Multimedia Transmission over Cognitive Radio Channels under Sensing Uncertainty

This paper studies the performance of hierarchical modulation-based multimedia transmission in cognitive radio (CR) systems with imperfect channel sensing results under constraints on both transmit and interference power levels. Unequal error protection (UEP) of data transmission using hierarchical quadrature amplitude modulation (HQAM) is considered in which high priority (HP) data is protected more than low priority (LP) data. In this setting, closed-form bit error rate (BER) expressions for HP data and LP data are derived in Nakagami-$m$ fading channels in the presence of sensing errors. Subsequently, the optimal power control that minimizes weighted sum of average BERs of HP bits and LP bits or its upper bound subject to peak/average transmit power and average interference power constraints is derived and a low-complexity power control algorithm is proposed. Power levels are determined in three different scenarios, depending on the availability of perfect channel side information (CSI) of the transmission and interference links, statistical CSI of both links, or perfect CSI of the transmission link and imperfect CSI of the interference link. The impact of imperfect channel sensing decisions on the error rate performance of cognitive transmissions is also evaluated. In addition, tradeoffs between the number of retransmissions, the severity of fading, and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) quality are analyzed numerically. Moreover, performance comparisons of multimedia transmission with conventional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and HQAM, and the proposed power control strategies are carried out in terms of the received data quality and number of retransmissions.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

DSAT-MAC : Dynamic Slot Allocation based TDMA MAC protocol for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRN) have enabled us to efficiently reuse the underutilized radio spectrum. The MAC protocol in CRN defines the spectrum usage by sharing the channels efficiently among users. In this paper we propose a novel TDMA based MAC protocol with dynamically allocated slots. Most of the MAC protocols proposed in the literature employ Common Control Channel (CCC) to manage the resources among Cognitive Radio (CR) users. Control channel saturation in case of large number of CR users is one of the main drawbacks of the CCC based MAC protocols. In contrast with CCC based MAC protocols, DSAT-MAC protocol is based on the TDMA mechanism, without using any CCC for control information exchange. The channels are divided into time slots and CR users send their control or data packets over their designated slot. The protocol ensures that no slot is left vacant. This guarantees full use of the available spectrum. The protocol includes the provision for Quality of Service, where real-time and safety critical data is transmitted with highest priority and least delay. The protocol also ensures a fair sharing of available spectrum among the CR users, with the mechanism to regulate the transmission of malicious nodes. Energy saving techniques are also presented for longer life of battery operated CR nodes. Theoretical analysis and simulations over ns-2 of the proposed protocol reveal that the protocol performs better in various CR adhoc network applications.Comment: 19 pages, 20 figures, Initial work in proc. of the Ninth IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications Networks (IEEE WOCN-2012), Indore, INDIA, 20-22 September, 201