Opportunistic Access of TV Spectrum Using Cognitive-Radio-Enabled Cellular Networks

Motivated by the Federal Communications Commission's recent approval of commercial unlicensed operations of some television (TV) spectrum, we propose to integrate cognitive radios (CRs) that operate on unoccupied TV bands with an existing cellular network to increase bandwidth for mobile users. The existing cellular infrastructure is used to enable the operation of such CRs. Because base stations (BSs) can sense spectrum and exchange the sensed information for the reliable detection of primary users (PUs) and white spaces, we propose a collaborative sensing mechanism based on cell topology, where the BS declares its cell to be PU-free when neither the BS nor its neighboring BSs detect any PU. This way, in a PU-free cell, the following two types of channels are available: 1) channels that are originally licensed for the cellular system and 2) CR channels that are discovered through spectrum sensing. Because the CR channels that operate on TV bands usually suffer less path loss than the cellular channels, we derive two important results. First, each user gains more capacity when accessing a cellular channel than an empty TV channel, as long as intercell interferences are caused by the same sources. Second, assigning TV bands to cell-edge users is better in maximizing cell capacity. These two effects and the performance of the proposed sensing mechanism are verified through numerical evaluation.