Pilot Aided Transmissions Technique to Achieve Optimal Effective Capacity Over Imperfect Channel Estimation in Cognitive Radio Networks

In cognitive radio networks, a secondary user (SU) can share the same frequency band with the primary user (PU) as long as the interference introduced to the later is below a predefined threshold. In this paper, the transmission performance in cognitive radio networks is studied assuming imperfect channel estimation, and taking quality of service (QoS) constraints into consideration. It is assumed that the cognitive transmitter can perform channel estimation and send the data at two different rates and power levels depending on the activity of the primary users. The existence of the primary user can be detected by channel sensing. A two-state Markov chain process is used to model the existence of the primary users. The cognitive transmission is also configured as a state transition model depending on whether the rates are higher or lower than the instantaneous rates values. This paper studies the maximum capacity of the cognitive user under the delay constraint. We use the new metric concept of effective capacity of the channel and introduce an optimization problem for rate and power allocation under interference power constraints. An numerical example illustrates the average effective capacity optimization and the impact of other system parameters.&nbsp

Dynamic Resource Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Convex Optimization Perspective

This article provides an overview of the state-of-art results on communication resource allocation over space, time, and frequency for emerging cognitive radio (CR) wireless networks. Focusing on the interference-power/interference-temperature (IT) constraint approach for CRs to protect primary radio transmissions, many new and challenging problems regarding the design of CR systems are formulated, and some of the corresponding solutions are shown to be obtainable by restructuring some classic results known for traditional (non-CR) wireless networks. It is demonstrated that convex optimization plays an essential role in solving these problems, in a both rigorous and efficient way. Promising research directions on interference management for CR and other related multiuser communication systems are discussed.Comment: to appear in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, special issue on convex optimization for signal processin

Effective Capacity in Cognitive Radio Broadcast Channels

In this paper, we investigate effective capacity by modeling a cognitive radio broadcast channel with one secondary transmitter (ST) and two secondary receivers (SRs) under quality-of-service constraints and interference power limitations. We initially describe three different cooperative channel sensing strategies with different hard-decision combining algorithms at the ST, namely OR, Majority, and AND rules. Since the channel sensing occurs with possible errors, we consider a combined interference power constraint by which the transmission power of the secondary users (SUs) is bounded when the channel is sensed as both busy and idle. Furthermore, regarding the channel sensing decision and its correctness, there exist possibly four different transmission scenarios. We provide the instantaneous ergodic capacities of the channel between the ST and each SR in all of these scenarios. Granting that transmission outage arises when the instantaneous transmission rate is greater than the instantaneous ergodic capacity, we establish two different transmission rate policies for the SUs when the channel is sensed as idle. One of these policies features a greedy approach disregarding a possible transmission outage, and the other favors a precautious manner to prevent this outage. Subsequently, we determine the effective capacity region of this channel model, and we attain the power allocation policies that maximize this region. Finally, we present the numerical results. We first show the superiority of Majority rule when the channel sensing results are good. Then, we illustrate that a greedy transmission rate approach is more beneficial for the SUs under strict interference power constraints, whereas sending with lower rates will be more advantageous under loose interference constraints.Comment: Submitted and Accepted to IEEE Globecom 201

Error Rate Analysis of Cognitive Radio Transmissions with Imperfect Channel Sensing

This paper studies the symbol error rate performance of cognitive radio transmissions in the presence of imperfect sensing decisions. Two different transmission schemes, namely sensing-based spectrum sharing (SSS) and opportunistic spectrum access (OSA), are considered. In both schemes, secondary users first perform channel sensing, albeit with possible errors. In SSS, depending on the sensing decisions, they adapt the transmission power level and coexist with primary users in the channel. On the other hand, in OSA, secondary users are allowed to transmit only when the primary user activity is not detected. Initially, for both transmission schemes, general formulations for the optimal decision rule and error probabilities are provided for arbitrary modulation schemes under the assumptions that the receiver is equipped with the sensing decision and perfect knowledge of the channel fading, and the primary user's received faded signals at the secondary receiver has a Gaussian mixture distribution. Subsequently, the general approach is specialized to rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). More specifically, optimal decision rule is characterized for rectangular QAM, and closed-form expressions for the average symbol error probability attained with the optimal detector are derived under both transmit power and interference constraints. The effects of imperfect channel sensing decisions, interference from the primary user and its Gaussian mixture model, and the transmit power and interference constraints on the error rate performance of cognitive transmissions are analyzed