Abstract

IEEE 802.22 is a Cognitive Radio based standard designed for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN) for the purpose of providing wireless broadband access to rural and remote areas. The standard relies on the utilization of the unoccupied spectrum that became available after the TV signal was converted from analog to digital. In this thesis, we present an enhanced scheme for the operation of the Dynamic Frequency Hopping (DFH) technique in the IEEE 802.22 standard for WRANs. The performance of the DFH is analyzed thoroughly for various types of channels and for a Multiple-input Multiple-output (MIMO) systems.
The core of this research is based on the coexistence of the incumbent users and the WRANs in the TV white spaces (TVWS). The proposed technique, aims at protecting the licensed users from interfering with the cognitive broadband access in the TV spectrum. In order to achieve that, spectrum sensing is performed in the intended working channel in DFH while spectrum monitoring with the energy-ratio (ER) algorithm is applied during the WRAN data transmission in the currently working channel. Hence, in the DFH-ER algorithm the reappearance of an incumbent user in a band occupied by the WRANs would be detected immediately, providing interference free performance for the licensed user as well as reliable data transmission for the unlicensed one. Simulation results of the proposed DFH-ER technique compared to the conventional DFH scenario exemplify the enhancement of the WRAN data transmission while protecting the incumbent users.