A feedback-soft sensing-based cognitive access scheme with feedback erasures

In this paper, we examine a cognitive spectrum access scheme in which a secondary user exploits the primary feedback information. We consider an overlay model in which the secondary user accesses the channel by certain access probabilities that are function of the spectrum sensing metric. In setting our problem, we assume that the secondary user can receive the primary link's feedback automatic repeat request (ARQ), but through an erasure channel. This means that the primary feedback may either be received correctly or is erased with a certain erasure probability. We study the cognitive radio network from a queuing theory point of view. Access probabilities are determined by solving a secondary throughput maximization problem subject to a constraint on the primary queues' stability. Fortunately, our problem is convex and can be solved using standard optimization techniques. Our scheme yields improved results in the secondary throughput than the non-feedback based access scheme attributed to the efficient utilization of the primary user's unerased feedback messages.