Unit-III - INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE RADIOS

What Is Cognitive Radio

• The SDR technology enables radios to switch functions and operations.

• However, an SDR can do this only on demand;

• it is not capable of reconfiguring itself.

• Mitola’s define cognityive radio as self-reconfiguring radio

• CR. Haykin, cognitive radio as a radio capable of being aware of its

surroundings, learning, and adaptively changing its operating parameters in
real time

• The majority of cognitive radios will probably be SDR (Software Defined

Radio).

Capabilities of Cognitive radio

Flexibility and agility:

• the ability to change the waveform and other radio operational parameters
on the fly

• Full flexibility becomes possible when CRs are built on top of SDRs.

Sensing:

• The ability to observe and measure the state of the environment, including
spectral occupancy.

• Sensing is necessary if the device is to change its operation based on its

current RF environment.

Learning and adaptability:

• the ability to analyze sensory input, and modify internal operational

behaviour based on the analysis.
 • not only based on precoded algorithms but also as a result of a learning
mechanism.

Cognitive Techniques: Position Awareness

• For cognitive radio (CR) to be an efficient member of a network a radio must

know its position and what time it is.

From position and time, a radio can:

 1.calculate the best antenna pointing angle to connect another member

of the network;

 (2) place a transmit packet on the air such that it arrives at the receiver at the
proper time slot to minimize interference with other users;

• (3) guide its user to accomplish tasks on schedule.

• Furthermore, from position and time, velocity and acceleration can be

calculated

• Geolocation applications enable a CR to communicate with other systems

using minimal energy and low latency

• Geolocation applications in a CR enable the radio to be carried throughout

the world and used without any manual adjustment or modification

Radio Geolocation and Time Services

• Several radio transmission services are located throughout the world to give
information about geolocation and accurate time tracking.

• The best-known system is GPS.

• By using constellation of satellites , it constantly broadcasting time and

position

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) radio station

continuously broadcasts time with high accuracy, in the Western side.
 • The very high frequency (VHF) Omni directional ranging (VOR) transmitter is
used by aircraft to locate current position.

• LOng Range Navigation (LORAN) used by ships at sea to calculate position.

• Also widely used method is geolocation by wireless local area network

(WLAN) Internet Protocol (IP) address.

GPS (Global Positioning System)

• It is the best-known location system in the world

• that provides location and time information in all weather conditions,

anywhere on or near the Earth

• The GPS system provides positioning capabilities to military, civil, and

commercial users around the world.

• The United States government created the system, maintains it.

• The United States began the GPS project in 1973

• It became fully operational in 1995.

Satellite System Architecture

• The GPS system is readily divided into three segments: space, control, and
user

Space Segment

• There are normally 24 active GPS satellites.

• The orbital period is nominally 12 hours.

• The 24 satellites are distributed evenly in six

• orbital planes with 60-degree separation between each

• A line-of-sight view of four or more satellites is needed to calculate location.

Control Segment
 • Ground tracking stations are positioned worldwide to monitor and operate
the GPS satellites.

• The master control station is located in Colorado.

• The stations monitor the satellites’ signals, and calculate it’s orbital
possession.

User Segment

• It include GPS receivers and their operators

• The receivers process the signals from four or more satellites into 3-D position
and time.

Accuracy Obtained and Coordinate System

• The two classes of GPS geolocation services are the precise positioning
service(PPS) and the standard positioning service (SPS).

• The PPS provide 22 m horizontal accuracy, 27.7 m vertical accuracy, and 200
ns time accuracy.

• The SPS provides 100 m horizontal accuracy, 156-m vertical accuracy, and 340
ns time accuracy.

• GPS Satellite Signals

• GPS satellites transmit two spread spectrum signals, one at 1575.42 MHz (L1
for SPS) and the other at 1227.60 MHz (L2 for PPS).

• There is 1-MHz-wide, 1023-chip-long pseudorandom code for each satellite.

• The coarse acquisition code on L1 is used for civilian GPS

• There is also a precision code (P-code), 10 MHz wide and repeating every 7
days.

• The P-code is used in precise mode. Encryption converts the P-code into the
Y-code. The P- and Y-codes are used for military GPS.

• A GPS receiver in a CR is one way to let a CR know where it is.

