Multiband Spectrum Access: Great Promises for Future Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio has been widely considered as one of the prominent solutions to tackle the spectrum scarcity. While the majority of existing research has focused on single-band cognitive radio, multiband cognitive radio represents great promises towards implementing efficient cognitive networks compared to single-based networks. Multiband cognitive radio networks (MB-CRNs) are expected to significantly enhance the network's throughput and provide better channel maintenance by reducing handoff frequency. Nevertheless, the wideband front-end and the multiband spectrum access impose a number of challenges yet to overcome. This paper provides an in-depth analysis on the recent advancements in multiband spectrum sensing techniques, their limitations, and possible future directions to improve them. We study cooperative communications for MB-CRNs to tackle a fundamental limit on diversity and sampling. We also investigate several limits and tradeoffs of various design parameters for MB-CRNs. In addition, we explore the key MB-CRNs performance metrics that differ from the conventional metrics used for single-band based networks.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures; published in the Proceedings of the IEEE Journal, Special Issue on Future Radio Spectrum Access, March 201

Peak to average power ratio based spatial spectrum sensing for cognitive radio systems

The recent convergence of wireless standards for incorporation of spatial dimension in wireless systems has made spatial spectrum sensing based on Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of the received signal, a promising approach. This added dimension is principally exploited for stream multiplexing, user multiplexing and spatial diversity. Considering such a wireless environment for primary users, we propose an algorithm for spectrum sensing by secondary users which are also equipped with multiple antennas. The proposed spatial spectrum sensing algorithm is based on the PAPR of the spatially received signals. Simulation results show the improved performance once the information regarding spatial diversity of the primary users is incorporated in the proposed algorithm. Moreover, through simulations a better performance is achieved by using different diversity schemes and different parameters like sensing time and scanning interval

Distributed Diffusion-Based LMS for Node-Specific Adaptive Parameter Estimation

A distributed adaptive algorithm is proposed to solve a node-specific parameter estimation problem where nodes are interested in estimating parameters of local interest, parameters of common interest to a subset of nodes and parameters of global interest to the whole network. To address the different node-specific parameter estimation problems, this novel algorithm relies on a diffusion-based implementation of different Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithms, each associated with the estimation of a specific set of local, common or global parameters. Coupled with the estimation of the different sets of parameters, the implementation of each LMS algorithm is only undertaken by the nodes of the network interested in a specific set of local, common or global parameters. The study of convergence in the mean sense reveals that the proposed algorithm is asymptotically unbiased. Moreover, a spatial-temporal energy conservation relation is provided to evaluate the steady-state performance at each node in the mean-square sense. Finally, the theoretical results and the effectiveness of the proposed technique are validated through computer simulations in the context of cooperative spectrum sensing in Cognitive Radio networks.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Implementation Issues of Adaptive Energy Detection in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Abstract Spectrum sensing (SS) enables the coexistence of non-coordinated heterogeneous wireless systems operating in the same band. Due to its computational simplicity, energy detection (ED) technique has been widespread employed in SS applications; nonetheless, the conventional ED may be unreliable under environmental impairments, justifying the use of ED-based variants. Assessing ED algorithms from theoretical and simulation viewpoints relies on several assumptions and simplifications which, eventually, lead to conclusions that do not necessarily meet the requirements imposed by real propagation environments. This work addresses those problems by dealing with practical implementation issues of adaptive least mean square (LMS)-based ED algorithms. The paper proposes a new adaptive ED algorithm that uses a variable step-size guaranteeing the LMS convergence in time-varying environments. Several implementation guidelines are provided and, additionally, an empirical assessment and validation with a software defined radio-based hardware is carried out. Experimental results show good performance in terms of probabilities of detection (P-d > 0.9) and false alarm (P-f similar to 0.05) in a range of low signal-to-noise ratios around [4, 1] dB, in both single-node and cooperative modes. The proposed sensing methodology enables a seamless monitoring of the radio electromagnetic spectrum in order to provide band occupancy information for an efficient usage among several wireless communications systems.This work has been financially supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Project 5G-NewBROs (TEC2015-66153-P MINECO/FEDER, UE), and in part by the Basque Government (IT-683-13 and ELKARTEK program under BID3A3 and BID3ABI projects) and the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF

Multitask Diffusion Adaptation over Networks

Adaptive networks are suitable for decentralized inference tasks, e.g., to monitor complex natural phenomena. Recent research works have intensively studied distributed optimization problems in the case where the nodes have to estimate a single optimum parameter vector collaboratively. However, there are many important applications that are multitask-oriented in the sense that there are multiple optimum parameter vectors to be inferred simultaneously, in a collaborative manner, over the area covered by the network. In this paper, we employ diffusion strategies to develop distributed algorithms that address multitask problems by minimizing an appropriate mean-square error criterion with $\ell_2$-regularization. The stability and convergence of the algorithm in the mean and in the mean-square sense is analyzed. Simulations are conducted to verify the theoretical findings, and to illustrate how the distributed strategy can be used in several useful applications related to spectral sensing, target localization, and hyperspectral data unmixing.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, submitted for publicatio