Access Control Engine with Dynamic Priority Resource Allocation for Cognitive Radio Networks

An access control engine with dynamic priority resource allocation (ACE-DPRA) is proposed for unlicensed users to utilize free spectrum of wireless communication systems. A cognitive radio (CR) network with sensing and learning abilities is essential for unlicensed users to achieve ACE-DPRA. Three algorithms are included in ACE-DPRA to improve the spectral efficiency. While requesting to set up connection, unlicensed CR users generate excessive interferences to licensed users. The proposed ACE-DPRA with an admission control scheme allows the connection of unlicensed CR users without degrading the communication quality of licensed users. The priority algorithm for utilizing the unused spectrum is designed according to the location information of unlicensed users. A transmitted power control method is achieved by a fuzzy-learning mechanism. The spectral efficiency of wireless communication systems can be increased after adopting the proposed ACE-DPRA algorithm. Simulation results show that licensed users keep the advantages of high transmission data rate, low interference power, and low average outage probability after the connection of unlicensed CR users.     

Joint spectrum sensing and resource allocation optimization using genetic algorithm for frequency hopping–based cognitive radio networks

In cognitive radio (CR) networks, secondary users should effectively use unused licensed spectrums, unless they cause any harmful interference to the primary users. Therefore, spectrum sensing and channel resource allocation are the 2 main functionalities of CR networks, which play important roles in the performance of a CR system. To maximize the CR system utility, we propose a joint out‐of‐band spectrum sensing and operating channel allocation scheme based on genetic algorithm for frequency hopping–based CR networks. In this paper, to effectively sense the primary signal on hopping channels at each hopping slot time, a set of member nodes sense the next hopping channel, which is called out‐of‐band sensing. To achieve collision‐free cooperative sensing reporting, the next channel detection notification mechanism is presented. Using genetic algorithm, the optimum sensing and data transmission schedules are derived. It selects a sensing node set that participate the spectrum sensing for the next expected hopping channel during the current channel hopping time and another set of nodes that take opportunity for transmitting data on the current hopping channel. The optimum channel allocation is performed in accordance with each node's individual traffic demand. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve reliable spectrum sensing and efficient channel allocation.     

基于认知无线电系统的协作中继分布式功率分配算法

协作通信与直接通信相比能够显著地提高系统性能。协作通信中的一个关键问题是管理中继节点及有效地进行功率分配。尤其对于频谱共享的认知无线电(Cognitive Radio,CR)系统,协作方案的设计不仅要最大限度地提高认知网络协作的功率效率,而且需要最小化对主系统的干扰。该文针对认知无线电系统的协作通信问题,在多个中继节点与源节点协同通信的场景下,提出了一种基于放大转发(Amplify and Forward,AF)模式下的功率分配及联合优化算法,在保证主系统传输性能不受影响的前提下,提高认知系统的传输速率。仿真结果表明该文提出的自适应协作传输方案,和直接传输及等功率传输方案相比获得了进一步的性能增益,中断概率显著下降。     

Cognitive radio network with coordinated multipoint joint transmission

Cognitive radio (CR) is considered to be a promising technology for future wireless networks to make opportunistic utilization of the unused or underused licensed spectrum. Meanwhile, coordinated multipoint joint transmission (CoMP JT) is another promising technique to improve the performance of cellular networks. In this paper, we propose a CR system with CoMP JT technique. We develop an analytical model of the received signal‐to‐noise ratio at a CR to determine the energy detection threshold and the minimum number of required samples for energy detection–based spectrum sensing in a CR network (CRN) with CoMP JT technique. The performance of energy detection–based spectrum sensing under the developed analytical model is evaluated by simulation and found to be reliable. We formulate an optimization problem for a CRN with CoMP JT technique to configure the channel allocation and user scheduling for maximizing the minimum throughput of the users. The problem is found to be a complex mixed integer linear programming. We solve the problem using an optimization tool for several CRN instances by limiting the number of slots in frames. Further, we propose a heuristic‐based simple channel allocation and user scheduling algorithm to maximize the minimum throughput of the users in CRNs with CoMP JT technique. The proposed algorithm is evaluated via simulation and found to be very efficient.     

A novel spectrum sharing scheme for cognitive radios

A novel approach, which combines spectrum adaptation and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), is proposed to share the licensed spectrum dynamically for cognitive radio systems. Given spectrum sensing and channel estimation information by the receiver, an improved model due to signal power thresholds is adopted to achieve spectrum adaptation for unlicensed users. In order to efficiently allocate the unlicensed signal power, a dynamic power allocation algorithm is also proposed. Simulation results indicate that the propositional scheme solves the partial interference problem of interference temperature model (ITM) and improves the spectrum utilization.     

