Speedy leader election to avoid application discontinuity in cognitive radio networks

Abstract

In cognitive radio networks (CRN), secondary user (SU) nodes operate in primary users’ unused spectrum bands. Thus, the link between SU nodes may be short lived due to (largely) unpredictable appearance of PU despite SU’s being capable of multiple channel access. Further, the nodes may suffer frequent disconnection due to node mobility and spectrum mobility. A network is considered reliable if SU’s have been carefully synchronized to ensure timely use of the available channel(s). Many computing applications require a leader node to carry out efficient coordination among the participant nodes. In this paper, we propose a diffusion computation based leader election protocol for CRN. We apply a handover mechanism for control transfer. Our handover mechanism can avoid the premature termination of some applications and thus enhances system throughput. The objective is to find maximum Id node as leader in a connected component. In extent, we validate our algorithm using simulation results and include illustration for correctness proof.