Throughput Enhancement of Cognitive Radio Networks through Improved Frame Structure

Abstract

A cognitive radio (CR) system exploits spectrum bands that are not fully utilized by the licensed users. For the successful deployment of the technology, the biggest challenge is to make network protocols more adaptive to use the available bandwidth effectively. Various medium access protocols (MAC) have been proposed by researchers to manage spectrum sensing and the channel utilization between two kind of users namely licensed primary users and unlicensed secondary users. In this paper, a modified self-scheduling multi-channel cognitive radio MAC protocol based on cooperative communication is proposed to enhance the network throughput by modifying its frame structure. The proposed frame structure also eliminates the sensing throughput tradeoff that was encountered in the conventional scheme. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the conventional scheme by increasing the throughput 200Mbps.