A Multiagent Based Scheme for Unlicensed Spectrum Access in CR Networks

In recent wireless network domains static spectrum access is a major concern. Generally, this access leads to spectrum scarcity problem by creating empty holes or white spaces. However, the scarcity is temporary and can be alleviated if spectrum access is performed dynamically and efficiently. One important step towards dynamic spectrum access is the development of cognitive radio (CR) technology, which senses nearby spectrum portions (or bands) and tries to use them either opportunistically or by negotiating with the neighboring users. Nonetheless, dynamic spectrum access raises several challenges which need to be addressed in detail. These challenges include efficient allocation of spectrum for users in order to maximize spectrum utilization and to avoid user level conflicts both under licensed and unlicensed bands. In this paper, considering the relative rarity of solutions for unlicensed spectrum access and their inadequacy, we propose a scheme, where the CR devices (equipped with agents) interact with their neighbors to form several coalitions over the unlicensed bands. These types of coalitions can provide a less-conflicted access as the agents mutually agree for spectrum sharing and they allow other CR users to enter in their vicinity of acquired spectrum via bilateral message exchanges. Further, we present continuous time Markov chains to model the spectrum access process in continuous time and derive important performance metric as the blocking probability for without and with queuing systems. Amongst others, the important comparisons we made between analytical and simulation results in terms of blocking probability verify that our proposed model is correct. In essence, our proposed solution aims to increase dynamic spectrum usage by enabling cooperation between the users.     

TV系统中基于Kalman滤波器的自回归频谱空洞预测

研究了基于Kalman滤波器的自回归的频谱空洞预测模型。首先讨论了广播电视系统中授权用户和认知用户共存的系统模型;其次讨论了自回归预测原理和Kalman滤波预测的无偏性,并针对不同的通信模式提出不同的预测方法。理论分析和仿真结果均表明,基于Kalman滤波器的自回归预测值能很好地与理论值近似匹配,采用预测模型可以大大减少授权用户和认知用户的冲突,提高系统利用率。     

On co-channel and adjacent channel interference mitigation in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is an emerging wireless communications paradigm of sharing spectrum among licensed (or, primary) and unlicensed (or, CR) users. In CR networks, interference mitigation is crucial not only for primary user protection, but also for the quality of service of CR user themselves. In this paper, we consider the problem of interference mitigation via channel assignment and power allocation for CR users. A cross-layer optimization framework for minimizing both co-channel and adjacent channel interference is developed; the latter has been shown to have considerable impact in practical systems. Cooperative spectrum sensing, opportunistic spectrum access, channel assignment, and power allocation are considered in the problem formulation. We propose a reformulation–linearization technique (RLT) based centralized algorithm, as well as a distributed greedy algorithm that uses local information for near-optimal solutions. Both algorithms are evaluated with simulations and are shown quite effective for mitigating both types of interference and achieving high CR network capacity.     

Stochastic spectrum handoff protocols for partially observable cognitive radio networks

Recent studies have been conducted to indicate the ineffective usage of licensed bands due to static spectrum allocation. In order to improve spectrum utilization, cognitive radio (CR) is therefore suggested to dynamically exploit the opportunistic primary frequency spectrums. How to provide efficient spectrum handoff has been considered a crucial issue in the CR networks. Existing spectrum handoff algorithms assume that all the channels can be correctly sensed by the CR users in order to perform appropriate spectrum handoff process. However, this assumption is impractical since excessive time will be required for the CR user to sense the entire spectrum space. In this paper, the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) is applied to estimate the network information by partially sensing the frequency spectrums. A POMDP-based spectrum handoff (POSH) scheme is proposed to determine the optimal target channel for spectrum handoff according to the partially observable channel state information. Moreover, a POMDP-based multi-user spectrum handoff (M-POSH) protocol is proposed to exploit the POMDP policy into multi-user CR networks by distributing CR users to frequency spectrum bins opportunistically. By adopting the policies resulted from the POSH and M-POSH algorithms for target channel selection, minimal waiting time at each occurrence of spectrum handoff can be achieved which will be feasible for multimedia applications. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed spectrum handoff protocols can effectively minimize the required waiting time for spectrum handoff in the CR networks.     

Power Allocation with Max–Min and Min–Max Fairness for Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect CSI

This paper consider the power allocation strategies in the cognitive radio (CR) system in the presence of channel estimation errors. As the user has different channel condition in CR systems, different amount of power resource is required to meets the QoS request. In order to guarantee the fairness of each CR user, ensure the interference from the primary user and other CR users meet the QoS requirement of the CR user and limit the interference that is caused by CR users on primary user within the range into the level that primary user can tolerate, we proposed some new power allocation schemes. The targets are to minimize the maximum power allocated to CR users, to maximize the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) among all CR users and to minimize the maximum outage probability over all CR users. The first power allocation scheme can be formulated using Geometric Programming (GP). Since GP problem is equivalent to the convex optimization problem, we can obtain the optimal solutions for the first scheme. The latter two power allocation schemes are not GP problems. We propose iterative algorithms to solve them. Simulation results show that proposed schemes can efficiently guarantee the fairness of CR users under the QoS constraint of the primary user and CR users.     

