Cognitive Radio technology for dynamic spectrum access: Spectrum sensing, waveform design and implementation

This tutorial´s main emphasis will be on the physical layer design and implementation of cognitive radio and to also provide the audience with an in-depth understanding of cognitive radio and its enabling technologies. Different dynamic spectrum access (DSA) models will be discussed. Next, major components of CR and DSA will be identified. An overview of the candidate Multi-Carrier (MC) waveforms such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), MC-Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA), Carrier Interferometry (CI)-MCCDMA, Transform Domain Communication System (TDCS) and their non-contiguous versions will be presented. A general Spectrally Modulated, Spectrally Encoded (SMSE) expression encompassing all the above MC waveforms will be presented. This will be followed by a novel Soft Decision (SD) SMSE framework in the design of two CR enabling waveforms namely, CR-Overlay and CR-Underlay waveforms. Different application of these two CR waveforms will also be examined. Furthermore, hardware implementation of cognitive radio nodes using USRP (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) boards and GNU radio software will be discussed. We will provide hands-on laboratory of a USRP based cognitive radio video transmission in the tutorial as well.