New insights from a delay analysis for cognitive radio networks with and without reservation

In wireless communication systems, the delay remains a crucial factor. In this work, we focus on the design of a new opportunistic cross-layer MAC protocol involving channels allocation and packet scheduling for cognitive networks in order to optimize system performance. Cognitive radio provides the opportunity for secondary users (unlicensed users) to use available portions of the licensed spectrum bands without interfering with primary users (licensed users). We consider that each secondary user is equipped with two transceivers. The role of the first transceiver is to obtain and exchange channels information on the control channel. The second transceiver is devoted to periodically detect and dynamically use the available data channels. The paper deals with channel allocation considering traffic characteristics of secondary users. So, we propose a mechanism of resource reservation to improve Quality of Service (QoS) requirements that favors successful secondary users to transmit data during x time slots without interfering with primary users. We develop a new analytical model, while taking into account the backoff mechanism. We analyze delay parameter for two scenarios with and without resource reservation. We show through simulations that our approach guarantees an optimal response delay.