Group-query-as-a-service for secure low-latency opportunistic RF spectrum access in mobile edge computing enabled wireless networks

For enhancing the utilization of radio frequency (RF) bands, dynamic spectrum access has been considered to be an emerging paradigm where unlicensed secondary users access the licensed RF spectrum opportunistically without causing harmful interference to licensed primary users. In order to access idle channels, secondary users are required either to sense channels or search the geolocation based spectrum database before starting their actual communications. Note that the database searching approach has been proven to be more effective than the channel sensing approach since the sensing based approach results in higher sensing uncertainties. When a large number of secondary users query the spectrum database for finding idle channels at the same time, the spectrum server could be overwhelmed that could result in (unintentional) Denial-of-Service attack. In this paper, we investigate group-query-as- aservice for searching idle channels in database driven dynamic spectrum access where selected secondary users (aka grid leaders who are selected based on the interactive trust levels, location and resources in their grids) query on behalf of the other secondary users (aka grid followers). In this approach, secondary users are associated with the contours created based on same idle channels with the help of spectrum sensors and mobile edge computing (MEC) servers at each base station. The performance of the proposed group-query-as-a-service is evaluated using numerical results obtained from Monte Carlo simulation. We found that the proposed approach results in less delay with increase edge hit rate and higher throughput than the individual query based approach.