 • Adding this information to an inter-radio data stream enables other CRs to
know where a particular radio is located.

Network Localization

• In these schemes, network nodes measure the distances to their neighbors

and then try to determine their locations.

• The process of computing the locations of the nodes is called network

localization.

• Geolocation of the radio (subscriber or user) units enables a number of useful

services

• The international traveller, may have several immediate needs

• including changing his currency, finding a restroom, finding food,

• to provide such a services. Geolocation of the user is needed.

• After located the user, the system needs to access local networks and
inquiries about available services, and their locations.

Geolocation-Enabled Routing

• The routing functionality of an ad hoc network, may be improved by explicit

geolocation knowledge, velocity vector knowledge, and planned route path
knowledge.

• an ad hoc network could use destination location addressing rather than

medium access control (MAC) and IP addressing

• In such a network, messages propagate only to nodes that are on a path to

that location.

• by reducing the number of nodes for a destination, the radio

interferencelevel can be reduced.

• Cellular networks can improve their handover process reduce dropouts by

being aware of geolocation, and planned path.
 location and environment awareness in cognitive radios
• location awareness concept for wireless systems has been used to provide
location-based services (LBS).

• Cognitive radio, invented by Mitola , is one of technologies to add

environment awareness capabilities in wireless systems

• Haykin introduced the idea of cognitive radar along with cognition cycle for
environment awareness,

• which is a physical realization of bat echolocation system

• Most of the creatures in the nature have already location and environment
awareness capabilities.

• they have been considered as models for incorporating such capabilities to

electronic devices

• Bat has location and environment awareness capability

• The bats emit high frequency ultrasonic signals (20–200 KHz) from their
mouths (transmitter) and listen to the echoes from the environment using
their ears.

• The received echoes are processed by these animals.

• And used navigation, object recognition, and ranging.

• The human beings have multiple sensors such as ears, eyes, and skin that can
be utilized toaware of their locations and corresponding environments

• Moreover, the collected signals through these sensors are converted into
electrical signals that the brain can interpret.

• The human being can be aware of its location and surrounding environment
by processing the sensed signals in the brain
 • This can be accomplished by using cognitive radio technology.

• According to the definition, cognitive radio has sensing, awareness, and

adaptation features.

• which are the main ingredients of location and environment awareness

conceptual model shown in Fig. 2

•
• Hence, the consequent conclusion is that cognitive radio is one of the most
promising technologies towards realization of these two capabilities in
wireless systems.

• how to realize such capabilities in cognitive radios

Proposed architecture

• A conceptual model for cognitive radios including location and environment

awareness cycles shown in figure

• Due to the relevancy, spectrum awareness engine is included to the model

•
• According to the model in Figure, location and environment awareness
engines consist of sensing, awareness core, and adaptation systems,
respectively,

• similar to the location and environment awareness cycles of creatures in the

nature.

• In this model, location and environment awareness engines receive tasks

from cognitive engine

• And they report back the results to the cognitive engine.

• Both engines can utilize various sensors to interact with and learn the radio
environments.

• There are direct or indirect collaborations between both engines.

• Environment awareness engine senses the environmental parameters and

provides these parameters to location awareness engine.
 • Similarly, spectrum awareness engine senses the spectrum and provides the
spectrum information to the location awareness engine.

Sensing interface

• Sensing process is composed of mainly two components , which are sensors

and associated data post-processing methods.

• Different sensors have been used in wireless systems for sensing.

• Sensors are utilized to convert the signals from environment to electrical

signals.

• The acquired signals can be in different format such as electromagnetic,

optic, and sound.

• Therefore, sensors can be categorized under three types; electromagnetic ,

image, and acoustic sensors.

• we classify the sensing under three main categories based on the type of
sensors used;

• 1.radio sensing,

• 2.radio vision,

• 3.radio hearing.

• Radio sensing is a sensing technique utilizing electromagnetic sensors

• radio vision is a sensing approach using image sensors

• radio hearing is a sensing method employing acoustic sensors

Radiosensing sensors

• The most widely used radio sensing sensor in wireless systems is antenna.

