An exclusive self-Coexistence (ESC) resource sharing algorithm for cognitive 802.22 networks

IEEE 802.22 is a standard for Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) which exploits the cognitive radio technology in order to use spectrum holes in the TV frequency band. The standard allows the sharing of unused spectrum allocated to the Television Broadcast Service without causing harmful interference to licensed users like TV transmitters and receivers. It is essential to perform an efficient channel assignment in cognitive 802.22 networks. In this paper we propose an original resource sharing algorithm which, working in a multichannel environment, aims at assigning channels to WRANs in such a way to satisfy their request and avoid completely the interference among them. It also takes into account the issue of spatial diversity, i.e. the case where some channels do not spatially cover all the WRANs. The effectiveness of the multichannel resource sharing scheme is proved through simulations, and in particular the number of assigned slots is evaluated. The results show that the algorithm makes a resource assignment which satisfies the requests avoiding interference among overlapping WRANs.