectrum decision are critical for cognitive radio network throughput and hence obtaining accurate knowledge of the spectrum status is vitally important to better spectrum usage decisions. The major challenge of this type of problem lies in the fact that for a network covering a large geographical area, only very limited measurements of spectrum occupancy during spectrum sensing may be obtained by the CR users for a certain location in any given time slot. This is due to both the hardware limitations as well as the tradeoff between spectrum sensing time and data throughput of the CR users. By representing the spectrum sensing results across the network as an image, spectrum status determination is formulated as an image recovery problem. The method of total variation inpainting is applied to solve the problem with low determination error. The proposed method takes advantage of the correlations in multiple dimensions and the numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Modeling and performance analysis of unlicensed bands MAC strategy in multi-channel LTE-A networks with M2M/H2H coexistence

With the growing use of the machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and the unlicensed band by advanced long term evolution (LTE-A) networks, known as LTE unlicensed (LTE-U), demand for resource access strategy is rapidly increasing and has recently been attracting considerable attention of mobile operators. The requirement set by 3rd generation partnership project in the release 11 about LTE standards will allow LTE-U and other unlicensed band access technology to peacefully coexist and operate in the same unlicensed band. LTE-U supports not only the human-to-human (H2H) communication but also the M2M communication. In this paper, a new MAC protocol for LTE-U that allow friendly co-existence of H2H with M2M communications working in unlicensed bands is presented. The proposed MAC mechanisms is designed to ensure an efficient and fair channel access as well as enabling better H2H/M2M coexistence. The throughput performance of both H2H and M2M systems is evaluated analytically and by simulation. The impact of H2H/M2M transmissions periods and spectrum sensing time on the throughput performance of H2H and M2M systems are also studied.     

感知无线电ad hoc网络基于干扰的路由

感知无线电技术作为一种新兴技术,通过时间和空间维度上的频谱空洞的利用能很好地提高频谱利用率。感知无线电的路由不同于传统的路由度量,因为次用户从时间和空间上都不能对主用户造成干扰。在感知无线电ad hoc网络环境下,选取了干扰作为路由的度量,并将干扰分为系统内干扰(次用户自身之间的干扰)和系统间干扰(次用户对主用户的干扰)。在已有的ad hoc网络干扰路由协议的基础上对干扰权重做出改进,并提出新的基于系统间路由干扰(对主用户干扰最小化)和基于联合系统内和系统间干扰的路由协议。仿真结果表明,该干扰模型符合感知无线电移动ad hoc网络的特性。     

Towards trustworthy collaboration in spectrum sensing for ad hoc cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio networks (CRN) make use of dynamic spectrum access to communicate opportunistically in frequency bands otherwise licensed to incumbent primary users such as TV broadcast. To prevent interference to primary users it is vital for secondary users in CRNs to conduct accurate spectrum sensing, which is especially challenging when the transmission range of primary users is shorter compared to the size of the CRN. This task becomes even more challenging in the presence of malicious secondary users that launch spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attacks by providing false spectrum reports. Existing solutions to detect such malicious behaviors cannot be utilized in scenarios where the transmission range of primary users is limited within a small sub-region of the CRN. In this paper, we present a framework for trustworthy collaboration in spectrum sensing for ad hoc CRNs. This framework incorporates a semi-supervised spatio-spectral anomaly/outlier detection system and a reputation system, both designed to detect byzantine attacks in the form of SSDF from malicious nodes within the CRN. The framework guarantees protection of incumbent primary users’ communication rights while at the same time making optimal use of the spectrum when it is not used by primary users. Simulation carried out under typical network conditions and attack scenarios shows that our proposed framework can achieve spectrum decision accuracy up to 99.3 % and detect malicious nodes up to 98 % of the time.     

