Subject code: 22ECE15

Subject Name:
COGNITIVE RADIO
 SYLLABUS
Module I : INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE RADIOS 15 Hours
Marking radio self-aware, the cognition cycle, organization of cognition
tasks, structuring knowledge for cognition tasks, Enabling location and
environment awareness in cognitive radios – concepts,architecture,
design considerations.
Module II : COGNITIVE RADIO ARCHITECTURES 15 Hours
Primary Cognitive Radio functions, behaviors, Components,
A–Priori Knowledge taxonomy, observe –phase data structures, Radio
procedure knowledge encapsulation, components of orient, plan,
decide phases, act phase knowledge representation, design rules.
Module III : COGNITIVE RADIO WIRELESS NETWORKS 15 Hours
The CR Network architecture, spectrum sensing, spectrum
management, spectrum mobility, spectrum sharing, upper layer issues,
cross – layer design.
Text Books:
•Qusay. H. Mahmoud, “Cognitive Networks: “Towards Self Aware Network”,
John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 2007.
•Markus Dillinger, Kambiz Madani, Nancy Alonistioti, ”Software Defined
Radio” , John Wiley,2003.
•Huseyin Arslan, “Cognitive Radio, SDR and Adaptive System” , Springer, 2007.
Reference Books:
•Joseph Mitola, “Cognitive Radio Architecture” , John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
•Alexander M. Wyglinski, Maziarnekovee, Y. Thomas Hu, “Cognitive Radio
Communication and Networks”, Elsevier, 2010.
•J. Mitola, “Cognitive Radio: An Integrated Agent Architecture for software
defined radio”, Doctor of Technology thesis, Royal Inst. Technology, Sweden
2000.
Cognitive Radio Network Functions:
Spectrum Sensing:
•One of the primary requirements of cognitive networks is their ability
to scan the spectral band and identify vacant channels available for
opportunistic transmission.
•As the primary user network is physically separate from the secondary
user network, the secondary users do not get any direct feedback from
primary users regarding their transmission.
•The secondary users have to depend on their own individual or
cooperative sensing ability to detect primary user transmissions.
•Since the primary users can be spread across a huge geographical
area, sensing the entire spectral band accurately is a challenging task.
•The secondary users have to rely on weak primary transmission
signals to estimate their presence.
• Most of the research on spectrum-sensing techniques falls into
three categories: transmitter detection, cooperative detection and
interference-based detection.
• The main aim of all these techniques is to avoid interference to
primary transmissions.
• The amount of interference caused by all the secondary users at a
point in space is referred to as the interference temperature at that
point.
• When a primary user transmission is taking place, the interference
temperature should be below a specified threshold near the
primary receivers.
• However, this is not easy to achieve as the location of the primary
receiver is not known to the secondary users.
• Additionally, when multiple secondary networks overlap, the
secondary users scanning the spectrum should not confuse
transmissions from secondary users in other secondary networks
with primary transmissions.
Spectrum Analysis and Decision:
•Each spectrum band has some unique features owing to its frequency
range and the number of users (both primary and secondary) using the
band.
•Spectrum sensing determines a list of spectrum bands that are
available; however, the secondary users decide on the most appropriate
band from the list of available bands.
•In addition to the commonly used SNR parameter, some of the
characteristics of spectrum bands that can be used to evaluate their
effectiveness are interference, path loss, wireless link errors, link layer
delay and holding time (expected duration that the secondary user can
occupy the band).
Spectrum Mobility:
•Spectrum mobility refers to the agility of cognitive radio networks to
dynamically switch between spectrum access.
•As secondary users are not guaranteed continuous spectrum access
in any of the licensed bands and the availability of vacant spectrum
bands frequently changes over time, spectrum mobility becomes an
important factor when designing cognitive protocols.
•One of the primary factors affecting spectrum mobility is the delay
incurred during spectrum handoff. This delay adversely affects
protocols employed at various layers of the communication protocol
stack.
•Another important factor to be considered in spectrum mobility is
the time difference between the secondary network detecting a
primary transmission and the secondary users vacating the spectral
band.
• Transmissions from secondary users during this period will cause
harmful interference to the primary users. The FCC has set upper
bounds on the spectrum handoff duration to avoid prolonged
interference to primary users.
Introduction:
•Today’s wireless networks are regulated by a fixed spectrum
assignment policy, i.e. the spectrum is regulated by governmental
agencies and is assigned to license holders or services on a long term
basis for large geographical regions. In addition, a large portion of the
assigned spectrum is used irregularly as illustrated in Fig. 1, where the
signal strength distribution over a large portion of the wireless
spectrum is shown.
•It can be clearly observed that the few sets of frequency
range(spectrum) is heavily utilized and certain spectrum are
moderately utilized.
•On the other side it is important to observe that the significant
amount of the spectrum remains unutilized.
• According to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , temporal
and geographical variations in the utilization of the assigned
spectrum range from 15% to 85%. Although the fixed spectrum
assignment policy generally served well in the past, there is a
dramatic increase in the access to the limited spectrum for mobile
services in the recent years. This increase is straining the
effectiveness of the traditional spectrum policies. The limited
available spectrum and the inefficiency in the spectrum usage
necessitate a new communication paradigm to exploit the existing
wireless spectrum opportunistically.
• Dynamic spectrum access is proposed to solve these current
spectrum inefficiency problems. DARPAs approach on Dynamic
Spectrum Access network, the so-called NeXt Generation (xG)
program aims to implement the policy based intelligent radios
known as cognitive radios.
• NeXt Generation (xG) communication networks, also known as
Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DSANs) as well as cognitive
radio networks, will provide high bandwidth to mobile users via
heterogeneous wireless architectures and dynamic spectrum
access techniques.
• The inefficient usage of the existing spectrum can be improved
through opportunistic access to the licensed bands without
interfering with the existing users. xG networks, however, impose
several research challenges due to the broad range of available
spectrum as well as diverse Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements
of applications.
• These heterogeneities must be captured and handled dynamically as
mobile terminals roam between wireless architectures and along the
available spectrum.
• The key enabling technology of xG networks is the cognitive radio.
Cognitive radio techniques provide the capability to use or share the
spectrum in an opportunistic manner. Dynamic spectrum access
techniques allow the cognitive radio to operate in the best available
channel.
• More specifically, the cognitive radio technology will enable the users
to
1. Determine which portions of the spectrum is available and detect the
presence of licensed users when a user operates in a licensed band
(spectrum sensing),
2. select the best available channel (spectrum management),
3. coordinate access to this channel with other users (spectrum
sharing)
4. The secondary users vacate the channel when a licensed user is
• Once a cognitive radio supports the capability to select the best
available channel, the next challenge is to make the network
protocols adaptive to the available spectrum. Hence, new
functionalities are required in an xG network to support this
adaptivity.
In summary, the main functions for cognitive radios in xG networks
can be summarized as follows:
• Spectrum sensing: Detecting unused spectrum and sharing the
spectrum without harmful interference with other users.
• Spectrum management: Capturing the best available spectrum to
meet user communication requirements.
• Spectrum mobility: Maintaining seamless communication
requirements during the transition to better spectrum.
• Spectrum sharing: Providing the fair spectrum scheduling method
among coexisting xG users.
• These functionalities of xG networks enable spectrum- aware
communication protocols. However, the dynamic use of the
spectrum causes adverse effects on the performance of
conventional communication protocols, which were developed
considering a fixed frequency band for communication.
• The xG network communication components and their interactions
are illustrated in Fig. 2.
• It is evident from the significant number of interactions that the
xG network functionalities necessitate a cross-layer design
approach. More specifically, spectrum sensing and spectrum
sharing cooperate with each other to enhance spectrum
efficiency.
• In spectrum management and spectrum mobility functions,
application, transport, routing, medium access and physical layer
functionalities are carried out in a cooperative way, considering
the dynamic nature of the underlying spectrum.
Characteristics of Cognitive Radio:
•Cognitive radio technology is the key technology that enables an xG
network to use spectrum in a dynamic manner. The term, cognitive
radio, can formally be defined as follows: a ‘‘Cognitive Radio’’ is a radio
that can change its transmitter parameters based on interaction with
the environment in which it operates.
Two main characteristics of the cognitive radio can be defined :
• Cognitive capability: Cognitive capability refers to the ability of the
radio technology to capture or sense the information from its radio
environment(Spectrum awareness).
•This capability cannot simply be realized by monitoring the power in
some frequency band of interest but more sophisticated techniques are
required in order to capture the temporal and spatial variations in the
radio environment and avoid interference to other users.
•Through this capability, the portions of the spectrum that are unused
at a specific time or location can be identified. Consequently, the best
spectrum and appropriate operating parameters can be selected.
• Reconfigurability: The cognitive capability provides spectrum
awareness whereas reconfigurability enables the radio to be
dynamically programmed according to the radio environment.
More specifically, the cognitive radio can be programmed to
transmit and receive on a variety of frequencies and to use
different transmission access technologies supported by its
hardware design .
• The ultimate objective of the cognitive radio is to obtain the best
available spectrum through cognitive capability and
reconfigurability. Since most of the spectrum is already assigned,
the most important challenge is to share the licensed spectrum
without interfering with the transmission of other licensed users
as illustrated in Fig. 3.
The cognitive radio enables the usage of temporally unused
spectrum, which is referred to as spectrum hole or white space . If
this band is further used by a licensed user, the cognitive radio
