Hybrid Self‐Scheduled Multichannel Medium Access Control Protocol in Cognitive Radio Networks

After perceiving the idle channels using spectrum sensing, the cognitive user (CU) accesses these channels using suitable medium access control (MAC) protocol where the decision on optimal spectrum sensing, transmission time, and proper coordination with other CUs are the key characteristics of the MAC protocol. In the conventional MAC protocol, the CUs exploit the common control channel for the spectrum sensing information exchange in order to negotiate the channel access. After the spectrum sensing, each CU contends for the access of idle channel using various spectrum access protocols. The system model and proposed hybrid self‐scheduling multichannel‐MAC (HSMC‐MAC) protocol are illustrated. The chapter consists of the performance analysis of proposed protocol for the perfect and imperfect spectrum sensing scenarios. It presents the simulation results for the perfect and imperfect spectrum sensing scenarios. An improved frame structure for the distributed cognitive radio networks is proposed in order to enhance the throughput by exploiting the spectrum efficiently.