Analysis of Spectrum Sensing and Spectrum Access in Cognitive Radio Networks with Heterogeneous Traffic and p-Retry Buffering

Abstract

It is well known that cognitive radio (CR) techniques have great potential to deal with the problem of radio spectrum scarcity. Spectrum sensing technique plays a critical role in enabling unlicensed secondary users (SUs) to utilize spectrum holes in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). However, a licensed primary user (PU) can be appropriately protected by simultaneously performing spectrum sensing and data transmission i.e., by using full-duplex (FD) mode. In this paper, we have proposed and analyzed a strategy which includes spectrum sensing and spectrum access mechanisms both. We consider heterogeneous traffic of real-time and non real-time SUs based on their different delay tolerance characteristics. We address the issue of false alarm rate (FAR) associated with FD sensing. Spectrum handoff and call buffering strategies with <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$p$</tex-math></inline-formula> -Retry policy are employed jointly so that SUs that would otherwise be blocked or forcibly dropped could be buffered and possibly served later. To evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy, five-dimensional continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) model is developed and the queueing-theoretic approach is utilized. Numerical results demonstrate the influence of spectrum sensing errors on the performance of such CRNs. Results also reveal that the provision of buffers under retrial policy increases the overall network resource utilization while decreasing blocking and dropping probabilities.