Smart Distributed System Architecture for Green Communications

Nowadays, the energy consumption and efficiency of wireless networks have become a societal challenge. A novel system architecture is proposed in this paper to achieve green communications. The flexibility and adaptability of cognitive radio (CR) technology is exploited to interact with the environment and achieve eco-sustainability by means of finding the best transmission opportunities. However, the effort required for CR nodes to obtain sensing measurements might make less effective the potential energy efficiency gain obtainable in CR networks. We thus propose to combine CR and social network technologies in such a way that energy and spectrum information can be obtained and shared through social network in order to reduce the sensing burden of CR devices. Joining the two aspects of CRadaptability and indirect cooperation typical of social networks, a much lighter and more flexible distributed infrastructure can be developed. The functionalities of the network elements and their interfaces are described in detail.