Predictive medium access control for industrial cognitive radio

Abstract

The development of cognitive wireless technologies is a key enabler of automatic coexistence of industrial communication applications in the industrial scientific medical (ISM) bands. This is crucial for achieving the flexibility required in the so-called Industrie 4.0. In this work we present a single channel cognitive medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless industrial communication in highly dynamic shared environments. The protocol design utilizes traffic models based on measurements of industrial wireless traffic in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The proposed protocol enables optimum spectrum use and throughput by equipping nodes with predictive channel access. We address the problem of predictive channel access where cognitive networks are 1) either aware only of non-cognitive networks or 2) aware of other cognitive networks as well due to continuous online learning. The proposed protocol supports service differentiation, i.e. critical industrial applications could be assigned higher priorities when accessing the channel in order to fulfill their strict delay requirements. We also develop a highly accurate theoretical framework for predictive channel access and validate the proposed framework through extensive simulations. Simulation results show optimal throughput and spectrum use and a significant improvement on WiFi's Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA).