A decentralized MAC protocol for opportunistic spectrum access in cognitive wireless networks

Cognitive MAC protocols are designed to efficiently utilize the scarce spectral resources without affecting the performance characteristics of primary users. The use of spectrum opportunities can often require stochastic approaches due to difficulty in predicting their appearance. Infrastructure based coordinated access techniques are not viable for many applications and spectrum bands, especially in the case of wireless local area and sensor networks. In this article, we describe CogMAC, a decentralized cognitive MAC protocol, which is based on the multichannel preamble reservation scheme. The protocol dynamically selects an available communication channel using a distributed channel selection scheme and allows nodes to be completely asynchronous to each other. CogMAC does not require a common control channel or a cooperative infrastructure. The MAC design addresses practical issues such as network dynamics and traffic awareness. We have carried out the performance evaluation of our CogMAC protocol on Wireless Open Access Research Platform (WARP) SDR testbed. Experimental results indicate that our protocol is able to achieve reliable data communication by opportunistically utilizing the available spectrum holes even in harshly interfering environments.