Priority-based spectrum allocation for cognitive radio networks employing NC-OFDM transmission

In this paper, we present three novel priority-based spectrum allocation techniques for enabling dynamic spectrum access (DSA) networking for non-contiguous orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (NC-OFDM) transmission. With each communication link in the network possessing a specified pair of bit error rate (BER) and throughput requirements for supporting a specific application, the proposed technique assigns one or more blocks of wireless spectrum to these applications in an attempt to simultaneously satisfy these requirements. Specifically, the proposed techniques assigns blocks of spectrum possessing aggregate bandwidth that is sufficient for supporting the intended wireless data service over the communication link. Moreover, since several portions of the wireless spectrum may be heavily attenuated due to frequency-selective fading resulting from multipath propagation, communication links requiring high error robustness are assigned frequency bands located further away from these attenuated regions of spectrum. Thus, the proposed spectrum allocation techniques aims at accommodating communication links supporting several wireless services possessing different performance requirements.