moves to another spectrum hole or stays in the same band, altering
its transmission power level or modulation scheme to avoid
interference as shown in Fig. 3.
 Components of xG Networks:
•Spectrum which are wireless have been licensed for the different
reasons but still there are few bands which are remained as unlicensed.
•The architecture of Next Generation Networks are divided into two
types: the primary networks and xG networks as shown in the Fig.
Primary Networks:
•The current infrastructure of the network which is existing can be
called as a primary networks which is having an access to the band of
the section which is certain.
• Example of the primary network are the networks which are TV
broadcast.
A primary network elements are:
[Link] users:
•Primary users (like standard TV receivers and transmitters) are not
cognitive radios.
•Primary users are users who are having a license to drive in a band of
a spectrum which is certain. These accesses are controlled by
elementary base-stations and so these access will not get effected by
any of users who are unlicensed. The elementary users doesn’t
require modifications for co-existing with the current base stations
which are xG and the next generation clients.
2. Primary Base-Stations:
•The elementary base-stations is also known as the licensed base-
stations which are licensed has constant designed component for
network which is having a base-stations which are licensed trans-
receiver systems present inside cellular systems.
•This principles, this primary stations aren’t having any next
generation capacity to share it with the next generation clients. But
it will request for having both legacy and the xG protocol for Next
Generation users of elementary access of network.
xG network:
•The Next Generation Network (xG network) is also referred to as
the cognitive radio, the network which is secondary and also the
network which is unlicensed. It is not having a licensed band for
functioning in particular band. Here the access of the spectrum is
done in a manner which is opportunistic.
A xG network elements are shown below:
1. xG user: It is not having any license. Therefore, the additional
functions are necessary for sharing the licensed spectrum band.
2. xG base stations: It is constant designed component having xG
network capabilities. This base station will provide one hop
connection to the users of the xG without the access of the spectrum
license. By this, the network can be accessed by the user of xG.
3. Spectrum Brokers: Spectrum Brokers can also be known as
scheduling servers. It is a network which are central and that will
make a major role in distributing resources of spectrum to different
xG networks. This spectrum broker is having a capacity to connect
with each other and will serve as a manager for the spectrum
information for enabling the existence combinely with the multiple
xG networks.
xG Network functions:
•we can conclude that the xG architecture is operated based on the
licensed bands or the unlicensed bands.
•By this the functionalities of the next generation networks will vary
based on the licensed and unlicensed band users.
xG networks on licensed bands:
•There exists still the holes of the spectrum utilization which are
unused in the bands of license.
•Thus, the next generation networks are moved to explore holes of
the spectrum through techniques of cognitive communication.
•The main aim of next generation networks is for providing best
spectrum which is available and also licensed bands functions were
used for identifying primary users.
•The holes of spectrum which is having the capacity of channel are
dependent on primary users.
• Hence interference issue of the primary users are very important
in the architecture. If the primary users are visible in spectrum
bands which are involved by xG user then the xG user should move
from the present spectrum and go in search of the new spectrum
immediately which is referred to as the spectrums handoff.
xG networks on unlicensed bands:
• The policies of open spectrum which had initiated in the industrial
scientific and medical (ISM) bands has been very attractive to
many of the technologies and also for the innovative uses.
• Due to this it has been interfered in many of the multiple different
kinds of the networks where the efficiency of the industrial
scientific and medical band is getting decreased.
• But finally the capability of the access to open spectrums and
quality services will provide depending upon degree by which radio
could be planned for designing for allocating the spectrum
efficiently.
• The next generation network could be designed for operating upon
the unlicensed band so it efficiently can be improved in the
particular portions of spectrum.
• Since in this there are no licensed users everyone are having the
same accessing right for the spectrum band. Number of next
generation networks exist in the same portion and communicate
with each other in the same portion of the spectrum.
• In this unlicensed architecture the next generation networks
focuses mainly on the next generation users. Variant to the
operations of the licensed band here the spectrums handoff
doesn’t get altered by elementary users.
• Whatever it is, here everyone are having the same right for
accessing the spectrum and the xG users must compete with one
another in the similar licensed band. If number of xG community
operator’s live within the similar unlicensed bands, the equal
sharing of spectrum between them is essential.
xG networks applications:
•Leased Networks: The primary network will provide an opportunity
for accessing its license spectrums with an agreement with the third
person that it should provide the good quality services for the
elementary user. Considering an example, the elementary network
can rent accessing rights of its spectrum for the mobile virtual
network operator and also regional community for broadband access.
• Cognitive’s Mesh Networks: The wireless network are becoming a
cost-efficient technology. As it is becoming the cost-efficient it is
providing the broadband connectivity. As the density of the network
gets increased then the applications will require more higher output
and then the mesh networks requires the higher capacity for meeting
the requirement of application. The cognitive radios will allow bigger
amount of spectrums, the next generation network are used by mesh
networks in urban cities. Considering an example, coverage areas of
the next generation network can be increased by the meshed
wireless backboned network of the infrastructure link which are
established by the Cognitive access point (CAP) and also the
Cognitive Relay Node (CRN). The capacities of this CAP is connected
through the access of broadband to Internet which is shared over the
bigger areas with CRN. The next generation networks are having the
capability for adding the contemporary or the permanent spectrums
for the infra-structure links which are used for activating in case of
the highest traffic loads.
• Emergency Networks: The another area of the next generation
networks are the public safety and the emergency networks [13]. If
there is a case of the natural disasters, during that period there
may be temporarily disability of the network and also the
communication infrastructure may get damages at that times
there is a need for establishing these emergency networks. These
networks deals with the very important information, good
communication must be possible with the minimum latency.
• Additionally, these communication requires the sufficient quantity
of the radio spectrum for sake of handling the more volume of the
traffic like voices, videos and also data. The next generation
network will allow to use present spectrums without any need of
the framework and it will maintain the interaction priority and also
the responding time.
• Military Networks: The interesting application of the next
generation networks is a military’s radio environment. The next
generation networks enables the military radio to select the
arbitrary, modulation and the coding schemes and the
Intermediate frequency bandwidth (IF). And also the military
networks are having the need of the next generation networks for
the protection and the security during the tough situations. These
next generation networks allows the military personnel for
performing the handoff’s for locating the protective band
spectrum.
Challenges of Next Generation Networks:
Challenges of Routing:
•Routing is playing an important role but it is an unexplored problem in
the Next Generation Network. Specially in the xG network with number
of hop interaction necessities, the precise characteristic of the open
spectrums phenomenon necessitate novel’s routing algorithm to be
developed. Research on the Next Generation Network is elementarily
on the spectrums sensing technique and the spectrums sharing
solution. We emphasize the need for the purpose routing algorithm in
open spectrums environment constitutes a major matter in Next
Generation Networks.
•A principal layout choices for routings in xG network is the
combination in between the routing and also the spectrum control. The
random spectrum that’s not continuous in conditions of both the time
and area necessitate a technique. Simulation based comparisons are
carried out for cross-layered and decouple techniques for routings and
spectrum managements.
The consequences in both works results that a cross-layered solutions
that construct route and determine the working spectrums at the every
time for every hops that outperform a method in sequence where
routes are chosen without depending on the spectrum allocations.
The internal dependency between the routes selection and the
spectrum’s management is inquired.
•In the strategy, the routes selection is done without depending on the
spectrum’s management by using the shortest path algorithm. In this
strategy the routing layer will discover path to the selected routes. As
usual the spectrum management is performed on each hop. The source-
based routing strategy is operated by using a global outlook of network
to display the upper bound in attainable performance. The simulations
in each reveal that cross-layer approach is high quality for routing in xG
networks since the availability of spectrum precisely impacts the end-
to-end act. These two results for routing in xG networks transparently
display that cross-layer approaches together consult the route and
spectrum which are necessary for the Next Generation Networks.
• Another precise project for routing in xG networks is the reformed
equipment for analytical assessment of routing protocols.
Traditionally, routing protocols for ad hoc networks are analysed by
the usage of graph models.
Challenges of transport layer:
• The Next Generation Networks are imposing the unique challenges
on the transport layer as described below:
• The performances of the TCP depends upon the packet loss
probability and the round trip time (RTT). Wireless link errors and the
packet loss probability is not only depending on the access
technology, but also it depends upon the frequency which is in use,
the interference level and the bandwidth which is available.
• Therefore the wireless TCP and UDP constructed for the existing
wireless access technologies can’t be used in the dynamic spectrum
assignment based Next Generation Networks.
Challenges of the QOE in the Next Generation Networks:
•In the Next Generation Networks the voice, multimedia and data
services will be assembled into solely networked platform. This will
increase the complexity of the underlying services of the wireless
