Robust Power Control and Beamforming in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Survey

Traditional spectrum allocation policies may result in temporarily unused radio spectrum. Cognitive radio (CR) has emerged as a promising technology to exploit the radio spectrum in a more efficient manner by allowing spectrum sharing between secondary users (SUs) and primary users (PUs). Power control and beamforming are two key techniques in CR design used to maximize the benefits of SUs, yet to maintain the quality of service of PUs. In practice, the available system parameters (e.g., channel state information and interference power) to enable power control and beamforming could be uncertain due to various factors such as estimation error and/or measurement error, thus the robustness of the designed algorithms should be considered in order to overcome the effects of parametric uncertainties. The objective of this paper is to give an overview on robust design for power control and beamforming in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). We will analyze modeling methods for parametric uncertainties, introduce various design methodologies, and present robust algorithms that have appeared in the literatures. Finally, some potential issues and future research directions in this field will be presented.