A frequency rendezvous approach for decentralized dynamic spectrum access networks

In this paper, we propose a transmission frequency rendezvous approach for secondary users deployed in decentralized dynamic spectrum access networks. 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 networks either require pre-existing infrastructure or use one of several simplifying assumptions regarding the architecture, such as the use of regularly spaced frequency channels for communications. Our proposed approach is designed to be operated in a strictly decentralized wireless networking environment, where no centralized control is present and the spectrum does not possess pre-defined channels. This is accomplished via a combination of receiver pilot tones, a tone scanning protocol, and transmitter/receiver handshaking process. In our proposed rendezvous algorithm, the most important step is pilot tone detection and receiver query. In order to realize a shortest search time for the target receiver, an efficient scanning rule should be employed. In this paper, three scanning rules are proposed and evaluated, namely: frequency sequence scanning, pilot tone strength scanning, and cluster scanning. To validate our result, we test our scanning rules with actual paging band spectrum measurements.