In this paper, we propose an adaptive medium access control (MAC) protocol for full-duplex (FD) cognitive radio networks in which FD secondary users (SUs) perform channel contention followed by concurrent spectrum sensing and transmission, and transmission only with maximum power in two different stages (called the FD sensing and transmission stages, respectively) in each contention and access cycle. The proposed FD cognitive MAC (FDC-MAC) protocol does not require synchronization among SUs, and it efficiently utilizes the spectrum and mitigates the self-interference in the FD transceiver. We develop a mathematical model to analyze the throughput performance of the FDC-MAC protocol, where both half-duplex (HD) transmission and FD transmission modes are considered in the transmission stage. Then, we study the FDC-MAC configuration optimization through adaptively controlling the spectrum sensing duration and transmit power level in the FD sensing stage. We prove that there exists optimal sensing time and transmit power to achieve the maximum throughput, and we develop an algorithm to configure the proposed FDC-MAC protocol. Extensive numerical results are presented to illustrate the optimal FDC-MAC configuration and the impacts of protocol parameters and the self-interference cancellation quality on the throughput performance. Moreover, we demonstrate the significant throughput gains of the FDC-MAC protocol with respect to the existing HD MAC and single-stage FD MAC protocols.
There are some recent works that propose to exploit the FD communications for MAC-level channel access in multi-user wireless networks @cite_13 -- @cite_8 . In @cite_13 , the authors develop a centralized MAC protocol to support asymmetric data traffic where network nodes may transmit data packets of different lengths, and they propose to mitigate the hidden node problem by employing a busy tone. To overcome this hidden node problem, propose to adapt the standard 802.11 MAC protocol with the RTS CTS handshake in @cite_3 . Moreover, in @cite_27 extend this study to consider interference between two nodes due to their concurrent transmissions. Different from conventional wireless networks, designing MAC protocols in CRNs is more challenging because the spectrum sensing function must be efficiently integrated into the MAC protocol. In addition, the self-interference must be carefully addressed in the simultaneous spectrum sensing and access to mitigate its negative impacts on the sensing and throughput performance.
@cite_27 @cite_13 @cite_3 @cite_8
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In this paper, we consider the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design for full-duplex cognitive radio networks (FDCRNs). Our design exploits the fact that full-duplex (FD) secondary users (SUs) can perform spectrum sensing and access simultaneously, which enable them to detect the primary users' (PUs) activity during transmission. The developed FD MAC protocol employs the standard backoff mechanism as in the 802.11 MAC protocol. However, we propose to adopt the frame fragmentation during the data transmission phase for timely detection of active PUs where each data packet is divided into multiple fragments and the active SU makes sensing detection at the end of each data fragment. Then, we develop a mathematical model to analyze the throughput performance of the proposed FD MAC protocol. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm to configure the MAC protocol so that efficient self-interference management and sensing overhead control can be achieved. Finally, numerical results are presented to evaluate the performance of our design and demonstrate the throughput enhancement compared to the existing half-duplex (HD) cognitive MAC protocol. Because of the asynchronization between primary and secondary wireless networks, the synchronization between primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) can be hardly guaranteed in nontime-slotted cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In this paper, we propose a novel framework for multichannel nontime-slotted CRNs, where the PUs randomly access and leave the licensed channels. Since the PUs cannot distinguish between primary and secondary signals, the PUs may sense a busy channel when the PUs start to reactivate during the SUs' transmission, thus generating a collision or entering the backoff stage. To guarantee the high-throughput transmission of the PUs and increase the channel utilization of the SUs, in this paper, we propose the wireless full-duplex spectrum sensing (FD-SS) scheme for SUs in multichannel nontime-slotted CRNs. Using our developed FD-SS scheme, the SUs can timely sense the PUs' reactivation during the same time when the SUs are transmitting their signals. Then, based on our proposed wireless FD-SS scheme, we further develop and analyze the wireless full-duplex cognitive medium access control (FDC-MAC) protocol for multichannel nontime-slotted CRNs. We conduct extensive numerical analyses, showing that our developed FD-SS scheme and FDC-MAC protocol can efficiently guarantee the high-throughput transmission of the PUs and increase the channel utilization of the SUs without requiring the synchronization between the PUs and the SUs over the multichannel nontime-slotted CRNs. A number of algorithmic and protocol assumptions taken for granted in the design of existing wireless communication technologies need to be revisited in extending their scope to the new cognitive radio (CR) paradigm. The fact that channel availability can rapidly change over time and the need for coordinated quiet periods in order to quickly and robustly detect the presence of incumbents, are just some of the examples of the unique challenges in protocol and algorithm design for CR networks and, in particular, in the medium access control (MAC) layer. With this in mind, in this paper we introduce a novel cognitive MAC (C-MAC) protocol for distributed multi-channel wireless networks. C-MAC operates over multiple channels, and hence is able to effectively deal with, among other things, the dynamics of resource availability due to primary users and mitigate the effects of distributed quiet periods utilized for primary user signal detection. In C-MAC, each channel is logically divided into recurring superframes which, in turn, include a slotted beaconing period (BP) where nodes exchange information and negotiate channel usage. Each node transmits a beacon in a designated beacon slot during the BP, which helps in dealing with hidden nodes, medium reservations, and mobility. For coordination amongst nodes in different channels, a rendezvous channel (RC) is employed that is decided dynamically and in a totally distributed fashion. Among other things, the RC is used to support network-wide multicast and broadcast which are often neglected in existing multi-channel MAC protocols. We present promising performance results of C- MAC. We also describe our efforts to implement features of C- MAC in a real CR prototype with Atheros chipset, which currently includes the spectrum sensing module and preliminary features of C-MAC. In this paper, we investigate the joint optimal sensing and distributed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design problem for cognitive radio (CR) networks. We consider both scenarios with single and multiple channels. For each scenario, we design a synchronized MAC protocol for dynamic spectrum sharing among multiple secondary users (SUs), which incorporates spectrum sensing for protecting active primary users (PUs). We perform saturation throughput analysis for the corresponding proposed MAC protocols that explicitly capture the spectrum-sensing performance. Then, we find their optimal configuration by formulating throughput maximization problems subject to detection probability constraints for PUs. In particular, the optimal solution of the optimization problem returns the required sensing time for PUs' protection and optimal contention window to maximize the total throughput of the secondary network. Finally, numerical results are presented to illustrate developed theoretical findings in this paper and significant performance gains of the optimal sensing and protocol configuration.