Design and analysis of a multi-channel cognitive MAC protocol for dynamic access spectrum networks

This paper proposes a decentralized cognitive radio based multi-channel MAC protocol for dynamic access spectrum (DSA) networks. In our proposed MAC protocol, each secondary user is equipped with a cognitive radio-based transceiver and multiple channel sensors. With the help of the two-way handshakes of control packets, the proposed MAC protocol enables the secondary users to opportunistically utilize the unused frequency spectrum while avoiding the collisions among secondary users and those between secondary and primary users. Applying the M/G^Y /1 queuing theory, we develop a rigorous analytical model to analyze the performance of our proposed MAC protocol in terms of aggregate throughput and packet transmission delay. We validate our developed analytical model through extensive simulations.