An alternative concept to scanning process for cognitive radio systems: technical and regulatory issues

For cognitive radio one of the most challenging issue is how to get the intelligence necessary to make the best possible allocation decision. Techniques such as sensing to get the information on the occupancy of the radio environment are being discussed. And designing terminals with scanning/sensing capabilities is a vibrant research topic; such terminals, and the sensing principles, can be very helpful when limited parts of spectrum are to be scanned. But in cases where there is no knowledge about the amount of spectrum to be scanned, this can result in time-and power-consuming operations. An alternative approach, described in this paper, consists of a "Cognition supporting Pilot Channel" (CPC) which directly provides relevant information to the terminal. This paper looks at the concept of this CPC, it initially describes the expected functionality and discusses the regulatory implications such a cognition supporting pilot channel, in the context of flexible spectrum management faces.