A Channel Rendezvous Scheme for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio networks need to utilize available spectrum in a dynamic and opportunistic fashion without causing interference to co-located primary nodes. Before data transmission begins, secondary nodes must establish a link on a channel which is not occupied by primary nodes. Unfortunately, in cognitive radio networks, the set of available channels can be different for each node, since it is determined by the relative locations of nodes to primary nodes. We are the first to present a distributed channel rendezvous scheme which finds a commonly available channel between any two nodes in a bounded time without synchronization. Our scheme determines the order, in which two nodes visit channels to find a common channel, if any, within a bounded time.