Cooperation and Cognitive Radio

Cooperation is increasingly regarded as a key technology for tackling the challenges of a practical implementation of cognitive radio. In this paper, we first give a brief overview of the envisioned applications of cooperative technology to cognitive radio, distinguishing among cooperative sensing for detection of the primary activity, cooperative transmission between secondary nodes and cooperative transmission of primary traffic by secondary users (cognitive relaying). Then, we focus on the latter scenario and investigate a simple wireless network, where one secondary transmitter has the option to relay traffic of the primary. Assuming that the primary is oblivious to the presence of the secondary (thus excluding the possibility of spectrum leasing), the secondary transmitter optimizes transmission/ relaying parameters towards the goal of maximizing the rate towards the secondary receiver. Numerical results are provided in order to discuss the advantage and limits of cognitive relaying.