Community-Based Cognitive Radio Architecture: Policy-Compliant Innovation via the Semantic Web

The pace at which cognitive radio innovations can be deployed depends on the speed with which policy makers, technical standards committees, and technology implementers can negotiate and share conceptual blueprints describing policy and specifying policy-compliant radio behavior. By using formal representations, semantic web capabilities facilitate this form of collaboration, while simultaneously providing technologies for implementing related cognitive radio functionality utilizing the same representations, thereby streamlining the development process. This paper proposes a "cognitive radio community architecture" development process that takes advantage of the formal representations provided by semantic web technologies in order (1) to enable dynamic (cognitive) spectrum access compliant with policy and (2) to enhance system development and interoperability through common, shared concepts. The proposition is illustrated in relation to a case study of current interest, namely, cognitive radio enhancements to a simple form of dynamic spectrum access known as dynamic frequency selection (DFS). The case study shows how this architecture lays the foundation for a general type of capability, defined as knowledge-driven differential response, which could advance the state-of-the-art in cognitive radio research.