An Analysis of Frequency Rendezvous for Decentralized Dynamic Spectrum Access

In this paper, we propose an analysis of frequency rendezvous techniques employing three different scanning rules by combining analytical results with computer simulations. Frequency rendezvous is a critical step in bootstrapping a wireless network that does not possess centralized control. Current techniques for enabling frequency rendezvous in decentralized dynamic spectrum access (DSA) networks either require preexisting infrastructure or use one of several simplifying assumptions regarding the architecture, such as the use of regularly spaced frequency channels for communications. Our approach is designed to be operated in a purely decentralized wireless networking environment, where no centralized control is present, and the spectrum possesses no predefined channels. This is accomplished via a combination of receiver pilot tones, a tone-scanning protocol, and a transmitter/receiver handshaking process. To realize a shortest search time for the target receiver, an efficient scanning rule should be employed. In this paper, three scanning rules, i.e., frequency sequence scanning, pilot tone strength scanning, and cluster scanning, are analyzed using mathematical derivations. To validate our theoretical result, we test the three scanning rules with computer simulations.