A Novel Spectrum Sensing Scheduling Algorithm for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive Radios are recognized as a novel approach to improve the utilization of a precious natural resource of wireless communications: the radio frequency spectrum. Historically, telecom regulators assigned fixed spectrum bands to the licensed wireless network operators. This spectrum management approach guarantees an interference free environment, except for some configuration faults or illegal usage. However, with the increasing demand for more bandwidth in the finite radio spectrum, the spectrum becomes underutilized. Hence, the concept of secondary operators have emerged, but with emphasis not to influence licensed operators. Consequently, the Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) architecture enters the market as an intelligent solution to these issues, with concentration on spectrum sensing procedures to achieve the regulatory constraint. The most successful sensing algorithms are those applying cooperation and scheduling to have better scanning information; however, those algorithms are developed based on the primary network activities, which are good in terms of reducing expected interference, albeit with more computational load on the CRN. In this chapter, a novel sensing scheduler algorithm is proposed. The idea is to utilize the CRN by fairly distributing the sensing task among the sensors and afterwards utilizing the radio spectrum shared with the primary networks. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2812-0.ch007