A renewal-theoretical framework for dynamic spectrum access with unknown primary behavior

Dynamic spectrum access in cognitive radio networks can greatly improve the spectrum utilization efficiency. Nevertheless, interference may be introduced to the Primary User (PU) when the Secondary Users (SUs) dynamically utilize the licensed channel. If the SUs can be synchronous with the PUs, the interference is mainly due to their imperfect spectrum sensing of the primary channel. However, if the SUs have no knowledge about the PU's communication mechanism, additional interference may occur. In this paper, we propose a renewal theoretical framework to study the situation when SUs confronting with unknown primary behavior. We quantify the interference caused by the SUs and derive the corresponding close-form expressions. With the interference analysis, we study how to optimize the SUs' performance under the constraints of the PU's communication quality of service (QoS). Finally, simulation results are shown to verify the effectiveness of our analysis.