network and also the optical networks.
•Though they all are combined into a single platform they must be cost
efficient and also the resources efficient so that the users may get
satisfied. Hence, now the service providers are shifting their
concentrations from the network Quality of Services (QOS) to the form
of user Quality of Experience (QOE) which will describe the act of the
network from the perspective of the user.
•Sometimes the high quality of services can result in the Quality of
experience but it cannot reach up to the highest mark of the Quality of
Experience.
•Optimizing the Quality of the Experience includes the factors such as
application levelled Quality of the Services, the surroundings which are
nearer to the customer networks, based on the factors of the users and
• The end to end Quality of the experience will depends upon the
outcome effects of the entire system including the network
systems, terminals, the surroundings which are nearer to the
customer surroundings and the users.
• To ensure the Quality of the Experience of all the vertical network
layer operations are needed to performed basing on the user’s real
time of the Quality of Experiences.
• To achieve all this goals there is a need to address many of the
challenges like Quality of Experience measurement, management,
diagnosing and also the monitoring.
• Hence, here we propose the two important components of the
end-to end quality of experience. Those are the Quality of
Experience or the Quality of the Services reporting act which is
installed at the TE.
• And the other one is the managing component of the Quality of
Experience which are installed at the sources and the networks. The
Quality of the experiences and the Quality of the Services reporting
components will measure the QOE/QOS performances received by
the users and report them back to the sources and the networks.
• The components of the management of the Quality of Experience
will receive the report and make the necessary modifications to the
transport functions and rearranging the parameters of the
application-layer to maximize the user Quality of Experience.
• As the networks are maximizing the network independently and
locally of their users, the end-to-end Quality of Experiences can be
implemented in the Next Generation Network that is composite in
the nature.
• And the end-to-end Next Generation Network still is having many
challenging issues, and it will receive great attention from both the
industry and the academia which will give that means which will
generate a revenue and also the growth of a competitive service
vendors.
Challenges of the Next Generation Mobile Networks:
•In today’s environment the users of the mobile network are looking
forward for the speed connectivity of the 5G network and where the
service vendors are going through challenges in complying with
connectivity needs without huge capital investments. Hence, a new
technique came into the existence which is known as Network Function
Virtualization (NFV) which can solve the problem of the service vendors
and also which will change the infrastructure of the telecommunication
to make it more cost-efficient.
•The Network Function Virtualization aim is to change the tele-
communicational industry by separating the network functionalities
from the underlying notified hardware. The NFV is providing all the
benefits for the tele-communication industry hence all the network
based engineers and the researchers are using this technique to have a
smooth way in the industry of tele-communication.
• Though it is providing a good challenges in the tele-communication
industry it is facing many technical challenges hence the tele-
communication services providers, the academic researchers, IT
organizations are finding a new approaches to overcome this
problem. The Network Function Virtualization is also used to make
less the transactions which are occurred on the physical networks.
Challenges of the Network Management for the Next Generation
Networks:
• The current management of the network have been divided into
the two types they are ITU-T’s recommendations for
Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) and IETF’s
straightforward Network Management Protocol (SNMP) that
favors the Internet Protocol networks. Public Switched Telephone
Network, Public Switched Data Network, Public Land Mobile
Network and the Wireless Local Area Networks etc. these are the
functions which are targeted more on the networks which are not
dependent.
• All these approaches will be included into a single Internet
Protocol based infrastructure which are going to be considered as
the Next Generation Networks in the coming days.
• But the complexity of the Next Generation Network will bring a
great challenges to the management of the network.
• As the Next Generation Networks are deriving from the tele-
communication networks and the Internet Protocol based
infrastructure , the management architecture and the control are
completely different from each other and will be acting separately
between the Quality of Service enabled transport or the enabled
network domain and the object-oriented application with
assigning environment process. Due to the stress arising from the
development of the rapid technology and the competition along
with the fresh perception of the Next Generation Networks will
generate a important challenges in the fields of the
administration, operation and managing the maintenance of the
services and the networks.
Challenges of the Mobile Ad Hoc Networks:
•In the coming 10 years, there comes a lot of changes in the Internet
which will be operated by the rapid increase of mobile devices or wired
personal computers or the existing systems.
•The wireless Appliances on the Internet includes the Laptops, mobile
phones, computers, media players etc. and also there are embedded
sensors which are used to sense and control the objects. As now the
usage of the computing devices and the wireless networks are playing a
very important role. The internet will act as an interface between the
people and their surroundings. Controlling the objectives and events of
the Internet will again leads to the new methods which are integrated
with the lifestyle of people and their surroundings.
•The potential impact of the long run wireless web is incredibly vital as a
result of the network combines the ability of computation, search
engines and databases within the background with the immediacy of
information from mobile users and sensors within the foreground.
• The flow of data and the interaction between the mobile users, the
supporting computer’s infrastructure are completely different as
compared to that of the today’s applications of the Internet such
as email, messages, worldwide web etc. For supporting all these
requirements in a global networking there is a need of bringing the
major changes.
Challenges of the Next-Generation wireless sensor networks:
• The wireless sensor networks have gained a worldwide attention in
the recent years particularly in the area of development of the
smart sensor. The wireless sensor networks are having a potential
to the replacement of the wired networks.
• These wireless sensor networks can provide the risk analyzing
data. Mainly it can help the farmers to analyse the risk before only
like frost damages occurring on the crop, changes in the climate
and making the farmer to get awareness about these changes and
making his crop safe by analysing what damages can occur to his
crops if there is a drastic change in the climate. Not only in the
field of agriculture but also the wireless sensor networks are also
used in the medical field as well as for building the secured
buildings with low cost in the developed countries.
Spectrum Sensing:
•A major challenge in cognitive radio is that the secondary users need
to detect the presence of primary users in a licensed spectrum and
quit the frequency band as quickly as possible if the corresponding
primary radio emerges in order to avoid interference to primary
users. This technique is called spectrum sensing. Spectrum sensing
and estimation is the first step to implement Cognitive Radio system.
•It is categorized that spectrum sensing techniques into direct
method, which is considered as frequency domain approach, where
the estimation is carried out directly from signal and indirect method,
which is known as time domain approach, where the estimation is
performed using autocorrelation of the signal. Another way of
categorizing the spectrum sensing and estimation methods is by
making group into model based parametric method and periodogram
based non parametric method.
The classification depends on the need of spectrum sensing as stated
below:
(i)Spectrum Sensing for Spectrum Opportunities:
[Link] transmitter detection: In this case, the detection of primary
users is performed based on the received signal at CR users. This
approach includes matched filter (MF) based detection, energy based
detection, covariance based detection, waveform based detection,
cyclostationary based detection, radio identification based detection
and random Hough Transform based detection.
[Link] and collaborative detection: In this approach, the
primary signals for spectrum opportunities are detected reliably by
interacting or cooperating with other users, and the method can be
implemented as either centralized access to spectrum coordinated by
a spectrum server or distributed approach implied by the spectrum
load smoothing algorithm or external detection.
(ii) Spectrum Sensing for Interference Detection:
[Link] temperature detection: In this approach, CR system
works as in the ultra wide band (UWB) technology where the
secondary users coexist with primary users and are allowed to
transmit with low power and are restricted by the interference
temperature level so as not to cause harmful interference to primary
users.
[Link] receiver detection: In this method, the interference and/or
spectrum opportunities are detected based on primary receiver's
local oscillator leakage power.
Classification of Spectrum Sensing Techniques:
Figure. Shows the detailed classification of spectrum Sensing
techniques. They are broadly classified into three main types,
transmitter detection or non cooperative sensing, cooperative
sensing and interference based sensing. Transmitter detection
technique is further classified into energy detection, matched filter
detection and cyclostationary feature detection.
Primary Transmitter Detection:
Energy Detection:
•It is a non coherent detection method that detects the primary signal
based on the sensed energy. Due to its simplicity and no requirement
on a priori knowledge of primary user signal, energy detection (ED) is
the most popular sensing technique in cooperative sensing.
•The block diagram for the energy detection technique is shown in the
Figure. In this method, signal is passed through band pass filter of the
bandwidth W and is integrated over time interval. The output from the
integrator block is then compared to a predefined threshold. This
comparison is used to discover the existence of absence of the primary
user. The threshold value can set to be fixed or variable based on the
channel conditions.
•The ED is said to be the Blind signal detector because it ignores the
structure of the signal. It estimates the presence of the signal by
comparing the energy received with a known threshold ν derived from
the statistics of the noise.
• Analytically, signal detection can be reduced to a simple
identification problem, formalized as a hypothesis test,

