Cloud-Integrated Geolocation-Aware Dynamic Spectrum Access

Abstract

This chapter presents cloud integrated dynamic spectrum access in cognitive radio networks where most of the computing and storing function are performed using data offloading to cloud computing platform. The SUs are considerably constrained by their limited power, memory and computational capacity when they have to make decision about spectrum sensing for wide RF band regime and dynamic spectrum access. The SUs in CRN have the potential to mitigate these constraints by leveraging the vast storage and computational capacity of cloud computing platform [19, 21]. Specifically, cloud computing based dynamic spectrum access has following advantages: (a) Power saving in mobile devices: As SUs search the spectrum opportunities in the geolocation database, power needed for SUs to sense the RF spectrum for wide range of bands will be saved. By leveraging the cloud computing and storage resources, SU mobile devices can extend their battery lifetime; (b) No harmful interference to PUs: Chances of mis-detection of spectrum opportunities can be significantly reduced when SUs are required to search the database instead of sensing and identifying spectrum opportunities by themselves. Furthermore, the aggressive SUs can be monitored and possibly penalized by incorporating a cloud assisted manager to oversee the overall system; (c) Compliance with the requirements of the regulatory body: Recently the FCC in the U.S. [1, 12] mandates that the SUs must search geolocation database for spectrum bands instead of sensing and identifying the spectrum opportunities themselves. Thus, the proposed approach follows the recent proposal by FCC and can be implemented easily in real systems; and (d) Outsource computing on mobile devices: Typical mobile devices used by SUs have limited computing capabilities that limits the scalability of cognitive networks. Using proposed approach, the computation performance of SUs is significantly enhanced by outsourcing the streaming computation tasks to the cloud computing systems.