Provisioning delay sensitive services in cognitive radio networks by opportunistically sharing spectrum from CSMA/CA networks

Cognitive radio network (CRN) users are inherently expected to experience widely varied delays and jitters due to the uncertainty in channel availability. Supporting delay sensitive real-time services through CRNs thus remains a challenging task. This paper presents a novel technique to provision QoS guarantee in CRNs by modeling the resultant channel of multiple primary networks and finding the optimum number of primary channels to support a desired level of expected latency. In doing so, this paper introduces a cognitive radio based MAC, which can effectively co-exists with primary CSMA/CA networks by accurately estimating the start of the spectrum holes, reliably modeling channel occupation by the primary users, and using event-driven sensing to adaptively control the sensing frequency and interval. Simulation results with ns-2.33 reveal that a CR network based on the proposed MAC can achieve the targeted service delay time by appropriately selecting optimal WLAN primary channels. © 2010 IEEE.