Network selection in cognitive radio systems

Measurement studies have shown that uneven and dynamic usage patterns by the primary users of license based wireless communication systems often lead to temporal and spatial spectrum underutilization. This provides an opportunity for secondary users to tap into underutilized frequency bands provided that they are capable of cognitively accessing without colliding or impacting the performance of the primary users. When there are multiple networks with spare spectrum, secondary users can opportunistically choose the best network to access, subject to certain constraints. In cognitive radio systems, this is referred to as the network selection problem. In this paper, multiple network selection strategies namely, random, weighted, and greedy, are comprehensively evaluated. It is found that without adequate admission control, those methods cannot provide sufficient service protection for the primary users. Next, a Markov decision model is applied to obtain the maximum allowable arrival rate for secondary users subject to a target collision probability for the primary users. Based on this model, a Collision-Constrained Network Selection (CCNS) method is proposed that maximizes system throughput subject to a given collision probability. Simulations show that comparing to random, weighted, and greedy strategies CCNS achieves an improved performance in terms of system throughput and collision probability.