• Where y (k) is the sample to be analyzed at each instant k and n (k)

is the noise of variance σ2. Let y (k) be a sequence of received
samples k Є {1, 2….N} at the signal detector, then a decision rule
can be stated as,

• Where ε = E│y(k)│2 the estimated energy of the received signal and

ν is chosen to be the noise variance σ2.
ED is always accompanied by a number of disadvantages:
i) sensing time taken to achieve a given probability of detection may
be high.
 ii) detection performance is subject to the uncertainty of noise
power.
iii) ED cannot be used to distinguish primary signals from the CR user
signals. As a result CR users need to be tightly synchronized and
refrained from the transmissions during an interval called Quiet
Period in cooperative sensing.
iv) ED cannot be used to detect spread spectrum signals.
Matched Filter:
• Analytically, signal detection can be reduced to a simple
identification problem, formalized as a hypothesis test, A matched
filter (MF) is a linear filter designed to maximize the output signal
to noise ratio for a given input signal. When secondary user has a
priori knowledge of primary user signal, matched filter detection is
applied. Matched filter operation is equivalent to correlation in
which the unknown signal is convolved with the filter whose
impulse response is the mirror and time shifted version of a
reference signal.
The operation of matched filter detection is expressed as:

Where ‘x’ is the unknown signal (vector) and is convolved with the ‘h’,
the impulse response of matched filter that is matched to the
reference signal for maximizing the SNR. Detection by using
matched filter is useful only in cases where the information from
the primary users is known to the cognitive users.
• Advantages: Matched filter detection needs less detection time
because it requires only 0 (1/SNR) samples to meet a given
probability of detection constraint. When the information of the
primary user signal is known to the cognitive radio user, matched
filter detection is optimal detection in stationary Gaussian noise.
• Disadvantages: Matched filter detection requires a prior
knowledge of every primary signal. If the information is not
accurate, MF performs poorly. Also the most significant
disadvantage of MF is that a CR would need a dedicated receiver
for every type of primary user.
Cyclostationary Feature Detection:

