Cognitive radio architecture for rapidly deployable heterogeneous wireless networks

Recent technological advances in cognitive radio based on software defined radio platforms have extended the capabilities of wireless communication systems. The unique ability to alter communication protocols to meet changing system demands makes cognitive radio suitable for wireless applications otherwise difficult to implement using conventional wireless terminals. One such wireless application is the rapid deployment of a heterogeneous wireless network for the purpose of establishing a communication infrastructure between an incompatible set of wireless consumer devices. This paper presents the design and implementation details of cognitive radio terminals used to build a rapidly deployable, frequency-agile, heterogeneous wireless network. Research findings assisted researchers in the development of a wireless transceiver capable of connecting a variety of wireless transceivers, detecting the presence of interference, and accordingly switching to available channels as allocated by its spectrum sensing capability. The focus of this paper is to propose an architecture for cognitive radio terminals that can be used to build rapidly deployable wireless network applications.