This paper presents a Multi-channel MAC protocol with channel grouping for multi-channel ad-hoc networks. The proposed protocol has both concepts of the multiple rendezvous and the single control channel protocols, which were proposed as a MAC protocol for multi-channel ad-hoc network without centralized stations. In the proposed protocol, all the channels are divided into some groups and each group has a control channel. Network nodes circulate among the groups and channel negotiations are carried out on a control channel of the group. By applying the channel grouping, it is possible to enhance network throughput without reducing the channel-usage probability. Because there is an optimum group number for obtaining the highest throughput, this paper gives analytical expressions of maximum network throughput for the proposed protocol as a function of system parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed protocol is shown from simulation results. In addition, the validity of the analytical expressions is confirmed from quantitative agreements between analytical predictions and simulation results.

Although SDN provides desirable characteristics such as the manageability, flexibility and extensibility of the networks, it has a considerable disadvantage in its reliability due to its centralized architecture. To protect SDN-enabled networks under large-scale, unexpected link failures, we propose ResilientFlow that deploys distributed modules called Control Channel Maintenance Module (CCMM) for every switch and controllers. The CCMMs makes switches able to maintain their own control channels, which are core and fundamental part of SDN. In this paper, we design, implement, and evaluate the ResilientFlow.

Cognitive radio is one of the most promising wireless technologies and has been recognized as a new way to improve the spectral efficiency of wireless networks. In a cognitive radio network, secondary users exchange control information for network coordination such as transmitter-receiver handshakes, for sharing spectrum sensing results, for neighbor discovery, to maintain connectivity, and so on. Spectrum utilization and resource optimizations thus rely on information exchange among secondary users. Normally, secondary users exchange the control information via a predefined channel, called a common control channel (CCC). Most of the medium access control (MAC) protocols for cognitive radio networks were designed by assuming the existence of a CCC, and further assuming that it was available for every secondary user. However, the main drawback of using a static CCC is it is susceptible to primary user activities since the channel can be occupied by primary users at any time. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol for cognitive radio networks with dynamic control channel assignment, called DYN-MAC. In DYN-MAC, a control channel is dynamically assigned based on spectrum availability. Thus, it can tolerate primary user activities. DYN-MAC also supports collision free network-wide broadcasting and addresses other major problems such as primary/secondary user hidden terminal problems.

Designing a medium access control (MAC) protocol is a key for implementing any practical wireless network. In general, a MAC protocol is responsible for coordinating users in accessing spectrum resources. Given that a user in cognitive radio(CR) networks do not have priority in accessing spectrum resources, MAC protocols have to perform dynamic spectrum access (DSA) functions, including spectrum sensing, spectrum access, spectrum allocation, spectrum sharing and spectrum mobility, beside conventional control procedure. As a result, designing MAC protocols for CR networks requires more complicated consideration than that needed for conventional/primary wireless network. In this paper, we focus on two major perspectives related to the design of a CR-MAC protocol: dynamic spectrum access functions and network infrastructure. Five DSA functions are reviewed from the point of view of MAC protocol design. In addition, some important factors related to the infrastructure of a CR network including network architecture, control channel management, the number of radios in the CR device and the number of transmission data channels are also discussed. The remaining challenges and open research issues are addressed for future research to aim at obtaining practical CR-MAC protocols.

We propose a control-channel-hopping scheme to mitigate scrambling attacks in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. A scrambling attack can be realized by jamming specific frames after monitoring the control channel or by jamming the control channel itself. This letter details a situation in which the control channel is scattered among OFDMA subcarriers. The scattered control channel has a two-dimensional hopping sequence with a mixed order. Simulation results show that our scheme can prevent a jammer from monitoring the control channel and from attacking the channel itself.