•It exploits the periodicity in the received primary signal to identify the
presence of primary users(PU).The periodicity is commonly embedded
in sinusoidal carriers, pulse trains, spreading code, hopping sequences
or cyclic prefixes of the primary signals. Due to the periodicity, these
cyclostationary signals exhibit the features of periodic statistics and
spectral correlation, which is not found in stationary noise and
interference.
•Thus,cyclostationary feature detection is robust to noise uncertainties
and performs better than energy detection in low SNR regions.
Although it requires a priori knowledge of the signal characteristics,
cyclostationary feature detection is capable of distinguishing the CR
transmissions from various types of PU signals. This eliminates the
synchronization requirement of energy detection in cooperative
• Moreover, CR users may not be required to keep silent during
cooperative sensing and thus improving the overall CR throughput.
This method has its own shortcomings owing to its high
computational complexity and long sensing time. Due to these
issues, this detection method is less common than energy
detection in cooperative sensing.
• The comparison of different transmitter detection techniques for
spectrum sensing and the spectrum opportunities is shown in
figure. As it is evident from the figure, that matched filter based
detection is complex to implement in CRs, but has highest
accuracy. Similarly, the energy based detection is least complex to
implement in CR system and least accurate compared to other
approaches. And other approaches are in the middle of these two.
Cooperative Techniques:
•High sensitivity requirements on the cognitive user can be alleviated
if multiple CR users cooperate in sensing the channel. Various
topologies are currently used and are broadly classifiable into three
regimes according to their level of cooperation
Decentralized Uncoordinated Techniques:
The cognitive users in the network don’t have any kind of cooperation
which means that each CR user will independently detect the
channel, and if a CR user detects the primary user it would vacate the
channel without informing the other users. Uncoordinated
techniques are fallible in comparison with coordinated techniques.
Therefore, CR users that experience bad channel realizations detect
the channel incorrectly thereby causing interference at the primary
receiver.
Centralized Coordinated Techniques:
In such networks, an infrastructure deployment is assumed for the
CR users. One CR that detects the presence of a primary transmitter
or receiver, informs a CR controller which can be a wired immobile
device or another CR user. The CR controller notifies all the CR users
in its range by means of a broadcast control message.
• Centralized schemes can be further classified according to their
level of cooperation as: Partially cooperative where network nodes
cooperate only in sensing the channel. CR users independently
detect the channel and inform the CR controller which then
notifies all the CR users; and totally cooperative Schemes where
nodes cooperate in relaying each other’s information in addition to
cooperatively sensing the channel
Decentralized Coordinated Techniques: This type of coordination
implies building up a network of cognitive radios without having
the need of a controller. Various algorithms have been proposed
for the decentralized techniques among which are the gossiping
algorithms or clustering schemes, where cognitive users gather to
clusters, auto coordinating themselves. The cooperative spectrum
sensing raises the need for a control channel, which can be
implemented as a dedicated frequency channel or as an underlay
UWB channel.
Benefits of Cooperation: Cognitive users selflessly cooperating to
sense the channel have lot of benefits among which the plummeting
sensitivity requirements :channel impairments like multipath fading,
shadowing and building penetration losses, impose high sensitivity
requirements inherently limited by cost and power requirements.
Employing cooperation between nodes can drastically reduce the
sensitivity requirements up to -25 dBm, also reduction in sensitivity
threshold can be obtained by using this scheme; agility improvement:
all topologies of cooperative networks reduce detection time
compared to uncoordinated networks.
Disadvantages of Cooperation: The CR users need to perform sensing
at periodic intervals as sensed information become obsolete fast due
to factors like mobility, channel impairments etc.
• This considerably increases the data overhead; large sensory data:
since the cognitive radio can potentially use any spectrum hole, it
will have to scan a wide range of spectrum, resulting in large
amounts of data, being inefficient in terms of data throughput,
delay sensitivity requirements and energy consumption. Even
though cooperatively sensing data poses lot of challenges, it could
be carried out without incurring much overhead because only
approximate sensing information is required, eliminating the need
for complex signal processing schemes at the receiver and
reducing the data load. Also, even though a wide channel has to be
scanned, only a portion of it changes at a time requiring updating
only the changed information and not all the details of the entire
scanned spectrum.
Interference Based Detection:
•we present interference based detection so that the CR users would
operate in spectrum underlay (UWB like) approach.
Primary Receiver Detection:
•In general, primary receiver emits the local oscillator (LO) leakage
power from its RF front end while receiving the data from primary
transmitter. It has been suggested as a method to detect primary user
by mounting a low cost sensor node close to a primary user's receiver
in order to detect the local oscillator (LO) leakage power emitted by
the RF front end of the primary user's receiver which are within the
communication range of CR system users. The local sensor then
reports the sensed information to the CR users so that they can
identify the spectrum occupancy status. We note that this method
can also be used to identify the spectrum opportunities to operate CR
users in spectrum overlay.
Interference Temperature Management:
•Unlike the primary receiver detection, the basic idea behind the
interference temperature management is to set up an upper
interference limit for given frequency band in specific geographic
location such that the CR users are not allowed to cause harmful
interference while using the specific band in specific area. Typically,
CR user transmitters control their interference by regulating their
transmission power (their out of band emissions) based on their
locations with respect to primary users. This method basically
concentrates on measuring interference at the receiver.
•The operating principle of this method is like an UWB technology
where the CR users are allowed to coexist and transmit
simultaneously with primary users using low transmit power that is
restricted by the interference temperature level so as not to cause
harmful interference to primary users.
• Here CR users do not perform spectrum sensing for spectrum
opportunities and can transmit right way with specified preset
power mask. However, the CR users can not transmit their data
with higher power even if the licensed system is completely idle
since they are not allowed to transmit with higher than the preset
power to limit the interference at primary users. It is noted that
the CR users in this method are required to know the location and
corresponding upper level of allowed transmit power levels.
Otherwise they will interfere with the primary user transmissions.
CHALLENEGES IN SPECTRUM SENSING:
(i)Channel Uncertainty:
Channel fading or shadowing may cause higher interference. If the
primary signal is experiencing a deep fade or being heavily shadowed by
obstacles then secondary user may wrongly interpret that the primary
user is located out of its interference range. Therefore, cognitive radios
have to be more sensitive to distinguish a faded or shadowed primary
signal from a white space. This issue may be handled by having a group
of cognitive radios (cooperative Sensing) since a single cognitive radio
will be unable to achieve this increased sensitivity.
(ii) Sensing Interference Limit:
The net major challenge lies in the interference measurement at the
licensed receiver caused by transmissions from unlicensed users. First,
an unlicensed user may not know exactly the location of the licensed
receiver which is required to compute interference caused due to its
transmission. Second, if a licensed receiver is a passive device, the
transmitter may not be aware of the receiver. So these factors need
attention while calculating the sensing interference limit.
(iii) Noise Uncertainty :
The detection sensitivity can be defined as the minimum SNR at which
the primary signal can be accurately (e.g. with a probability of 0.99)
detected by the cognitive radio and is given by

Where N is the noise power, P is transmitted power of the primary user,

D is the interference range of the secondary user, and R is maximum
distance between primary transmitter and its corresponding receiver.
The above equation suggests that in order to calculate the required
detection sensitivity, the noise power has to be known, which is not
available in practice, and needs to be estimated by the receiver.
However the noise power estimation is limited by calibration errors as
well as changes in thermal noise caused by temperature variations.
Since a cognitive radio may not satisfy the sensitivity requirement due
to an underestimate of N, γmin should be calculated with the worst case
noise assumption, thereby necessitating a more sensitive detector.
Spectrum Management:
•xG networks impose unique challenges due to their coexistence with primary
networks as well as diverse QoS requirements. Thus, new spectrum
management functions are required for CR networks with the following
critical design challenges.
Interference avoidance: CR networks should avoid interference with primary
networks.
QoS awareness: To decide on an appropriate spectrum band, CR networks
should support QoS-aware communication, considering the dynamic and
heterogeneous spectrum environment.
Seamless communication: CR networks should provide seamless
communication regardless of the appearance of primary users.
To address these challenges, a directory for different functionalities required
for spectrum management in CR networks. The spectrum management
process consists of four major steps:

•
Spectrum sensing: A CR user can allocate only an unused portion of the
spectrum. Therefore, a CR user should monitor the available spectrum
bands, capture their information, and then detect spectrum holes.
Spectrum decision: Based on the spectrum availability, CR users can
allocate a channel. This allocation not only depends on spectrum
availability, but is also determined based on internal (and possibly
external) policies.
Spectrum sharing: Because there may be multiple CR users trying to
access the spectrum, CR network access should be coordinated to
prevent multiple users colliding in overlapping portions of the spectrum.

The spectrum management framework for CR network communication

is illustrated in Fig. 3. It is evident from the significant number of
interactions that the spectrum management functions require a cross-
layer design approach.
•
.
•
.
Spectrum Analysis:
Because available spectrum holes show different characteristics that vary
over time, each spectrum hole should be characterized considering both the
time-varying radio environment and spectrum parameters, such as
operating frequency and bandwidth. Hence, it is essential to define
parameters that can represent a particular spectrum band as follows:
•Interference: From the amount of interference at the primary receiver, the
permissible power of a CR user can be derived, which is used for the
estimation of channel capacity.
•Path loss: The path loss is closely related to distance and frequency. As the
operating frequency increases, the path loss increases, which results in a
decrease in the transmission range. If transmission power is increased to
compensate for the increased path loss, interference at other users may
increase.
•Wireless link errors: Depending on the modulation scheme and the
interference level of the spectrum band, the error rate of the channel
changes.
•
• Link layer delay: To address different path loss, wireless link error,
and interference, different types of link layer protocols are required
at different spectrum bands. This results in different link layer delays.
DECISION PROCEDURE:
• After the available spectrum bands are characterized, the most
appropriate spectrum band should be selected, considering the QoS
requirements and spectrum characteristics. Accordingly, the
transmission mode and bandwidth for the transmission can be
reconfigured.
• To describe the dynamic nature of CR net works, a new metric —
primary user activity — is proposed, which is defined as the
probability of a primary user appearance during CR user
transmission. Because there is no guarantee that a spectrum band
will be available during the entire communication of a CR user, it is
important to consider how often the primary user appears on the
spectrum band.
• However, because of the operation of primary networks, CR users
cannot obtain a reliable communication channel for a long time
period. Moreover, CR users may not detect any single spectrum band
to meet the user’s requirements. Therefore, multiple noncontiguous
spectrum bands can be simultaneously used for transmission in CR
networks, as shown in Fig. 5. This method can create a signal that is
not only capable of high data throughput, but is also immune to
interference and primary user activity. Even if spectrum handoff
occurs in one of the current spectrum bands, the rest of the
spectrum bands will maintain current transmissions.
•
.
Spectrum Management challenges:
•Decision model: Spectrum capacity estimation using signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) is not sufficient to characterize the spectrum band in CR networks.
Also, applications require different QoS requirements. Thus, design of
application- and spectrum-adaptive spectrum decision models is still an
open issue.
•Cooperation with reconfiguration: CR techniques enable transmission
parameters to be reconfigured for optimal operation in a certain spectrum
band. For example, even if SNR is changed, bit rate and bit error rate (BER)
can be maintained by exploiting adaptive modulation instead of spectrum
decision. Hence, a cooperative framework with reconfiguration is required
in spectrum decision.
•Spectrum decision over heterogeneous spectrum bands: Currently, certain
spectrum bands are assigned to different purposes, whereas some bands
remain unlicensed. Thus, a CR network should support spectrum decision
operations on both the licensed and unlicensed bands.

