Embedded Cognitive Radio for Next Generation IoE: Framework, Solution, and Future Directions

The next generation Internet of everything (IoE) is expected to operate in a highly dynamic environment, where cognitive radio (CR) has been identified as a potential solution due to its inherent advantage of dynamic spectrum access. Its combination with the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enables highly efficient multiple access. Current CR techniques, however, adopt either underlay mode or overlay mode, and will result in increased interference or decreased accessing probability. In this article, a novel embedded CR (ECR) framework is introduced as a more flexible and efficient solution. Considering the rigorous quality of service (QoS) requirements of IoE, a composite successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding strategy under the ECR framework is specially designed, and a spectrum allocation scheme is further presented. The critical challenges of ECR_NOMA and our preliminary results are presented. We also discuss a range of research directions in future IoE networks.