WIRELESS

COMMUNICATIONS
Cognitive Radio
Cognitive Radio?
 Cognitive Radio (CR) is a promising technology that
is expected to play an important role in the future
generations of radio communication systems
 CR is a radio communication system that
understands the context in which it finds itself and
as a result can tailor the communication process in
line with that understanding
A radio communication system with a brain!
Adaptation -1
 There are currently numerous communication systems
making use of smart radios which can adapt their
behaviour in many ways
 Example?
Adaptation -2
 CR takes this type of adaptive behavior much
further by greatly increasing the level of adaptivity
which applies to a wider range of parameters
 Operating frequency
 Bandwidth

 Transmit power
 Modulation scheme

 Battery usage

 Processor usage etc.

Learning
 The CR recognizes patterns of behaviour, learns
from reoccurring situations and uses mechanisms to
anticipate future events
 Has the ability to learn from its actions and feed this
learning to influence any future reactions
CR & Software Defined Radio -1
 A cognitive radio is made up of software and
hardware components to facilitate a wide variety
of different configurations for its communication
 Reconfigurable hardware

 CR is a revolutionary evolution of software defined

radio
CR & Software Defined Radio -2
 Conventional Radio
 Supports a fixed number of systems
 Reconfigurability decided at the time of design

 May support multiple services, but chosen at the time of

design
 Traditional RF Design + Traditional Baseband Design

 Typically radios are not upgradeable

CR & Software Defined Radio -3
 Software Radio
 Dynamically support multiple variable systems,
protocols and interfaces
 Interface with diverse systems

 Provide a wide range of services with variable QoS

 Conventional Radio + Software Architecture +

Reconfigurability
 Provisions for easy upgrades
CR & Software Defined Radio -4
 Cognitive Radio
 Can create new waveforms on its own
 Can negotiate new interfaces

 Adjusts operations to meet the QoS required by the

application for the signal environment
 SDR + Intelligence + Awareness + Learning +
Observations
 SDR upgrade mechanisms + Internal upgrades +
Collaborative upgrades
Where CR can be used
The spectrum issue! -1
 Frequency spectrum is not only scarce resource BUT
it is well documented that frequency regulators
have allocated the frequency spectrum in an
inefficient and un-optimized manner
 50% - 70% of useful spectrum remains un-utilised!
 Fixed channel assignment…

 But, what if we can utilize the unused spectrum?

The spectrum issue! -2
White Space Concept
How CR can help…
 CR can sense where the white spaces are, then
dynamically adapt its physical layer (and higher)
layers to use that spectrum

 All the processing takes place on an FPGA or DSP

enabled hardware
… reason why DSP is so important for
Telecommunication Engineering
 CR Functions

Spectrum Spectrum Spectrum Spectrum

sensing management mobility sharing
• Detecting • Capturing the • Maintaining • Providing the
unused best available seamless fair spectrum
spectrum and spectrum to communication scheduling
sharing the meet user requirements method among
spectrum communication during the coexisting CR
without requirements. transition to users.
harmful the better
interference spectrum.
with other
users.
 Cognitive Radio: A Black Box Model
What you want
Network
Experience e.g.,
BER, SNR
What you see, Environmental Conditions
Channel Signal Network Desktop
Quality Quality Load Applications

What you can do

“Intelligence” – SDR
Allowable Device
Configurations
What you
Transmit Data Center Packet can tune
Power Rate Frequency Size
A physical layer perspective
Spectrum sensing
 In order to avoid interference the spectrum holes
need to be sensed
 Primary user detection the most efficient way.
Spectrum sensing

Interference Matched Filter

based detection
Transmitter Cyclo-stationary
detection Detection
Cooperative Energy
detection Detection
Dynamic Spectrum Access -1
 Enable “dynamic” spectrum access for secondary
users to the white spaces
 Various approaches
 Spectrum underlay
 Spectrum overlay
Dynamic Spectrum Access -2
Dynamic Spectrum Access -3
Spectral Overlay Using NC-OFDM
0

-10
Secondary Users
Primary Users
-20
power spectral density

-30

-40

-50

-60

-70
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
frequency, MHz 8
x 10