•
Spectrum Mobility:
•The primary objective of spectrum mobility in CRNs is to perform
seamless channel switch over while sustaining performance of ongoing SU
communication.
•Spectrum mobility is divided into two processes: spectrum handoff and
connection management. Spectrum handoff is the process of transferring
ongoing data transmission from the current channel to another free
channel. This naturally causes additional latency to SU communication
that eventually affects SU performance. To compensate the unavoidable
handoff delay, connection management process manages and adjusts
protocol stack parameters depending on current situation.
•There are two PU related events that can trigger spectrum handoff in
CRNs. First, PU arrival in the licensed channel necessarily forces SU to
perform spectrum handoff. Second, spectrum handoff can occur because
of CR user mobility.

•
.
• As CR users moves spatially, there is a chance that transmission
coverage of the SU overlaps with a PU currently using the same
channel band. Being opportunistic users in licensed spectrum bands,
SUs’ activity in legacy networks shall conform to the ground rule: PUs
always have higher priority in using licensed spectrum than SUs. As a
consequence, if SU arrival causes interference to PU data
transmission, the SU shall leave the licensed channel immediately.
• In addition, SUs can also perform spectrum handoff because of link
quality degradation. Since the radio spectrum of CRNs is
predominantly occupied by users outside the control of SUs, the
quality of the communication channel in CRNs may in particular vary
dynamically over time and space. Thus, it is important for SUs to
monitor and analyze periodically the quality of the channel being
used for data transmission. If channel quality tends to degrade in the
future, spectrum handoff is required to maintain the QoS level.
• Spectrum handoff can be explained as cyclic process as shown in
Fig. 2. It consists of two phases: evaluation phase and link
maintenance phase. In evaluation phase, SU observes the
environment and analyzes whether handoff triggering events occur.
Once SU decides to perform spectrum handoff, it goes into link
maintenance phase. In this phase, SU first pauses the ongoing
transmission. Then SU hands over there claimed channel to PU and
resumes data transmission session over another free channel.
• Finally, SU leaves link maintenance phase and resumes the cycle.
Note that backup target channel can be searched either in evaluation
or in link maintenance phase depending on whether proactive or
reactive handoff is used.
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT:
•To measure spectrum mobility performance, several parameters have
been proposed. The number of spectrum handoff is defined as the
number of handoffs occurring during one session of SU data
transmission. Link maintenance probability is the probability that the
communication link is successfully maintained when SU vacates the
channel. Handoff latency is defined as the delay resulting from
spectrum handoff process, and effective data rate is the average
amount of data which is successfully transferred between two
communicating SUs in each session. Among these parameters, link
maintenance probability and handoff latency are key performance
metrics for spectrum mobility.
•The correlation between these parameters is explained as follows:
From SU point of view increasing the number of spectrum handoffs
increases link maintenance probability. However, at the same time, this
also reduces effective data rate per connection. On the other hand,
from PU point of view, handoff latency becomes the main concern.
• The greater the handoff latency to the SU is, the greater the
interference to the PU is.
In general, spectrum mobility techniques with higher link
maintenance probability and lower handoff latency give better
spectrum agility to CRNs. In order to achieve high performance in
spectrum mobility, multiple spectrum handoffs should be avoided if
possible.
Spectrum mobility challenges in xG networks:
The followings are the open research issues for efficient spectrum mobility
in xG networks.
•At a particular time, several frequency bands may be available for an
xG user. Algorithms are required to decide the best available spectrum
based on the channel characteristics of the available spectrum and the
requirements of the applications that are being used by an xG user.
•Once, the best available spectrum is selected, the next challenge is to
design new mobility and connection management approaches to reduce
delay and loss during spectrum handoff.
•When the current operational frequency becomes busy (this may
happen if a licensed user starts to use this frequency) in the middle of
communication by an xG user, then applications running on this node
have to be transferred to another available frequency band. However,
the selection of new operational frequency may take time. Novel
algorithms are required to ensure that applications do not suffer from
severe performance degradation during such transitions.
• Spectrum handoff may occur due to reasons other than the detection
of the primary user. Thus, there exist various other spectrum handoff
schemes in xG networks. If an xG user moves from one place to
another, spectrum handoff may occur just because the available
spectrum bands change. Thus the desired spectrum handoff scheme
should integrate inter-cell handoff. Apart from this, spectrum
handoff between different networks, referred to as vertical handoff is
also likely to occur in xG networks. Under such a diverse
environment, it is essential that spectrum handoff scheme takes all
the above mentioned possibilities into consideration.
• Spectrum mobility in time domain: xG networks adapt to the wireless
spectrum based on available bands on the spectrum. Since these
available channels change over time, enabling QoS in this
environment is challenging. The physical radio should ‘‘move’’
through the spectrum to meet the QoS requirements.
• Spectrum mobility in space: The available bands also change as a user
moves from one place to another. Hence, continuous allocation of
spectrum is a major challenge in xG networks.
Spectrum Sharing:
•In xG networks, one of the main challenges in open spectrum usage is
the spectrum sharing. Spectrum sharing can be regarded to be similar
to generic medium access control (MAC) problems in existing systems.
However, as we will investigate in this section, substantially different
challenges exist for spectrum sharing in CR networks. The coexistence
with licensed users and the wide range of available spectrum are two of
the main reasons for these unique challenges

