Cognitive Radio Experiments using Reconfigurable BEE2

The idea of cognitive radios has created a great interest in academic and industrial research. As a result, there are a large number of proposals for their physical and network layer functionalities. However, most of these research results rely on a theoretical analysis or computer simulations. In order to enable this technology and fully understand system design issues in its implementation, these theoretical results should be verified and demonstrated in realistic scenarios through physical implementation and experimental studies. In this paper, we present an experimental platform based on the Berkeley Emulation Engine 2 (BEE2) that can facilitate the development of physical and network layer functionalities for cognitive radios. We take spectrum sensing as an example that incorporates both signal processing and networking techniques to show how this platform could be used to conduct comprehensive research in cognitive radios. In particular, we focus on energy and cyclostationary detectors and indoor network cooperation.