Q-Learning-Based Dynamic Spectrum Access in Cognitive Industrial Internet of Things

In recent years, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has attracted growing attention from both academia and industry. Meanwhile, when traditional wireless sensor networks are applied to complex industrial field with high requirements for real time and robustness, how to design an efficient and practical cross-layer transmission mechanism needs to be fully investigated. In this paper, we propose a Q-learning-based dynamic spectrum access method for IIoT by introducing cognitive self-learning technical solution to solve the difficulty of distributed and ordered self-accessing for unlicensed terminals. We first devise a simplified MAC access protocol for unlicensed users to use single available channel. Then, a Q-learning-based multi-channels access scheme is raised for the unlicensed users migrating to other lower cells. The channel with most Q value will be considered to be selected. Every mobile terminals store and update their own channel lists due to distributed network mode and non-perfect sensing ability. Numerical results are provided to evaluate the performances of our proposed method on dynamic spectrum access in IIoT. Our proposed method outperforms the traditional simplified accessing methods without self-learning capability on channel usage rate and conflict probability.     

A Cluster-Based MAC Protocol for Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

The cognitive radio (CR) technology is an efficient approach to share the spectrum. But how to access the idle channels effectively is a challenging problem. To solve this problem, we propose a MAC protocol for cluster-based CR ad hoc networks, with the aim of making cluster structure more robust to the primary users’ channel re-occupancy activities, so that the CR users can use the idle spectrum more efficiently. Under this framework, a cluster formation algorithm based on available channels, geographical position and experienced statistics is proposed to maximize the network throughput and maintain the cluster topology stability. The schemes for new CR user joining a cluster and cluster maintenance are also designed. An experience database is proposed to store the experienced statistics which are obtained from spectrum occupancy history. Such a database can be used to support the acts of nodes, such as neighbor discovery and cluster forming. Simulation results reveal that our proposed framework not only outperforms conventional CR MAC protocols in terms of throughput and packet delay, but also generates a smaller number of clusters and has more stable cluster structure with less reclustering time.     

Comparison of Mamdani and Sugeno Inference Systems for Dynamic Spectrum Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

Dynamic spectrum access and cognitive radio are emerging technologies to utilize the scarce frequency spectrum in an efficient and opportunistic manner. Cognitive radio, built on software defined radio, is an intelligent radio technology that updates its operating parameters to locate the unused spectrum segments. To assign these vacant bands to unlicensed users without causing harmful interference to licensed users, a novel approach is proposed in this article based on fuzzy logic. Two different fuzzy inference system models i.e. Mamdani and Sugeno systems are developed that compute spectrum access decision based on the secondary user parameters such as signal strength, distance between the primary and secondary user, spectrum utilization efficiency and degree of mobility. 81 fuzzy rules are used to obtain the output of proposed system stating the possibilities of allotment of white spaces to secondary users.     

Spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks: requirements, challenges and design trade-offs [cognitive radio communications]

Opportunistic unlicensed access to the (temporarily) unused frequency bands across the licensed radio spectrum is currently being investigated as a means to increase the efficiency of spectrum usage. Such opportunistic access calls for implementation of safeguards so that ongoing licensed operations are not compromised. Among different candidates, sensing-based access, where the unlicensed users transmit if they sense the licensed band to be free, is particularly appealing due to its low deployment cost and its compatibility with the legacy licensed systems. The ability to reliably and autonomously identify unused frequency bands is envisaged as one of the main functionalities of cognitive radios. In this article we provide an overview of the regulatory requirements and major challenges associated with the practical implementation of spectrum sensing functionality in cognitive radio systems. Furthermore, we outline different design trade-offs that have to be made in order to enhance various aspects of the system's performance.     

