Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) exploits vacant frequency resources via distributed wireless access. The two nodes of DSA, master and slave, access different channels, and thus, cannot communicate with each other. To compensate for the access channel mismatch between the two nodes, a rendezvous channel, which exchanges control signals between two nodes, has been considered. The rendezvous channel based on channel-occupancy ratio (COR) adaptively constructs the channel in accordance with the channel occupancy of other systems, and both a high-speed rendezvous channel and high usage efficiency of the frequency resource are accomplished owing to exploitation of the vacant channel. In the rendezvous channel based on COR, the master and slave recognize the channel with minimum measured COR as the superior channel. As the master sends the control signals through the superior channel recognized by the master, the slave accesses to the superior channel recognized by the slave with higher access rate than to the other channels. As a result, the slave can receive the control signals with highly probability and thus high speed rendezvous channel is achieved. If the master and the slave recognize the different channel as the superior channel, the access rate to the other channel should be larger. This is because the slave obtains the opportunity of receiving the control signals through the different channel from the superior channel recognized by slave and thus the high probability that the slave can receive the control signals is maintained. Therefore, the access rate of slave should be constructed in accordance with the recognition of superior channel by master and slave. In this paper, the access rate of slave to the superior channel is optimally constructed using the analyzed probability of completion of rendezvous channel. The analysis of the probability of completion of rendezvous channel includes the recognition of superior channel by master and slave. Even if the master and the slave recognize the different channel, the constructed access rate of slave can maintain the high speed rendezvous channel. From the theoretical analysis and computer simulation, the rendezvous channel based on COR with the optimal access rate to the channel with the lowest COR achieves reduced time for the rendezvous channel.

This paper derives the optimal learning time for the learning-assisted rendezvous channel. One problem with the dynamic spectrum access system of cognitive radio is access channel mismatch between two wireless terminals. In the learning-assisted rendezvous channel, before exchanging packets for link connection, the rate of channel occupancy by the other system is estimated within the learning time; it is referred to as the channel occupancy rate (COR). High speed packet exchange is made possible by selecting a low COR channel. However, the optimal learning time and the impact of COR estimation errors have not been clarified yet. This paper analyzes the time to rendezvous channel (TTR), where TTR is the time needed to complete the rendezvous with a certain probability. The results indicate that the learning time and TTR have a concave relationship which means that the optimal learning time can be determined.

In this paper, we propose a novel method for gathering sensing information by using an orthogonal narrowband signal for cooperative sensing in cognitive radio. It is desirable to improve the spectrum sensing performance by countering the locality effect of a wireless channel; cooperative sensing by using multiple inputs of sensing information from the surrounding sensing nodes has attracted attention. Cooperative sensing requires that sensing information be gathered at the master node for determining the existence of a primary signal. If the used information gathering method leads to redundancies, the total capacity of the secondary networks is not improved. In this paper, we propose a novel method for gathering sensing information that maps the sensing information to the orthogonal narrowband signal to achieve simultaneous sensing information gathering at the master node. In this method, the sensing information is mapped to an orthogonal subcarrier signal of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) structure to reduce the frequency resource required for sensing information gathering. The orthogonal signals are transmitted simultaneously from multiple sensing nodes. This paper evaluates the performance of the proposed information gathering method and confirms its effectiveness.

In this study, we propose a cooperative sensing with distributed pre-detection for gathering sensing information on shared primary system. We have proposed a system that gathers multiple sensing information by using the orthogonal narrowband signal; the system is called the orthogonal frequency-based sensing information gathering (OF-SIG) method. By using this method, sensing information from multiple secondary nodes can be gathered from the surrounding secondary nodes simultaneously by using the orthogonal narrowband signals. The advantage of this method is that the interference from each node is small because a narrowband tone signal is transmitted from each node. Therefore, if appropriate power and transmission control are applied at the surrounding nodes, the sensing information can be gathered in the same spectrum as the primary system. To avoid interference with the primary receiver, we propose a cooperative sensing with distributed pre-detection for gathering sensing information in each node by limiting sensing node power. In the proposed method, the number of sensing information transmitting nodes depends on the pre-detection ability of the individual sensing at each node. Then the secondary node can increase the transmit power by improving the sensing detection ability, and the secondary node can gather the sensing information from the surrounding secondary nodes which are located more far by redesign the transmit power of the secondary nodes. Here, we design the secondary transmit power based on OF-SIG while considering the aggregated interference from multiple sensing nodes and individual sensing ability. Finally we confirm the performance of the cooperative sensing of the proposed method through computer simulation.

In this paper, a novel fusion center controlled media access control (MAC) protocol for physical wireless parameter conversion sensor networks (PHY-C SN), and a transmission power design for each sensor node are proposed. In PHY-C SN, the sensing information is converted to corresponding subcarrier number of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, and all sensor nodes can send sensing information simultaneously. In most wireless sensor network standards, each sensor node detects the surrounding wireless signal through carrier sense. However, sensor nodes cannot send signals simultaneously if carrier sense is applied in PHY-C SN. Therefore, a protocol for PHY-C SN is devised. In the proposed protocol, the fusion center detects the surrounding wireless environment by carrier sense and requests sensing information transmission toward sensor nodes if no other wireless systems are detected. Once the sensor nodes receive the request signal, they transmit sensing information to the fusion center. Further, to avoid harmful interference with surrounding wireless systems, the transmission power of each sensor is designed to suit the considering communication range and avoid interference toward other wireless systems. The effectiveness of the proposed protocol is evaluated by computer simulation. The parameters for collection like the number of collecting sensor nodes and the radius of the collection area are also examined when determining the transmission power of sensor nodes. Results show that highly efficient information collection with reducing interference both from and towards surrounding wireless systems can be implemented with PHY-C SN.

A multi-channel cognitive radio is a powerful solution for recovering the exhaustion of frequency spectrum resources. In a cognitive radio, although master and slave terminals (which construct a communication link) have the freedom to access arbitrary channels, access channel mismatch is caused. A rendezvous scheme based on frequency hopping can compensate for this mismatch by exchanging control signals through a selected channel in accordance with a certain rule. However, conventional frequency hopping schemes do not consider an access protocol of both control signals in the rendezvous scheme and the signal caused by channel access from other systems. Further, they do not consider an information sharing method to reach a consensus between the master and slave terminals. This paper proposes a modified rendezvous scheme based on learning-based channel occupancy rate (COR) estimation and describes a specific channel-access rule in the slave terminal. On the basis of this rule, the master estimates a channel selected by the slave by considering the average COR of the other systems. Since the master can narrow down the number of channels, a fast rendezvous scheme with a few control signals is established.

With the rapid developments in the Internet of Things (IoT), low power wide area networks (LPWAN) framework, which is a low-power, long-distance communication method, is attracting attention. However, in LPWAN, the access time is limited by Duty Cycle (DC) to avoid mutual interference. Packet-level index modulation (PLIM) is a modulation scheme that uses a combination of the transmission time and frequency channel of a packet as an index, enabling throughput expansion even under DC constraints. The indexes used in PLIM are transmitted according to the mapping. However, when many sensors access the same index, packet collisions occur owing to selecting the same index. Therefore, we propose a mapping design for PLIM using mathematical optimization. The mapping was designed and modeled as a quadratic integer programming problem. The results of the computer simulation evaluations were used to realize the design of PLIM, which achieved excellent sensor information aggregation in terms of environmental monitoring accuracy.