• Antenna is a transducer that converts electromagnetic signal into electrical

signals and vice versa.
 • In antenna-based wireless positioning systems, location information is
estimated from the received signal statistics such as

• time-of-arrival (TOA),

• receive signal strength (RSS),

• and angle-of-arrival (AOA)

• Since weather condition can affect the performance of wireless systems,

• Performance of cognitive radios can be improved by having meteorological

information of the operating environment.

• Such information can be acquired by cognitive radios either from a central

server or from sensors such as thermometer and barometer.

Radiovision sensors

• Radio vision sensor such as image sensor is a device that captures optic
signals and converts them to electrical signl.

• These sensors have been already used in different areas such as digital
cameras and computer vision systems

• Cognitive radio with cognitive vision systems can have a capability to convert
the acquired scene state into text, image or voice formats depending on the
applications.

• Numerous image-based location and environment-aware applications can be

developed.

• it is a challenging task to include such a advanced cognitive vision systems

due to low power, cost, and size limitations.

• Another challenge is the placement of image sensors since it is required to

point such sensors towards the target direction or object.

• Different solutions can be developed to address this issue in cognitive radios.

 • For instance, image sensors along with Ultra wideband (UWB) transceiver can
be mounted to the user’ hat.

• Digital camera acquires the images and transmits them to the cognitive radio
located in a part of the body (e.g. pocket) using UWB transceiver.

Radiohearing sensors

• One of the radio hearing sensors is acoustic sensor, which converts acoustic
signals into electrical signals and vice versa.

• The main idea behind acoustic technique is utilizing sound propagation to

navigate, detect objects, and communicate.

• For instance, acoustic location estimation techniques (e.g. sonar ) can be

utilized for cognitive location- aware applications.

• Furthermore, bat echolocation is a perfect example for the active sonar

(SOund Navigation And Ranging)

• potential utilization of acoustic sensor in cognitive radios is extracting

environmental features from the sensed sound signal similar to human beings
and bats.

• since cognitive radio has a common sensing interface including different

sensors,

• it can utilize one or combination of the sensors depending on the task.

Location awareness core

• The main objective of this core is to perform critical tasks related to location
information

• such as learning, reasoning, and making decisions.

• The core is composed of

1. seamless positioning and interoperability,

2. Security and privacy,

 3. Statistical learning and tracking,

3. Mobility management,

4. location-aware applications.

Seamless positioning

• Seamless positioning is defined as keeping the position accuracy regardless of

the changes in channel environment.

• There are mainly two approaches for achieving seamless positioning;

waveform-based methods and environment sensing-based methods.

• The first approach is based on utilization of appropriate waveform or

technology depending on the environment

• An example for the first approach is the European SPACE project

• The main objective of this project is to build a prototype positioning system
with centimeter level positioning accuracy anywhere and at all times.

• The SPACE prototype consists of the existing positioning algorithms and

sensors such as GPS, Galileo, 3G, UWB, WLAN(wireless local area network),
and Bluetooth.

• Depending on the user requirements and environments, the most

appropriate positioning system is selected to achieve seamless positioning

• The second approach, is based on sensing channel environment parameters

and change the positioning algorithm accordingly.

Environment awareness engine

• Environment awareness is one of the most complicated task in cognitive

radios.

• Environment awareness capabilities in human being and bats can be

considered as models ..
 • Similar environment awareness techniques can be developed for cognitive
radios.

• The model for environment awareness engine is introduced, which is shown

inFig. 4.

• The model consists of

• environment awareness core,

• topographical information,

• object recognition and tracking,

• propagation characteristics,

• meteorological information,

Topographical information

• Topography is defined as ‘‘the science of describing a particular place, city, or

town.
 • Topography of a local region provides information about Earth’s surface
features, vegetation, human-made structures, history and culture of that
particular area.

• By the topographical map a numerous advanced LBS (Location based service)

can be developed.

• In the proposed method, a mobile user captures the image.

• The captured image is transmitted to a server to extract the information

related to the image and then send this information to the mobile user

Propagation characteristics

 This entity provides information on the characteristics of signal progression

through a medium (channel environment).

 Basically, propagation characteristics of channel environment shows that how

the channel affects the transmitted signal.

 The statistical characteristics of wireless channel are described mainly with

two group of statistics:
(1) Large-scale, (2) small-scale.