Cross‐layer design of partial spectrum sharing for two licensed networks using cognitive radios

To utilize spectrum resources more efficiently, dynamic spectrum access attempts to allocate the spectrum to users in an intelligent manner. Uncoordinated sharing with cognitive radio (CR) users is a promising approach for dynamic spectrum access. In the uncoordinated sharing model, CR is an enabling technology that allows the unlicensed or secondary users to opportunistically access the licensed spectrum bands (belonging to the so‐called primary users), without any modifications or updates for the licensed systems. However, because of the limited resources for making spectrum observations, spectrum sensing for CR is bound to have errors and will degrade the grade‐of‐service performance of both primary and secondary users. In this paper, we first propose a new partial spectrum sharing policy, which achieves efficient spectrum sharing between two licensed networks. Then, a Markov chain model is devised to analyze the proposed policy considering the effects of sensing errors. We also construct a cross‐layer design framework, in which the parameters of spectrum sharing policy at the multiple‐access control layer and the spectrum sensing parameters at the physical layer are simultaneously coordinated to maximize the overall throughput of the networks, while satisfying the grade‐of‐service constraints of the users. Numerical results show that the proposed spectrum sharing policy and the cross‐layer design strategy achieve a much higher overall throughput for the two networks. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Channel access protocols for multihop opportunistic networks: challenges and recent developments

Heavy traffic over the unlicensed portion of the spectrum along with inefficient usage of the licensed spectrum gave impetus for a new spectrum allocation policy, the main purpose of which is to improve spectrum efficiency through opportunistic spectrum access. Cognitive radios have been proposed as a key enabling technology for such an opportunistic policy. One of the key challenges to enabling multihop CR communications is how to perform opportunistic medium access control while limiting the interference imposed on licensed users. In this article we highlight the unique characteristics of multihop cognitive radio networks, discuss key MAC design challenges specific to such networks, and present some of the work that has been done on MAC design for CRNs.     

A distributed network coded control channel for multihop cognitive radio networks

Designing a solution for multihop cognitive radio networks poses several challenges such as the realization of the control channel, the detection of primary users, and the coordination of secondary users for dynamic spectrum access purposes. In this article we discuss these challenges and propose a solution that aims to meet most of them. The proposed solution is completely distributed, and does not need dedicated spectrum resources for control purposes, but rather leverages on a virtual control channel that is implemented by having users exchange control information whenever they meet in a particular channel, using network coding techniques for better dissemination performance. Due to these aspects, our proposal represents a significant improvement over existing dynamic spectrum access and multichannel MAC solutions. We discuss the effectiveness of our scheme in multihop cognitive ad hoc networks, where secondary users need to opportunistically access the spectrum at those locations and times at which it is not used by primary users. Finally, we report the results of an evaluation study assessing the performance of the proposed scheme with respect to different system and scenario parameters.     

Short-range cognitive radio network: system architecture and MAC protocol for coexistence with legacy WLAN

To increase possible data transmission rate and to provide non-primary user’s desired throughput in short-range communications, in this paper we propose new cognitive radio (CR) network architecture with the coexistence with the legacy IEEE 802.11 WLAN. The legacy WLAN ISM band channel is mostly used for common control channel for cognitive operation on the licensed bands to manage CR devices when they join the network and to announce the utilization of the licensed band or primary system appearance on the current used channels. The proposed CR-WLAN MAC protocol is designed to accommodate new CR related features in the proposed network architecture and it has backward compatibility to the legacy WLAN system: (1) Network entry procedure is modified to inform CR users the current licensed band status and to manage CR user group separately by AP; (2) During the operation, two types of CR beacon multicasting mechanisms are proposed, CR beacons help CR users to decide its service change or spectrum handover and to immediately evacuate from the current used channel when primary signal is detected, (3) When the CR user need to change the serving CR AP, not only the beacon frame body of neighbor APs but also the licensed and unlicensed band status is delivered to CR node to search the target CR-WLAN AP fast and (4) A new type of hidden node problem is introduced that focuses on possible signal collisions between incumbent devices and cognitive radio CR-WLAN devices, and a simple and efficient sensing information exchange mechanism between neighbor APs is proposed. The simulation results show that the proposed CR system can provide reliable protection to primary systems, as well as efficient utilization of given licensed spectrum resources, in which the network throughput can be greatly enhanced.