The challenges and the solutions proposed for these steps will then be
explained in detail. The spectrum sharing process consists of five major
steps.
1. Spectrum sensing: An xG user can only allocate a portion of the
spectrum if that portion is not used by an unlicensed user.
Accordingly, when an CR node aims to transmit packets, it first
needs to be aware of the spectrum usage around its vicinity.
2. Spectrum allocation: Based on the spectrum availability, the node
can then allocate a channel. This allocation not only depends on
spectrum availability, but it is also determined based on internal
(and possibly external) policies. Hence, the design of a spectrum
allocation policy to improve the performance of a node is an
important research topic.
3. Spectrum access: In this step, another major problem of spectrum
sharing comes into picture. Since there may be multiple xG nodes
trying to access the spectrum, this access should also be
coordinated in order to prevent multiple users colliding in
overlapping portions of the spectrum.
4. Transmitter-receiver handshake: Once a portion of the spectrum is
determined for communication. the receiver of this communication
should also be indicated about the selected spectrum. Hence, a
transmitter-receiver handshake protocol is essential for efficient
communication in xG networks. Note that the term handshake by no
means restricts this protocol between the transmitter and the receiver.
A third party such as a centralized station can also be involved.
5. Spectrum mobility: xG nodes are regarded as ‘‘visitors’’ to the
spectrum they allocate. Hence, if the specific portion of the spectrum in
use is required by a licensed user, the communication needs to be
continued in another vacant portion. As a result, spectrum mobility is
also important for successful communication between xG nodes.
OVERVIEW OF SPECTRUM SHARING TECHNIQUES:
•The existing solutions for spectrum sharing aims to address these
challenges and can be mainly classified by three aspects: the
architecture, spectrum allocation behavior, and spectrum access
technique.
•we describe these three classifications and present the fundamental
results that analyze these classifications.
•The analysis of CR spectrum sharing techniques has been investigated
through two major theoretical approaches. While some work uses
optimization techniques to find the optimal strategies for spectrum
sharing, game theoretical analysis has also been used in this area.
• The first classification for spectrum sharing techniques in xG
networks is based on the architecture, which can be described as
follows:
Centralized spectrum sharing:
• In these solutions, a centralized entity controls the spectrum
allocation and access procedures.
• With aid to these procedures, generally, a distributed sensing
procedure is proposed such that each entity in the CR network
forward their measurements about the spectrum allocation to the
central entity and this entity constructs a spectrum allocation map.
Distributed spectrum sharing:
• Distributed solutions are mainly proposed for cases where the
construction of an infrastructure is not preferable. Accordingly, each
node is responsible for the spectrum allocation and access is based
on local (or possibly global) policies.
The second classification for spectrum sharing techniques in CR
networks is based on the access behavior.
• Cooperative spectrum sharing: Cooperative (or collaborative)
solutions consider the effect of the node’s communication on other
nodes. In other words, the interference measurements of each node
are shared among other nodes. Furthermore, the spectrum
allocation algorithms also consider this information. While all the
centralized solutions can be regarded as cooperative, there also exist
distributed cooperative solutions.
• Non-cooperative spectrum sharing: Contrary to the cooperative
solutions, non-cooperative (or non collaborative, selfish) solutions
consider only the node at hand. These solutions are also referred to
as selfish. While non-cooperative solutions may result in reduced
spectrum utilization, the minimal communication requirements
among other nodes introduce a tradeoff for practical solutions.
• These two solutions have generally been compared through their
spectrum utilization, fairness, and throughput.
The third classification for spectrum sharing in CR networks is based on
the access technology as explained below:
Overlay spectrum sharing: Overlay spectrum sharing(Figure 1.b) refers
to the spectrum access technique used. More specifically, a node
accesses the network using a portion of the spectrum that has not been
used by licensed users. As a result, interference to the primary system is
minimized.
• Underlay spectrum sharing: Underlay spectrum sharing (Figure 1.a)
exploits the spread spectrum techniques developed for cellular
networks. Once a spectrum allocation map has been acquired, an CR
node begins transmission such that its transmit power at a certain
portion of the spectrum is regarded as noise by the licensed users.
This technique requires sophisticated spread spectrum techniques
and can utilize increased bandwidth compared to overlay techniques.
SPECTRUM SHARING CHALLENGES:
In the following, the challenges for spectrum sharing in CR networks
along with some possible solutions.
Common control channel (CCC):
Many spectrum sharing solutions, either centralized or distributed,
assume a CCC for spectrum sharing. It is clear that a CCC facilitates
many spectrum sharing functionalities such as transmitter receiver
handshake, communication with a central entity, or sensing information
exchange. However, due to the fact that CR network users are regarded
as visitors to the spectrum they allocate, when a primary user chooses a
channel, this channel has to be vacated without interfering. This is also
true for the CCC. As a result, implementation of a fixed CCC is infeasible
in CR networks. On the other hand when CCC is not used, the
transmitter receiver handshake becomes a challenge.
• Dynamic radio range:
Radio range changes with operating frequency due to attenuation
variation. In many solutions, a fixed range is assumed to be
independent of the operating spectrum. However, in CR networks,
where a large portion of the wireless spectrum is considered, the
neighbors of a node may change as the operating frequency changes.
This effects the interference profile as well as routing decisions.
Moreover, due to this property, the choice of a control channel
needs to be carefully decided. It would be much efficient to select
control channels in the lower portions of the spectrum where the
transmission range will be higher and to select data channels in the
higher portions of the spectrum where a localized operation can be
utilized with minimized interference. So far, there exists no work
addressing this important challenge in CR networks and we advocate
operation frequency aware spectrum sharing techniques due the
direct interdependency between interference and radio range.
Spectrum Unit:
•Almost all spectrum decision and spectrum sharing techniques
consider a channel as the basic spectrum unit. Hence the definition of a
channel as a spectrum unit is crucial in developing algorithms.
Location Information:
•An important assumption in the existing work is that secondary users
know the location and transmit power of primary users so that
interference calculations can be performed easily. However, such an
assumption may not always be valid in CR networks.
Upper layer issues :
•In addition to the unique challenges of xG networks in terms of
spectrum sensing, spectrum management, spectrum mobility, and
spectrum sharing, upper layer issues such as routing, flow control and
congestion control are also important for the realization of dynamic
spectrum networks.
The overview of the challenges related to these areas.
Routing challenges:
•Routing constitutes a rather important but yet unexplored problem in
xG networks. Especially in xG networks with multi-hop communication
requirements, the unique characteristics of the open spectrum
phenomenon necessitates novel routing algorithms to be developed.
•So far, the research on xG networks is primarily on spectrum sensing
techniques and spectrum sharing solutions. However, we emphasize
that the need for routing algorithms in open spectrum environment
constitutes an important topic in xG network research.
• A major design choice for routing in xG networks is the
collaboration between routing and spectrum management. The
dynamic spectrum that is intermittent in terms of both time and
space necessitates such an approach.
Some research issues for routing in xG networks given below:
• Common control channel: It has also been emphasized that the
lack of a common control channel (CCC) in xG networks
constitutes a major problem. Traditional routing protocols require
either local or global broadcast messages for specific
functionalities such as neighbor discovery, route discovery and
route establishment. However, even broadcasting in xG networks
is a major problem due to the lack of a CCC. Hence, solutions
considering this fact is required in xG networks.
• Intermittent connectivity: In xG networks, the reachable neighbors of
a node may change rapidly. This is due to two reasons. First, the
available spectrum may change or vanish as licensed users exploit
the network. Moreover, once a node selects a channel for
communication it is no longer reachable through other channels. As a
result, the connectivity concept used for wireless networks is
different in xG networks and depends on the spectrum. For this
purpose channel-based models such as the one in is required as well
as time-based solutions.
• Re-routing: In xG networks, due to the intermittent connectivity, a
route established for a flow can change due to the available
spectrum in addition to mobility. Hence, the re-routing algorithms
considering the dynamic spectrum is necessary for routing in xG
networks. A spectrum-aware routing adapts route selection to
spectrum fluctuations.
• Queue management: The queue management in xG networks is
another challenge which has not been addressed to date. An xG
terminal may have multiple interfaces for communication with
different nodes. Since the available spectrum varies over time,
these interfaces may become unavailable requiring the packets
served through that interface moved to other interfaces. In
addition, the quality of service requirements may deploy various
priorities on different traffic types. Hence, the implementation of a