 Large-scale statistics provide information on path loss of the channel.

 Small-scale statistics determine the drastic variations of received signal in

time and frequency due to short displacements.

 the propagation statistics of local environment can be obtained in different

ways

 using cognitive radios such as the proposed location awarenessbased

performance improvement of wireless systems.
  The proposed method consists of the following three main steps:
1.environment recognition
2.Propagation model parameters extraction,
3. channel environment adaptation.

Meteorological information

 This entity provides information on the weather of target local region, which
can affect the signal propagation.

 The current and future weather parameters such as rain, snow, temperature,
humidity, and pressure can be acquired either using radio auxiliary sensors or
from central cognitive base station.

 By having current and forecasted meteorological information, cognitive radio

can adapt itself accordingly.

 For instance, rain can have significant affects on the performance of

broadband fixed wireless access links (e.g. Fixed WiMAX)

 One of the performance parameters that can be affected from rain is the
carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I)

 and this ratio depended on the rain intensity of the location

 If cognitive radio has a capability to acquire rain intensity of local regions

then, C/I adaptation can be performed accordingly.

 For instance, object and environment identification, seamless positioning, and

LOS–NLOS identification are three potential environment-aware applications
that can be developed.
 In summary, cognitive radio is envisioned to have environment awareness
capability, to provide advanced LBSs(Location based Service)

Artificial Intelligence Techniques

• list of several AI techniques/areas receiving considerable attention in the
literature on cognitive radio are
1. Neural Networks:
• Neural networks are oldest form of AI in computer science,

• Starting with the mathematical formulation by McCulloch and Pitts.

• Recent advances, both hardware and software, enable their use in more
applications.
• In cognitive radios neural networks techniques are applied for signal and
modulation detection and classification.

• Nandi then did some important work on Automatic Recognition of Analogue

and Digital Modulations using neural networks.

• that showed greater performance in classification of signals under noisier

conditions

• The use of neural networks in modulation classification has since become a

well-accepted technique using both time-based statistics and frequency
analysis.

• Neural networks are really signal processing elements that perform simple
operations on data.

• However, the collection of artificial neurons and clever learning algorithms

allow networks to process data in interesting ways.
• In signal classification, they take multiple noisy input items and provide
accurate answers to the type of modulation represented.
2.Hidden Markov Models (HMM)
• A HMM is a processing tool that uses past data to help predict future actions;
an implementation of Bayes’ law.

• Channel modelling has extensively used Markov models in research.

• In HMMs channel models genetic algorithm is used as the training method.

• The HMM in this instance was used to provide a compact channel model
based on information gathered

• The HMMs is used as a sensor to understand the channel behaviour in a

cognitive engine.
3.Fuzzy Logic
• Fuzzy logic is a famous technique that started during the early development
of artificial intelligence.

• it deals extensively with uncertainty in decision making and analysis,

• it has great potential for application to cognitive radio.

• However, only a little work has so far been published in the field.

4.Case-Based Reasoning:

• The final traditional AI technique is case-based reasoning (CBR)

• CBR systems use past knowledge to learn and improve future actions.
• In these systems, a case base stores actions and receives inputs from a
sensor.
• Those inputs help find the action in the case base that best fits for the
information received.

• An optimization routine is, instead of designing a new waveform, select a

waveform from a predefined list.

• CBR systems generally provide learning and feedback to continuously and

autonomously improve their performance.

Optimization of Radio Resources:

