Performance Analysis of Cognitive Radio Systems under QoS Constraints and Channel Uncertainty

In this paper, performance of cognitive transmission over time-selective flat fading channels is studied under quality of service (QoS) constraints and channel uncertainty. Cognitive secondary users (SUs) are assumed to initially perform channel sensing to detect the activities of the primary users, and then attempt to estimate the channel fading coefficients through training. Energy detection is employed for channel sensing, and different minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) estimation methods are considered for channel estimation. In both channel sensing and estimation, erroneous decisions can be made, and hence, channel uncertainty is not completely eliminated. In this setting, performance is studied and interactions between channel sensing and estimation are investigated. Following the channel sensing and estimation tasks, SUs engage in data transmission. Transmitter, being unaware of the channel fading coefficients, is assumed to send the data at fixed power and rate levels that depend on the channel sensing results. Under these assumptions, a state-transition model is constructed by considering the reliability of the transmissions, channel sensing decisions and their correctness, and the evolution of primary user activity which is modeled as a two-state Markov process. In the data transmission phase, an average power constraint on the secondary users is considered to limit the interference to the primary users, and statistical limitations on the buffer lengths are imposed to take into account the QoS constraints of the secondary traffic. The maximum throughput under these statistical QoS constraints is identified by finding the effective capacity of the cognitive radio channel. Numerical results are provided for the power and rate policies

Beacon-Assisted Spectrum Access with Cooperative Cognitive Transmitter and Receiver

Spectrum access is an important function of cognitive radios for detecting and utilizing spectrum holes without interfering with the legacy systems. In this paper we propose novel cooperative communication models and show how deploying such cooperations between a pair of secondary transmitter and receiver assists them in identifying spectrum opportunities more reliably. These cooperations are facilitated by dynamically and opportunistically assigning one of the secondary users as a relay to assist the other one which results in more efficient spectrum hole detection. Also, we investigate the impact of erroneous detection of spectrum holes and thereof missing communication opportunities on the capacity of the secondary channel. The capacity of the secondary users with interference-avoiding spectrum access is affected by 1) how effectively the availability of vacant spectrum is sensed by the secondary transmitter-receiver pair, and 2) how correlated are the perceptions of the secondary transmitter-receiver pair about network spectral activity. We show that both factors are improved by using the proposed cooperative protocols. One of the proposed protocols requires explicit information exchange in the network. Such information exchange in practice is prone to wireless channel errors (i.e., is imperfect) and costs bandwidth loss. We analyze the effects of such imperfect information exchange on the capacity as well as the effect of bandwidth cost on the achievable throughput. The protocols are also extended to multiuser secondary networks.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, To appear in IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computin