Challenges in cognitive radio research: Primary radio aware spectrum sensing, medium access, and routing

In this talk, after a brief introduction of the cognitive radio (CR) technology, we focus on several important technical aspects of CR research. Based on my previous CR-related research work, we mainly cover three issues: spectrum sensing, medium access, and routing, which correspond to the traditional three system layers: PHY, MAC, and Network layers. Here the difference from traditional layered network research is the primary radio (PR) awareness in all our design considerations. Throughout the talk, we will focus on how to detect PR existence in spectrum sensing, how to protect PR transmissions in medium access, and how to even help PR packet delivery in routing. For each of the three subjects and also from a system-wide perspective, we will conclude the talk by discussing the open problems remained to challenge us in the future years.