• This discussion that how to optimize certain objectives.
Objective Space:
• The cognitive radio objective space describes the radio resources that
determine radio behaviour.
• Spectrum is the key communications resource
• spectrum is a reusable resource because after one radio is done consuming
the spectrum ,it is still available for other radios to use.
• Spectrum sharing and reuse is accomplished through numerous techniques
• such as spatial distribution as in cellular infrastructures or beam forming
antennas.
• Standard practices like time division multiple access (TDMA) and frequency
division multiple access (FDMA) allow sharing.
• DSA(dynamic spectrum access technology) is developing to use spectrum
during times when its primary users are silent.
• Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) reduces interference between same
spectrums at the same time.
• The task is to properly use the resources to provide appropriate sharing
among all radios.
• Each user need different quality of service.
• A user may require high data rates, low latency, or long battery life depending
• Video conferencing requires high data rates and low latency,
• while voice calls require low latency but have significantly relaxed
requirements for average throughput.
• Each node in a network can look at resource allocation as an optimization
problem with two potential goals.
• First, it can attempt to optimize its own ability by maximizing its use of
resources;
• this would be called a greedy approach.
• The other way is to provide resources to support the needs of the service.
• Using more resources is wasteful while using less reduces the quality of
service.
• Third way of resource allocation based on the utilization of resources by all
nodes is taken into account.
• Another way to look at this is by objective analysis of resources.
• The radio has select a waveform that properly meets all of the objectives.
• High transmit power and high-order modulation and coding schemes may
provide high throughput,
• but the power to transmit the signal and the power to receive the signal may
be high
• The waveform has not met the power consumption objective.
• On the other hand, another modulation, coding, and frequency could provide
a slightly lower data rate but with much better power performance.
• Unfortunately, simple BER or SINR calculations do not tell the entire picture of
the waveform and the QoS.
• Many factors impact the resulting QoS of wireless communications systems,
and so joint optimization and analysis are required.
Multiobjective Optimization: Objective Functions
• Multiobjective optimization has a long history in mathematics, operation
sresearch, and economics.
• basic formula for defining a multi objective decision making (MODM) problem
as
• This equation defines n dimensions in the search space where each objective
function fn(¯x) evaluates the n th objective.
• The set ¯x defines the set of input parameters that and ¯y is the set of
objectives computed by the objective functions.
Bit Error Rate (BER)
• Bit error rate (BER) is an important objective for all digital communications’
needs.
• It provides a baseline for the amount of information transferred,
• BER calculations depend heavily on the type of channel and type of
modulation
• To predict the BER of a waveform under a given set of conditions, the
cognitive engine requires knowledge of certain environmental conditions.
• All BER calculations depend fundamentally on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
at the receiver.
• complementary error function (erfc)

Bandwidth (Hz)
• Bandwidth is an objective that is also used in many other objective
calculations.
• It appears in the bit error rate, interference power, spectral efficiency, and
throughput
• It is a direct measurement of how much spectrum is occupied by the radios.
• the approximate null-to-null bandwidth is calculated as
 Rs = symbol rate,
The roll-off factor of the RRC filter is defined as r
Spectral Efficiency (bits/Hz)
• Spectral efficiency represents the amount of information transferred in a
given channel
• Measured in bits per second per Hertz (bps/Hz)
• This concept is directly related to both bandwidth and throughput,
• ,
• Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying -Improved spectral efficiency
Interference:
• The interference power is calculated over a given bandwidth
• the interference spectral power density, I(f), will be measured over a set
bandwidth by the receiver
• SINR (Signal to Interference Plus Noise Ratio) helps the cognitive engine
decide , is it good for the waveform to transmit on this frequency.
• The interference objective is to see how much overlap exists between
competing signals for the same spectrum
• The cognitive engine would not simply try to avoid interference spectrum, but
it would be forced not to use the spectrum.
Signal to Interference Plus Noise Ratio (SINR)
• The signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) can inform the
how the presence of interferers can affect the signal reception.
• The noise power and interference power are summed in the linear domain
(mW)

• Throughput
• Throughput is a measure of the amount of good information received
• This definition distinguishes throughput from data rate
• data rate is simply a measure of the rate at which data arrives with no
consideration for transmission errors
• The probability of a packet error, or the packet error rate, is

• l = number of bits per packet

• Pe = bit error rate
• Multi objective Analysis
• how the cognitive engine can use these to analyze the behavior of different
waveforms and select the best one
• The method of performing this analysis is a multi objective optimization
problem.
• Utility Functions
• The most straightforward method of selection is to build a single utility
function that combines the objectives into one number.
• The algorithm can then easily rank the solutions and select the solution that
maximizes (or minimizes) the utility function.
• The algorithm can then easily rank the solutions and select the solution that
maximizes (or minimizes) the utility function.
• The most basic utility function is the weighted-sum approach,
•

• In this equation, U is an overall metric of performance.

• The weights, wi, applied to each function, fi, are a weighting of importance, of
the objective.