The Research of CR-based WSNs Architecture

In recent years, we have seen tremendous growth in the applications of wireless sensor networks (WSN) operating in unlicensed spectrum bands. However, there is evidence that existing unlicensed spectrum is becoming overcrowded. On the other hand, with recent advances in Cognitive Radio (CR) technology, it is possible to apply the Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) model in WSN to get access to less congested spectrum, possibly with better propagation characteristics. In this paper we investigate the structure of traditional WSN, cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access technique etc. We present a concept of CR-based WSN, and proposed the new network topology and cross-layer architecture for CR-based WSN. At last, we discuss advantages and limitations of CR-based WSN. Clearly, there are many significant challenges in the realization of CR-based WSN.