Spectrum handoff performance in opportunistic and negotiated situations for cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio networks are attracting a lot of interest in wireless research community and industries which allow flexible use of utilized spectrum. The dynamic use of available spectrum bands needs proper spectrum handoff mechanism for switching to different operating frequencies based on vacant channels. Therefore, blocking probability, switching or handoff delay, link maintenance and failure probability are the important spectrum handoff performance metrics in cognitive radio networks. In this paper, we derive analytical formulae of blocking probability, link maintenance, and failure probability of a cognitive user in opportunistic and negotiated network scenarios with backup channels. The impact of switching delay on these derived performance parameters is also presented in different network scenarios. The proposed opportunistic situation (OSB) and negotiated situation (NSB) with the backup channels show better performance as compared to classical opportunistic and negotiated situations.