Real-time white spectrum recognition for cognitive radio networks over TV white spaces

A key technical challenge in TV white spaces is the efficient spectrum usage without interfering with primary users. This paper considers available spectrum discovery scheme using in-band sensing signal to support super Wi-Fi services effectively. The proposed scheme in this paper adopts non-contiguous orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (NC-OFDM) to utilize the fragmented channel in TV white space due to microphones while this channel cannot be used in IEEE 802.11af. The proposed solution is a novel available spectrum discovery scheme by exploiting the advantages of a sensing signaling. The proposed method achieves considerable improvement in throughput and delay time. The proposed method can use more subcarriers for transmission by applying NC-OFDM in contrast with the conventional IEEE 802.11af standard. Moreover, the increased number of wireless microphones (WMs) hardly affects the throughput of the proposed method because our proposal only excludes some subcarriers used by WMs. Additionally, the proposed method can cut discovery time down to under 10 ms because it can find available channels in real time by exchanging sensing signal without interference to the WM.