A Novel DSA-Driven MAC Protocol for Cognitive Radio Networks

Hua SONG, Xiaola LIN

School of Information Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.

DOI: 10.4236/wsn.2009.12017                

Abstract

With the deployment of more wireless applications, spectrum scarcity becomes an issue in many countries. Recent reports show that the reason for this spectrum shortage is the underutilization of some spectrum re-sources. Fortunately, the emergence of open spectrum and dynamic spectrum assess (DSA) technology in cognitive radio networks relieves this problem. In this paper, we propose a novel DSA-driven cognitive MAC protocol to achieve highly efficient spectrum usage and QoS provisioning. In the proposed protocol, secondary users are divided into several non-overlapping groups, and all leftover channels are allocated among groups taking the groups’ bandwidth requirements into consideration. Moreover, the allocation of vacant channels can be adjusted dynamically when members join/leave groups or primary users return/leave the current network. Simulations show that the proposed MAC protocol greatly improves the quality of ser-vice for secondary users and maximizes the utilization ratio of spectrum resources.

Keywords

Cognitive Radio, DSA-Driven MAC Protocol, QoS Provisioning, Dynamic Spectrum Access

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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