An Opportunistic Cognitive MAC Protocol for Coexistence with WLAN

In last decades, the demand of wireless spectrum has increased rapidly with the development of mobile communication services. Recent studies recognize that traditional fixed spectrum assignment does not use spectrum efficiently. Such a wasting phenomenon could be amended after the present of cognitive radio. Cognitive radio is a new type of technology that enables secondary usage to unlicensed user. This paper presents an opportunistic cognitive MAC protocol (OC-MAC) for cognitive radios to access unoccupied resource opportunistically and coexist with wireless local area network (WLAN). By a primary traffic predication model and transmission etiquette, OC-MAC avoids producing fatal damage to licensed users. Then a ns2 simulation model is developed to evaluate its performance in scenarios with coexisting WLAN and cognitive network.