Cognitive radio ad hoc networks for smart grid communications: A disaster management approach

The explosive growth in users´ demand in both areas of wireless communications and power generation has led to design of new key technologies that will be dominant in the near future; cognitive radio networks in communications and smart grid in power field. This paper proposes a novel scenario to marry these technologies together by using a cognitive radio ad hoc network (CRAHN) as the foundation of smart grid communications. It discusses formation and throughput of such a citywide network, the information transferred by the network, and how this structure can be relied upon in disasters, compared to the state-of-the-art.