SENSIC: Mobility-aware cluster-based cooperative spectrum sensing for cognitive radio networks

This work proposes a novel framework for the organization and the management of a mobile cognitive radio network, focusing on the network performance in terms of cooperative spectrum sensing and data throughput. It relies on cooperation between secondary devices, that organize themselves in clusters defined according to both spectrum sensing reliability and mobility behavior of each secondary user. The proposed framework is compared by means of computer simulations with a simpler, non cluster-based scheme and with a cluster-based scheme in which the formation of the clusters and the election of the clusterheads are only related to the mobility behavior. Simulation results highlight that the adoption of a sensing plus mobility-aware clustering algorithm can lead to a sensing reliability comparable with the non-clustered solution (but involving on average a lower number of sensing nodes) and to a desirable improvement in data throughput of the secondary network, also leading to improved energy efficiency.