An adjustable channel hopping algorithm for multi-radio cognitive radio networks

Abstract

In cognitive radio networks, achieving rendezvous for two nodes (switching to the same channel at the same time) is a premise for them to communicate. Applying a channel hopping protocol is a common solution to achieve rendezvous. Most existing channel hopping protocols work in a single-radio environment and use available channels evenly without considering the time-varying channel conditions for different channels. Such channel hopping protocols may suffer from poor performance due to inefficient channel allocation. To efficiently solve the rendezvous problem, we propose the Adjustable Multi-radio Channel Hopping (AMCH) protocol in this paper. Instead of using available channels evenly, nodes running AMCH are able to adjust the usage ratio of each available channel. Simulation results verify that such a ratio adjustable channel hopping mechanism provides an efficient way to solve the rendezvous problem.