Critical Design Decisions for Cognitive Networks

The idea of the cognitive network, drawn from previous research in cognitive radios and cross-layer design, is an attempt to address issues of complexity and scalability by allowing the network to self-adapt and reach end-to-end goals. This paper identifies three critical design decisions that must be considered when creating a cognitive network: the behavior of the decision-making elements, amount of computational state available to these elements, and the degree of control they have. To measure the effect of these design tradeoffs, we develop and define a metric called the "price of a feature." This metric is used to quantify the effect of these properties on a cognitive network with the objective of maximizing the lifetime of a multicast flow in a wireless environment. For this cognitive network, we show that the price of selfish behavior and partial control are more significant than the price of ignorance.