single queue or multiple queues for each traffic type of each
interface needs to be investigated.
Transport layer challenges:
• Transport protocols constitute an unexplored area for xG networks
since there exist no work on this area yet. Several solutions have
been proposed to improve the performance of TCP and UDP in
conventional wireless networks in recent years. These studies focus
on mechanisms to limit the performance degradation of TCP and
UDP that arise because of wireless link errors and access delays.
However, the xG networks impose unique challenges for transport
protocols as explained below:
•The performance of TCP depends on the packet loss probability and
the round trip time (RTT). Wireless link errors and, hence, the packet
loss probability not only depends on the access technology, but also on
the frequency in use, interference level, and the available bandwidth.
Therefore, the wireless TCP and UDP protocols that are designed for
existing wireless access technologies cannot be used in dynamic
spectrum assignment based xG networks.
•On the other hand, RTT of a TCP connection depends indirectly on the
frequency of operation. For example, if the packet error rate (or
equivalently, the frame error rate) is higher at a particular frequency
band, a higher number of link layer retransmissions are required to
successfully transport a packet across the wireless channel. Moreover,
the wireless channel access delay in xG networks depends on the
operation frequency, the interference level, and the medium access
control protocol. These factors influence the RTT of a TCP connection.
• Therefore, based on the frequency of operation, RTT and packet loss
probability observed by a TCP protocol will vary. Hence, transport
protocols need to be designed to adapt to these variations.
• The operation frequency of a cognitive radio in xG networks may vary
from time to time due to spectrum handoff. When an xG terminal
changes its operating frequency, this results in a finite amount of
delay before the new frequency can be operational. This is referred
to as the spectrum handoff latency.
• The spectrum handoff latency can increase the RTT, which leads to
retransmission timeout (RTO). Conventional transport protocols can
perceive this RTO as packet loss and invoke its congestion avoidance
mechanism resulting in reduced throughput. To eliminate the
adverse effects of spectrum mobility, transport protocols need to be
designed such that they are transparent to spectrum handoff.
Cross-layer design:
•The communication challenges outlined above necessitate new
communication protocols to be designed for spectrum-aware
communication in xG networks.
•The performance of xG networking functionalities directly depend on
the properties of the spectrum band in use. This direct relationship
necessitates a cross-layer design in the entire xG networking protocol
stack. In particular, the effects of the selected spectrum band and the
changes due to spectrum mobility need to be carefully considered in
the design of communication protocols.
•Moreover, the spectrum management functionalities such as spectrum
sensing and spectrum handoff should work in collaboration with the
communication protocols.
The challenges for the cross-layer design in Xg networks given below:
Cross-layer challenges in spectrum management:
•The dynamic nature of the underlying spectrum in xG networks
necessitates communication protocols to adapt to the wireless channel
parameters. Moreover, the behavior of each protocol affects the
performance of other protocols.
•For example, different medium access techniques used in xG networks,
directly affect the round trip time (RTT) for the transport protocols.
Similarly, when re-routing is done because of link failures arising from
spectrum mobility, the RTT and error probability in the communication
path change accordingly.
•The change in error probability also affects the performance of the
medium access protocols. Consequently, all these changes affect the
overall quality of the user applications.
• In order to decide the appropriate spectrum band, the spectrum
management requires the information regarding QoS requirement,
transport, routing, scheduling, and sensing. Hence, these
interdependencies among functionalities of the communication
stack, and their close coupling with the physical layer necessitate a
cross layer spectrum management function which considers medium
access, routing, and transport, and application requirements as well
as available spectrum in the selection of the operating spectrum.
Cross-layer challenges in spectrum handoff:
• Spectrum handoff results in latency, which affects the performance
of the communication protocols. Thus, the main challenge in
spectrum handoff is to reduce the latency for spectrum sensing. The
spectrum handoff latency has adverse effects on the performance of
transport protocols. Moreover, during spectrum handoff, the channel
parameters such as path loss, interference, wireless link error, and
link layer delay are influenced by the dynamic use of the spectrum.
• The spectrum mobility function cooperates with spectrum
management function and spectrum sensing to decide on an
available spectrum band. In order to estimate the effect of the
spectrum handoff latency, information about the link layer and
sensing delays are required. Transport and application layer should
also be aware of the latency to reduce the abrupt quality
degradation. In addition, the routing information is also important for
the route recovery using spectrum handoff.
Cross-layer challenges in spectrum sharing:
• The performance of spectrum sharing directly depends on the
spectrum sensing capabilities of the xG users. Spectrum sensing is
primarily a PHY layer function. However, in the case of cooperative
detection, xG users should use ad hoc connection for exchanging
sensing information, which necessitates a cross-layer design between
spectrum sharing and spectrum sensing. It is clear that the
performance of communication protocols depends on spectrum
sensing, i.e., getting information about the spectrum utilization.
• The first challenge is the interference mitigation. While interference
occurs at a receiver, spectrum scanning alone only provides
information about transmitters.
• Hence, cooperative techniques that necessitate transmitters to
consider both their interference to other users and the interference
at their receivers are required.
• On the other hand, such a collaboration increases the
communication overhead and may lead to overall system
performance degradation when channel capacity or energy
consumption is considered. Consequently, effective spectrum sharing
techniques that enable efficient collaboration between different xG
nodes in terms of spectrum sensing information sharing are required.
• The second challenge about spectrum sensing is that the whole
spectrum cannot be sensed all the time. More specifically, due to the
huge range of spectrum foreseen for xG networks, a significant
amount of time is required to sense the whole spectrum. Since
sensing consumes energy this process has to be carefully scheduled.
• As a result, it may not be practical to assume that a node has an
accurate knowledge about the spectrum at all times. Moreover,
current radio technologies prevent continuous spectrum sensing if
only a single radio is deployed on a device.
• During communication, spectrum sensing has to be stopped to
switch to the required channel and perform communication. Hence,
this operation requires cross-layer interaction between the physical
layer and the upper layers.
• More specifically, communication attempts need to be coordinated
with spectrum sensing events. As an alternative, the effect of using
multiple radios has been investigated in, where a two transceiver
operation is considered such that a transceiver always listens to the
control channel for sensing. This operation improves the system
performance, however, the complexity and device costs are high.
• In decentralized cognitive MAC (DC-MAC) scheme proposed in, a
cross-layer approach for spectrum allocation and spectrum sensing is
considered. Contrary to many work, in, limited spectrum sensing is
addressed, where only a portion of the whole spectrum can be
sensed. Moreover, spectrum sensing is jointly performed with
spectrum allocation and application layer such that the node senses a
portion of the spectrum only if it will allocate a channel due to a
request from the application layer. First, an optimal approach for
channel allocation is provided followed by a greedy suboptimal
approach. A node is assumed to be able to sense one channel among
N possible channels. Through performance evaluation, it is shown
that the greedy approach closely approximates the optimal solution.
Moreover, this solution is also robust to inaccuracies in spectrum
sensing and limited knowledge.
Cross-layer challenges in upper layers:
•Since available spectrum bands in xG networks with multi-hop
communication are different for each hop, spectrum sensing
information is required for topology configuration in xG networks.
Moreover, a major design choice for routing in xG networks is the
collaboration between routing and spectrum decision. If the optimal
route from an xG user to another results in interference to the primary
users, end-to-end latency or packet losses can be affected along the
route due to this interaction. To mitigate the degradation, multiple
spectrum interfaces at intermediate nodes may be selected. Therefore,
end-to-end route may consist of multiple hops traversing different
spectrum bands.
•Finally, re-routing needs to be performed in a cross-layer fashion. If a
link failure occurs due to spectrum mobility, the routing algorithm
needs to differentiate this failure from a node failure. Furthermore,
intermediate xG users can perform rerouting by exploiting the spectrum
information available from spectrum sensing functionality select better
routes method.
• Due to the dynamic frequency of operation, the RTT and packet loss
rates vary in xG networks, which leads to variations in packet
transmission delay. Moreover, medium access schemes introduce
access delay. All these factors influence the round trip time of a
connection, which in turn affect the performance of transport
protocols. Moreover, the latency associated with a spectrum handoff
increases the instantaneous RTT of the packet transmission.
Consequently, transport protocols for xG networks should be
designed in a spectrum aware approach that introduces cooperative
operation with the other communication layers.