An Architecture for Cognitive Radio Networks with Cognition, Self-Organization and Reconfiguration Capabilities

Cognitive radio is considered to be a key technology for future heterogeneous networks. Cognitive radio network is an evolution of the cognitive radio by extending the radio link scope to network scope, and is defined as a network that can observe its environment, make decisions based on the observations, and then reconfigure according to the decisions, all while taking into account the end-to-end goals. This paper proposes a high level abstraction of the cognitive radio network architecture. The operation of the proposed architecture is guided by the end-to-end goals. The proposed architecture consists of four components: end-to-end goals management, cognition management, self-organization management, and reconfiguration management. The proposed architecture provides the functionality to manage these components, enable communication between them, and facilitate the interfaces between cognitive radio network and its surrounding environment. In order to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed architecture, we present a use case of ubiquitous wireless access services and show that the proposed architecture enables ubiquitous connectivity with harmonized networks and integrated services.