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

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

多天线认知系统中最优协作用户数的选择研究

针对非理想控制信道传输错误对认知系统中多天线多用户协作频谱感知性能影响的问题,提出一种使得认知系统误检概率最小的最优协作用户数选择方案,并推导给出其闭式表达式。该方案首先根据单根天线错误检测概率最小的原则推导出认知用户单根天线最优的判决门限。然后利用“K秩”准则对多天线进行合并,根据认知用户错误检测概率最小的原则推导出最优的“K”值。最后根据认知系统误检概率最小的原则推导出最优的协作感知用户数。通过仿真验证了该方案理论的正确性,并分析给出了控制信道错误概率对认知系统检测性能的影响。相比于传统的协作检测算法,本方案具有更好的检测性能。      

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.     

A unified spectrum sensing and throughput analysis model in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is a newly developed technology for increasing spectral efficiency in wireless communication systems. In the CR networks, there exist two traditional spectrum‐sharing technologies called spectrum overlay and spectrum underlay. A new hybrid overlay/underlay paradigm has also been discussed in the literature. In this work, we create a unified spectrum sensing and throughput analysis model, which is suitable for overlay, underlay, and hybrid overlay/underlay paradigms in the CR networks. In the proposed model, the energy detection scheme is employed for the spectrum sensing in the network in which the co‐channel interference is present among primary users and secondary users (SUs). The SUs' throughput in the proposed CR system model is then analyzed. The simulations are also carried out for demonstrating the performance of overlay, underlay, and hybrid overlay/underlay paradigms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Scheme of Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Based on Adaptive Decision Fusion Algorithm

Spectrum sensing is one of the core technologies for cognitive radios(CR),where reliable detection of the signals of primary users(PUs) is precondition for implementing the CR systems.A cooperative spectrum sensing scheme based on an adaptive decision fusion algorithm for spectrum sensing in CR is proposed in this paper.This scheme can estimate the PU prior probability and the miss detection and false alarm probabilities of various secondary users(SU),and make the local decision with the Chair-Varshney rule so that the decisions fusion can be done for the global decision.Simulation results show that the false alarm and miss detection probabilities resulted from the proposed algorithm are significantly lower than those of the single SU,and the performance of the scheme outperforms that of the cooperative detection by using the conventional decision fusion algorithms.     

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.     

Characterization and exploitation of heterogeneous OFDM primary users in cognitive radio networks

The fundamental features of cognitive radio (CR) systems are their ability to adapt to the wireless environment where they operate and their opportunistic occupation of the licensed spectrum bands assigned to the primary network. CR users in CR systems should not cause any interference to primary users (PUs) of the primary network. For this purpose, CR users need to accurately estimate the features and activities of the primary users. In this paper, a novel characterization of heterogeneous PUs and a novel reconfigurability solution in CR networks are introduced. The characterization of PUs consists of a detector and classifier that distinguishes between heterogenous PUs. The PU characteristics stored in radio environmental maps are utilized by an interference/throughput adapter for the optimization of CR parameters. The performance of the proposed solutions is evaluated by showing false alarm and missed detection probabilities of the detector/classifier in a multipath fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise. Moreover, the impact of the PU characteristics on the CR throughput is analyzed.     

Optimization of spectrum utilization in cognitive radio system

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

Channel status prediction for cognitive radio networks

The cognitive radio (CR) technology appears as an attractive solution to effectively allocate the radio spectrum among the licensed and unlicensed users. With the CR technology the unlicensed users take the responsibility of dynamically sensing and accessing any unused channels (frequency bands) in the spectrum allocated to the licensed users. As spectrum sensing consumes considerable energy, predictive methods for inferring the availability of spectrum holes can reduce energy consumption of the unlicensed users to only sense those channels which are predicted to be idle. Prediction‐based channel sensing also helps to improve the spectrum utilization (SU) for the unlicensed users. In this paper, we demonstrate the advantages of channel status prediction to the spectrum sensing operation in terms of improving the SU and saving the sensing energy. We design the channel status predictor using two different adaptive schemes, i.e., a neural network based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) and the hidden Markov model (HMM). The advantage of the proposed channel status prediction schemes is that these schemes do not require a priori knowledge of the statistics of channel usage. Performance analysis of the two channel status prediction schemes is performed and the accuracy of the two prediction schemes is investigated. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.