In cognitive radio networks, secondary users exchange control information to utilize the available channels efficiently, to maintain connectivity, to negotiate for data communication such as sender-receiver handshakes, for neighbor discovery etc. This task is not trivial in cognitive radio networks due to the dynamic nature of network environment. Generally, this problem is tackled by using two famous approaches. The first one is the use of common control channel (CCC) and the second one is using channel hopping (a.k.a sequence-based protocols). The use of CCC simplifies the processes of MAC protocols. However, it may not be feasible in cognitive radio networks as the available channels, including control channel, are dynamically changing according to primary user activities. Channel hopping approaches can tolerate the failure of network due to primary user activities. But it causes significant amount of channel access delay which is known as time to rendezvous (TTR). In this paper, we propose a hybrid protocol of these two mechanisms. This hybrid protocol can maintain connectivity and it can guarantee the secondary users to be able to exchange necessary control information in dynamic environment. In our hybrid protocol, we use multiple control channels. If some control channels are unavailable in case of primary user appearances, secondary users still can communicate on different control channels, so it can be more tolerable primary user activities than normal CCC approaches. Channel hopping is performed only for control channels, so it provides relatively small amount of channel access delay.

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is employed for the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) downlink. The base station not only decodes the ACK/NACK signals from the user equipment (UE), but also detects a termination of the transmission (DTX) of the ACK/NACK signals caused by the mis-detection of the downlink control information (DCI) at the UE side. Since ACK/NACK signals from UEs are multiplexed by CDMA, there are sometimes severe inter-code interference (ICI) effects, which significantly degrade the performance of ACK/NACK signals. In order to mitigate such ICI effects, in [1],[2], we proposed a novel phase rotation scheme on the constellations of the uplink ACK/NACK signals, and confirmed the effects on the ACK/NACK bit error rate performance; however, the previous paper did not analyze the effects of the phase rotation on the DTX detection performance. Hence, in this paper, we further analyze the effects of the phase rotation for the ACK/NACK signals in conjunction with a new DTX detection scheme which utilizes equalizer outputs, and investigate the performance of the proposed scheme by means of computer simulations.

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is employed for the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) downlink. The ACK/NACK signals from each user equipment (UE) are multiplexed by code division multiple access (CDMA) and transmitted via a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). The ACK/NACK signals are code spread by the cyclic shift (CS) sequences made from zero auto-correlation (ZAC) sequences; however, the orthogonality of these sequences is not guaranteed depending on the propagation channels; moreover, the amount of inter-code interference (ICI) depends on the delay spread of the channel and the transmitting timing control error of each UE. In the conventional PUCCH structure, ICI between two ACK signals does not degrade their detection performance, whereas ICI between an ACK signal and a NACK signal degrades the detection performance. This causes a serious gap between the detection performances of ACK and NACK signals, because generally in a PUCCH, there are more ACK signals than NACK signals. In this paper, we propose a novel phase rotation scheme on the constellations of ACK/NACK signals that can resolve this issue, and the simulation evaluation results confirm the benefits of the proposed phase rotation scheme.

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is employed for the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) downlink. Each user equipment (UE) sends its ACK/NACK corresponding to the downlink data reception to the base station via a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). The ACK/NACK signals from the UE are first code spread by the cyclic shift (CS) sequences, and then code spread again by the orthogonal cover (OC) sequences. The ACK/NACK signals from each UE are multiplexed by means of code division multiple access (CDMA), however, it is difficult for the conventional PUCCH code design to satisfy the required bit error rate (BER) of 10-3 [1] in fast-fading environments because of inter-code interference (ICI) among the OC sequences. Therefore, resource management of PUCCH is required depending on the mobility of the UEs to maximize the performance of the ACK/NACK signals and the capacity of PUCCH simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a novel code design for PUCCH, which can suppress the effects of ICI among the OC sequences, and thus can simplify the resource management of PUCCH. The simulation evaluations confirm that the proposed code design can significantly improve the performance of the ACK/NACK signals via PUCCH in fast-fading environments, and any complicated resource management based on the mobility of the UEs are not necessary.

We propose a simple and scalable scheduler called Elapsing Time-based Priority (ETP) scheduler for the optical burst switch (OBS) control channel; it eliminates the requirements of global synchronization and core-state information. This scheduler reduces edge-to-edge delays of burst control packets and total latencies of data bursts.