Throughput of a Cognitive Radio Network under Congestion Constraints: A Network-Level Study

In this paper we analyze a cognitive radio network with one primary and one secondary transmitter, in which the primary transmitter has bursty arrivals while the secondary node is assumed to be saturated (i.e. always has a packet waiting to be transmitted). The secondary node transmits in a cognitive way such that it does not impede the performance of the primary node. We assume that the receivers have multipacket reception (MPR) capabilities and that the secondary node can take advantage of the MPR capability by transmitting simultaneously with the primary under certain conditions. We obtain analytical expressions for the stationary distribution of the primary node queue and we also provide conditions for its stability. Finally, we provide expressions for the aggregate throughput of the network as well as for the throughput at the secondary node.Comment: Presented at CROWNCOM 201

Energy-aware cooperative wireless networks with multiple cognitive users

In this paper, we study and analyze cooperative cognitive radio networks with arbitrary number of secondary users (SUs). Each SU is considered a prospective relay for the primary user (PU) besides having its own data transmission demand. We consider a multi-packet transmission framework that allows multiple SUs to transmit simultaneously because of dirty-paper coding. We propose power allocation and scheduling policies that optimize the throughput for both PU and SU with minimum energy expenditure. The performance of the system is evaluated in terms of throughput and delay under different opportunistic relay selection policies. Toward this objective, we present a mathematical framework for deriving stability conditions for all queues in the system. Consequently, the throughput of both primary and secondary links is quantified. Furthermore, a moment generating function approach is employed to derive a closed-form expression for the average delay encountered by the PU packets. Results reveal that we achieve better performance in terms of throughput and delay at lower energy cost as compared with equal power allocation schemes proposed earlier in the literature. Extensive simulations are conducted to validate our theoretical findings

Performance Analysis of Arbitrarily-Shaped Underlay Cognitive Networks: Effects of Secondary User Activity Protocols

This paper analyzes the performance of the primary and secondary users (SUs) in an arbitrarily-shaped underlay cognitive network. In order to meet the interference threshold requirement for a primary receiver (PU-Rx) at an arbitrary location, we consider different SU activity protocols which limit the number of active SUs. We propose a framework, based on the moment generating function (MGF) of the interference due to a random SU, to analytically compute the outage probability in the primary network, as well as the average number of active SUs in the secondary network. We also propose a cooperation-based SU activity protocol in the underlay cognitive network which includes the existing threshold-based protocol as a special case. We study the average number of active SUs for the different SU activity protocols, subject to a given outage probability constraint at the PU and we employ it as an analytical approach to compare the effect of different SU activity protocols on the performance of the primary and secondary networks.Comment: submitted to possible IEEE Transactions publicatio

Scaling Laws of Cognitive Networks

We consider a cognitive network consisting of n random pairs of cognitive transmitters and receivers communicating simultaneously in the presence of multiple primary users. Of interest is how the maximum throughput achieved by the cognitive users scales with n. Furthermore, how far these users must be from a primary user to guarantee a given primary outage. Two scenarios are considered for the network scaling law: (i) when each cognitive transmitter uses constant power to communicate with a cognitive receiver at a bounded distance away, and (ii) when each cognitive transmitter scales its power according to the distance to a considered primary user, allowing the cognitive transmitter-receiver distances to grow. Using single-hop transmission, suitable for cognitive devices of opportunistic nature, we show that, in both scenarios, with path loss larger than 2, the cognitive network throughput scales linearly with the number of cognitive users. We then explore the radius of a primary exclusive region void of cognitive transmitters. We obtain bounds on this radius for a given primary outage constraint. These bounds can help in the design of a primary network with exclusive regions, outside of which cognitive users may transmit freely. Our results show that opportunistic secondary spectrum access using single-hop transmission is promising.Comment: significantly revised and extended, 30 pages, 13 figures, submitted to IEEE Journal of Special Topics in Signal Processin

Effect of Energy Harvesting on Stable Throughput in Cooperative Relay Systems

In this paper, the impact of energy constraints on a two-hop network with a source, a relay and a destination under random medium access is studied. A collision channel with erasures is considered, and the source and the relay nodes have energy harvesting capabilities and an unlimited battery to store the harvested energy. Additionally, the source and the relay node have external traffic arrivals and the relay forwards a fraction of the source node's traffic to the destination; the cooperation is performed at the network level. An inner and an outer bound of the stability region for a given transmission probability vector are obtained. Then, the closure of the inner and the outer bound is obtained separately and they turn out to be identical. This work is not only a step in connecting information theory and networking, by studying the maximum stable throughput region metric but also it taps the relatively unexplored and important domain of energy harvesting and assesses the effect of that on this important measure.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure