Dynamic channel assignment and routing for cognitive sensor networks

With the increase of the number of wireless sensing or metering devices, the collection of sensing data using wireless communication becomes an important part of many applications. Cognitive radio technology can be used to facilitate the deployment of a bandwidth efficient sensor system. In this paper, we propose a data collection and dissemination framework for cognitive radio sensor systems to fully utilize wireless resources while maintaining a reliably connected and efficient topology for each channel. In the proposed framework, each sensor node selects a channel considering primary user channel utilization and network connectivity. In this way, the data collection and dissemination can be performed with a high reliability and short delay while avoiding a harmful effect on primary users. We use computer simulations to evaluate the proposed framework.